^ :■ F L*' c ' ^ ^ .oV 4J */% s a\ .vi - OO 1 i "( : &+ *1H : «? x0 o O0 v r .A V o o x° ^ - ■"+4 *** ^ a-' ■ - &%. - g r, ,0o. ■ ^' %. I < .vv r ^ s ,\\ •^ v> •* --J O0 x ; ,^ i * .# * : ^v - 4 ,G V - A ^ S* ^ V* *> "V. ; >9* ^V**C ,j> *<*♦ x* #' *'*^ •is s O x ,s A O ^ V V OC v ^ "^. *~€ ^ c 'V s - ^ &>«*, '. -^ .0 : ,\~ f.-h. V ^'•% vV <^ ^ . ^ ' ° N " c » N c « -V. ^/- - V s J s ■/;. o \ S <&' •V EIGHT LANDS IN EIGHT WEEKS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/eightlandsineighOOsnyd ipi?ti^ ">S0 &g§»r~ Old Building in Coxey Street. From an old print. Eight Lands in Eight Weeks.) — Frontis EIGHT LANDS IN EIGHT WEEKS A PACKAGE OF DIARY LETTERS TO BELOVED STAY-AT-HOMES FROM MARCIA PENFIELD SNYDER With a few Sketches and Letter Heads by the Writer, the Lady in Green, and M. B. W. BROADWAY PUBLISHING CO. 835 Broadway, New York BRANCH OFFICES: CHICAGO. WASHINGTON. BALTIMORE. ATLANTA, NORFOLK, DES MOINES, IOWA \,v^s £ Dacm^aaA^aa.c4„. FOREWORD. Eight Lands in Eight Weeks ! Does that sound to you like a monstrous proposition? And if I cap it with Eight Women, do I multiply the difficulties, or reduce them to a minimum? Is the whole thing feasible, according to your judgment, or just absurd enough to be alluring? And are you minded to con- tribute the fourth dimension of a stay-at-home con- tingent that will share our labors and double our gains? The journey is such as might chance to any one of you in a summer vacation — a strenuous pilgrimage over seas, from Liverpool to Naples, worshiping at all the greatest shrines of scenery, art, and history, and absorbing, in general, as much of Europe as is com- patible with sound health and the retention of one's faculties. The eight are sober-minded women, like yourselves or your mothers and sisters, who, having done big stunts at everyday work throughout the year, and hav- ing planned some innocent midsummer outings, find 9 FOREWORD themselves suddenly caught up on the wings of cir- cumstance, like Ganymede and the Eagle, and bidden forget their sheep and lift up their eyes because they are on the airy way to dine with gods on Olympus. Now the telling of this tale is just for the satisfac- tion of you and of me. A long-inculcated habit of politeness causes me to give this order to the pro- nouns; but candor would have reversed it. You may have heard the story of our dear old friend who said to us one day : "You were not at the prayer meeting last evening? Well, we had an excellent meeting, an excellent meeting. I occupied the time largely myself." Therefore, to you who may elect to join this com- pany of happy dames, we offer hearty welcome ; and to you who feel that this foreword is all that you care to know of us and our achievements, we say : "By all means close our book at this point and occupy the time largely yourselves." For these letters are writ- ten to You who anticipate, You who regret, and You who love to remember. M. P. S. 10 PART I— OUTWARD BOUND. Eight Lands in Eight Weeks I_ON THE TRAIN. Dearly beloved: Behold us embarked for Fairyland, and we a match- less seven ! Before the day is over we expect to out- perfect the perfect, and number eight ; eight happy, congenial souls, and all bound for Fairyland. Just now it looks like every-day traveling on an every-day train, and none too good at that. The rail- way seats, cherry and plush, are worn in the using; the windows, not over clean, show us a panorama of familiar fields and sandbanks, sluggish streams with willows bending over; farm buildings in white and grey, happed well about with apple orchards ; big elm trees here and there, agog to see what it's all about ; and meadows streaked with the gold of buttercups. Very much like home, you will say ; and yet this is the car to Fairyland, and we are the favored children of the fairy godmother. Dust may blow and storms may rage, we may fall into discontent with train and 13 EIGHT LANDS IN with steamship, and into vile seasickness to boot, but this is the road to Fairyland, and we are the blessed wayfarers. Aren't you a little sorry for the people who have grown up in it and never have a chance for a first glimpse in at the gate? There are those of our own land, so they say, who have crossed the lordly ocean until it is only the blue black pond ; who have stared the novelty clean out of Nature's wonder-book, and who think it fine to have indifferent thoughts and slighting words for what lies across the sea. Such have no concern with these letters of mine. I am writ- ing to you, beloved, whose American upbringing has fitted you to understand the difference between our new world, lovely and fresh from the hand of the Creator, and an old world steeped in history and art; to you, who would always tread with reverence, be it the first time or the fifth, the streets where a Csesar walked and a Virgil chatted with his friends ; to you, who have the imagination and the soul to gather with the bold barons of seven centuries ago on the fields of Runnimede, to build iron well-sweeps with Quinten Matsys, and study singing choirs with Van Eyck. For it takes soul, even more than eyes, to see Fairyland ; and we partners are looking at one another somewhat quizzically at our starting out, wondering which of us will be myopic, and which will pick up a pair of fairy spectacles. At home there is nothing older, of historic interest, than about four centuries. Across the water we shall touch hands with men and women of millenniums gone by. At home we are wrestling with the problems of a young civilization ; yonder we may watch the evo- lution of our pet principles and the growth of charac- ter, not in some heroine of fiction, but in a queen of nations. At home we are studying art and learning x 4 EIGHT WEEKS to apply it; over there it is a part of the mental bread and butter. At home we rejoice in sweet wild woods and rolling prairies, in Niagaras and Grand Canons; but in the countries toward which we are turning every mountain has its association with wondering souls, every river carries boat loads of stories down to the sea ; the city walls have their tales, and instead of shut- ting you in, they set you to dreaming of distant hori- zons. Fairyland, my friends ; Fairyland, if you have the child's heart and the child's wondering eyes. If not, there's a better land than this where, it has been said, you will have trouble even to enter in. But here is a sound of ''Montreal" called beside the windows, and just in time to bring my letter-sermon to a close, and to teach me how to take my first step into Fairyland. Yours, with good hopes and good wishes. ■M. 15 EIGHT LANDS IN II— ON THE BIG RIVER. 3>bo exL You may observe, dearly beloved, that this is a lit- tle scheme of the Canadian steamship companies for cheating Old Ocean ; but whether in behalf of the voy- agers — that they may see more and sigh less — or of the owners of the line, that they may thus entice trade to their docks; or of the provisioners of the ship, that they may be sure of good appetites for a longer dis- tance, I have not yet studied out. I have, however, spread out the biggest map we own, and compared it 16 EIGHT WEEKS with the Mercator's Projection on the stairway land- ing ; and by whatever chart we go, I certainly see our- selves by the Canadian lines a long way toward Eng- land before ever entering the Atlantic Ocean. So here we are, with the first soft light of Fairyland about us, water toning gradually from tawny pearl up stream to green pearl and blue pearl further out ; dreamy, dim woods stretching against the sky to the north, carrying our thoughts to summer recreations, to lumber camps, to philanthropic work among the people of Labrador ; near us the river, alive with excursion boats and fishing boats, tugs and coalers and dredging boats, each with its own peculiar build and interesting activities ; light- house towers moving in stately procession toward us as we go; smaller affairs with swaying lanterns or ringing bells skimming by; and scarlet buoys bobbing up and down to tell us the world is all sport, whatever the puffing engines may say about it. Always we are near enough one shore to see the pretty villages and farms as we pass, and to realize how much better most things on this earth look when seen from a much- embracing distance. We are enjoying a charming pan- orama all the time, and withal can say to ourselves, as did the complacent TEneas of old, when he surveyed the representations of the siege of Troy : "Of all which I was myself a great part ;" for are not we and our staunch steamer, with its big smokestacks, the greatest thing amove on this river? And does not every pass- ing vessel give us an admiring glance, and every river villager wish that he were going with us? All hail to those rare flood tides when we sail high and gather up enthusiasms for duller times to follow. Lo! here is the great rock of Quebec, which would feel it an awful insult if we did not speak of it as the Gibraltar of America ; and the stout man with all the gold lace, whom we suppose to be the captain, but who 17 EIGHT LANDS IN later is mentioned as the head steward, declines to tell until the last moment whether there will be time for us to go ashore ; so here we eight stand together in the crowd for our first wrestle with the world, and shall be able to tell you an hour or two hence what we saw, and where, and how. 4£u& 4r «_^ \_ &==. 18 EIGHT WEEKS Later. — Quebec is just as great as its reputation. An immense shoulder of rock projects into the river, so that one tradition makes its name originate in the exclamation, What a beak! At the base lies a utili- tarian stretch of sand and gravel, where a whole vil- lage suffered demolition a few years ago from a land- slide; but up on the rock, reached by a long, winding road, is a typical city on a hill, precipice on one side, wide, stretching slopes on the other; old, old streets that twist and twine as if the very spirit of the old world were in them ; steep pavements where the horses have to dig their shoes into the dents to struggle zig- zagging up, or brace themselves gingerly down ; often a flight of steps making a cross-cut for pedestrians, most notably the broad "breakneck stairs," and on the very brow of this great rock a castle of a hotel flinging its proud towers up to the sky and perpetuating the name of the royal governor Frontenac ; in front of it a beautiful park honoring another of Canada's heroes by its name of Dufferin Terrace ; and finally, in the most conspicuous point of this last, with a background of blue hills, green shores, and the broad, shining river, a statue to the greatest of them all, our honored Champlain. He is well worth looking at as he stands in noble bronze upon his marble pedestal. The two admiring females in bronze who adore him from the base seem to us to be Glory and Empire ; but our cab- man guide, who is evidently a well-informed man, tells us that this is the great Champlain and his wife and children ! We would be glad to see more of the newer ave- nues and residence streets of the city where they spread out sumptuously toward the Fields of Abraham on the north ; but the freight is fast taking on board our wait- ing vessel, and we must run no risks. One glimpse at dignified Parliament House, which has a kind of 19 EIGHT LANDS IN sunken garden approach to its basement story, adorned with a bronze and marble fountain of the Red Man, and bears on its facade bronze statues of the great explorers, and then, rattle, rattle down the long street to the wharf; and here's hoping that anything in Europe will look more quaint and old-timey than this city on the rock. We have had our first lesson in the traveler's art of skipping. I rank that among his greatest achieve- ments. Don't suppose me so anxious to be epi- grammatic that, like some preachers I have listened to, I will gallantly state a truth that is not true ; when you find me doing that, please give me a friendly slap in the face; but believe me, that from the experience of many years I have acquired a great respect for the art of skipping. We sisters worked at it first long years ago, when we began our sketch-books number one, and found that the pages generally turned out a show- ing of black lead. And since that time, in sketching and reading, home work and town work, the study of skipping has continued. Given a whole world full of work to do, with a limit of strength and eyesight, and only sixteen hours a day at the most for its accom- plishment, and here are the problems : What shall we skip? How shall we skip it? And what under- standing shall we have with the Great Task Master whereby we may, at each day's end, not load ourselves with reproaches and regrets, but listen to that most restful of good-night words : Well done, good and faithful servant? In this rapid summer's tour we intend to use what eyes and brains we can, but, according to our best dis- crimination, do a colossal amount of skipping. If we do it wisely we shall hope, as the French say, to "ar- rive." And to my good pastor friends, on whom t threw a little slur just now, I offer in expiation a 20 EIGHT WEEK'S' theme for some future sermon : The Art of Arriving. If they wish their revenge upon me, they can say that the sisters have not quite so much ability that way as the brethren; and if they have not a text ready for their theme, we'll lend them the one we hope we may proudly inscribe at the end of our ten weeks : Gen. 12 15, And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan ; and into the land of Canaan they came. We are ready for a good rest in our little berths to-night ; and for our dreams we will choose a con- tinued vision of the beautiful falls of Montmorency that plunge right down the river bank among the for- est trees a little east of Quebec, so shining and quiver- ing that we could almost believe we heard their roar. Good night. No need for steamer rugs as yet. A soft moon sails overhead, as it always should for trav- elers to Fairyland. M. 21 EIGHT LANDS'IN III— ON SALT WATER. Saturday, June 26. And still the summer air stays by us, although we begin to feel that a change will come with the big ocean. The Straits of Belle Isle at the north are blocked with ice, and we are obliged to take the longer 22 EIGHT WEEKS 1 passage around the southern capes of Newfoundland. All this morning we have been passing near the coasts of New Brunswick, where a succession of steep and barren hills come close down to the sea; and every time that some enterprising little river makes its way between these crowding giants, a fisherman's village nestles on its banks, and, I dare say, raises cabbages and potatoes. But we are too far away to see these comforts, and the little hamlets with few trees, and only an occasional church, look pretty lonely. Do you suppose they have as many and as lively interests as we? and feel as the old lady on Mt. Washington did when she learned that the friendly tourist was from Boston. "Boston ! My goodies, how can you bear to live so far away?" We never saw such remote places of the earth sail by us before, and we can't quite decide whether they are the dream, or we. \ A fellow passenger says that the Newfoundland mountains are in sight on the other side of the ship, and all streaked with snow. Will it pay to go around and look at them? Already the reaction from stren- 23 EIGHT LANDS IN uous days of packing and departing is beginning to be felt, and we have to use a little discipline not to get rooted to our steamer-chairs. There are plenty for all on board, and assigned without price, although a notice on the ship's bulletin says otherwise ; so the only for- mality to be observed is that of not pushing into a place already chosen by some one else. Now, what do you want to know first, before my indolence becomes too great ? About the ship, or about us ? Well, of course, "us" is the most interesting thing on board ; but because some of you are not familiar with ocean greyhounds, it would be orderly to begin with this one, of which we are already very fond. From our limited and uncritical knowledge, we find nothing to wish otherwise. A gallant sight she is, in black and white, with smokestacks of red and yellow, and tall masts that seem not to be working their passage at all. They are the attachments for a complicated rigging of ropes and ladders, for yard-arms and sheets, and for a certain little wooden church pew — so it looks— about half-way up the foremast, the so-called crow's nest, where you can always see the head of a man on watch ; a man who may not go to sleep like little boys in church pews, but looks and looks for all he is worth until the end of his shift comes, and another far- sighted man, fresh and steady, takes his place. The next highest thing in constant use is the hurri- cane deck, where the captain or first or second officer holds sway and gives orders to the man at the wheel. If you try to promenade this hurricane deck, which is most alluring in pleasant weather, you will be asked to remain respectfully on the further side of a certain railing, and the officer in command will not seem anxious to cultivate your acquaintance. This hurricane deck is the real roof of the top story; for steamships are somewhat pyramidal in their parts above water; 24 EIGHT WEEKS and you will find no place where you can poetically and lonesomely pace the deck from stem to stern. This upper story, for example, covers only certain apartments de luxe, where millionaires pay at the rate of a thousand or two for a suite of rooms all to them- selves. The next lower deck furnishes the widest and longest space for promenaders, and here rows of fold- ing chairs, made easy for head and for feet, are arranged so as to leave plenty of room to walk by the hour, to pace off the length of the deck and speculate on the exact course one must take to give a mile in eight turns ; or was it four turns ? or sixteen ? At any rate, the promenade is a continuous ellipse, circling the library, smoking rooms and captain's apartments ; and, although it breaks off abruptly toward the prow, where you look down at the steerage people, and toward the stern where the second cabin people hold possession — it gives one a very satisfactory walk, partly in sun, partly in shade, and always in the wind, as one strug- gles round the prow end, where huge canvas screens are stretched almost across to keep the meeting breezes from sweeping the side decks clear of us all. A can- vas for protection has also been drawn inside the ship's railing, most useful, but obstructing the view of those who are enjoying the voyage from their chairs. This big promenade deck is right over the row of state- rooms that we occupy, and partly over the big dining- rooms ; but some confusion in description arises from the fact that the word decks is used for both of these open verandas and of the whole floor, or story, to which they belong. Go down one flight, now, to the broadest part of the ship, occupied by the above mentioned dining halls and staterooms, and lighted by round "port-holes" — so we call them, although port-holes really belong to cannon — round windows with heavy brass frames, 25 EIGHT LANDS IN ready to be screwed shut in case of storms — and here you find the promenade quite narrow, and only the stern end really of use, which last is given up to the second cabin; and you don't often infringe on its space unless to make a friendly call. It is a good thing to have acquaintances in the second cabin, or even to be there yourself, so as to learn how comfortable you can be made even when you are not of the high cock-a- lorums. Most of us have had a chance to know this before ; but how quickly and charmingly one can throw aside his modest manners when he suddenly finds him- self entitled by the purchase of a first-class ticket, to the best the ship affords ! And how easily a faint sense of compassion steals into one's soul for one's compeers who happen on this occasion to remain in the station that most of his life has been his own ! Oh, yes, we are all born gods, at least we Americans ; and Olympus is at any moment just our own backyard. But wait till a rough day comes on shipboard, and perhaps even Olympus will look like Hades to us, and nectar and ambrosia will be nowhere. Now I know that by this time you are all awfully tired of this palace of a ship, even though its balus- trades be of mahogany and its door-knobs and electric fixtures of shining brass. So I will just say to you what I intended to put at the opening of this sheet, that you who have already sailed the sea may skip this letter without hurting my feelings in the least. Six bells is ringing for 3 o'clock, and I think you and I deserve a nap before afternoon tea. Every four hours these bells begin anew, striking at every half hour, and so reaching eight bells at 4, 8 and 12 of night and of day. These bells originated with the shifting of the watch ; and whatever their purpose now, I am inclined to think that travelers could no longer sleep easy o' nights without them. At another writing 26 EIGHT WEEKS I'll tell you about our seven meals a day. Won't that be delightful? And perhaps about our attentive stew- ards and waiters. What a little world we are, all to ourselves ; and for the time being every one as impor- tant in his place and office as in the big world beyond the waves. Whirr, whirr, whirr sounds from the wireless tele- graph office ; but we can't find that any great informa- tion has come or gone. When the daily paper makes its first appearance on Monday we may have news to burn. My steamer rug begins to feel comfortable ; so I wrap myself well up in it, hang my omnivorous bag, which holds my writing materials, my guide-book, last letters received, veil, boa, gloves, work-bag, field glasses and diary on the back of my chair, adjust my little pillow, and say, "Pleasant dreams" to you and all the world. M. 27 EIGHT LANDS IN IV— A SUNDAY AT SEA. Sunday, June 2J. Dear friends: We are sailing out into the great ocean on this the first day of the week. Some of us have been afraid that, with the disappearance of land, a panic might come upon us. But our feeling, instead, is of being in a great floating hotel, with no wider horizon than that of preceding days, only that land happens to be on the other side of the ship, or somewhere just around the corner. A ship's captain said to me many years ago : "You must remember that, at most, you are never more than five miles from land;" and he pointed his finger significantly downward. My Lady Practical and some others began the day with early communion in the steerages ; the rest of our party followed with 1 1 o'clock service in the dining saloon, and some of us contemplate attending the ves- per song service in the second cabin. There is some- thing exceedingly good and simple in these services at sea — people of so many climes and such varied affil- iations meeting in one quiet hour of praise and prayer. We forget all differences of creed and ritual, and are swept away, as it were, by the infinities that surround us and uplift us ; the heavens above, the deep beneath, and all about us the love of the Everlasting. My Lady of the Veil says that a German steamer on which she once journeyed had no Sunday service, although there were five clergymen on board. On the other hand, we hear that on English lines the captain always reads 28 EIGHT WEEKS prayers, if no other chaplain be at hand. No doubt there is a lot of agnosticism sailing the sea, as well as living on the land, but I have serious doubts whether those people who prefer to have their religious instincts ignored are not still in the minority — be it on ship- board, in town, in business, in school ; and whether those devout souls who have a high-bred fear of forc- ing religion upon their high-bred neighbors are not in danger of starving a host of hungry hearts in the name of liberality and good manners. Certainly on this steamer the dining-room chairs, swung away from the baize-covered tables, bright with flowers, were well filled; and it was easy to drop on one's knees on the cabin floor, even though the big waves were beginning to be felt, and some of us were wondering whether the two rectors wished themselves back in their steady reading desks. While we are down here in the dining saloons, fed with bread from on high, I may as well tell you about the daily physical bread as well. For you have noticed that spiritual exaltation does not, in most of us, have any quarrel with physical satisfaction. Yes, we are well fed, seven times a day, if so we desire. An early cup of tea is brought to the staterooms for all who ask for it; at half-past eight a substantial breakfast is served, worthy of American and European tastes com- bined. At eleven bouillon and sandwiches appear upon deck and in the tea-room for all who feel an ocean- greyhound faintness ; and it is surprising how many indolent voyagers find it worth while to get their hands out from their all-enveloping wraps and look alive in their reclining chairs. At half-past one there is an elaborate lunch, equal to more than a home dinner. From four to five a dainty tea, with the thinnest slices of buttered bread, is served on the little tables of the tea-room. At seven comes the big dinner, with every- 29 EIGHT LANDS IN thing from soup to nuts; and just before bedtime appear great piles of sandwiches in the library. Can you imagine the wan appearance of those of us who can count seven? Now it is drawing toward sunset, and vespers are over. Here go the couples and trios and solos walking the deck; the rectors and their wives, the ladies' col- lege president and her friend, the pretty teacher from W. college with our Lady in Blue, the poor young woman who can't walk with a companion because talking makes her cough, the energetic little matron of big sense who brought a whole raft of orphans from England to establish in Canadian homes not many weeks ago, and now, happy in the hearts she has made glad and the little lives she has set on the right path, is returning to further work in her beloved barrack of philanthropies. She is walking with My Lady Bright Eyes and telling her all about it. Here come the young men and maidens whom we like to consider as lovers, although that picturesque element, like the sportive dolphins, is mostly lacking. Now follow young priests in pairs, some of them silently gazing on their brev- iaries, others engaged in earnest discussion, and never breaking the rule of their order by turning an eye toward a woman, young or old ; and here, best of all, flock the children, of whom we have a merry throng, enjoying their last romps before bedtime. Our first Lord's Day upon the ocean is at an end ; one of us whispers softly, "The sea is His, and He made it ;" and another answers, "O, ye sea and floods, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for- ever !" Good-night to you all. M. 30 EIGHT WEEKS V— THE EIGHT. Monday, June 28. Dear friends : I have waited as long as I possibly can be- fore introducing to you our party. Even now I must confess that some of them are only half-way known to me ; and yet I shall not, in the course of these letters, revise the judgment given here. For, con- fession number two, when these letters are finally copied for the printer, certain later judgments will inevitably have crept into them, so that they will rep- resent not only to-day, the twenty-eighth of June, but some quiet evening in next September; and any of you who love higher criticism will be able to try your hand at them in expounding to the simple how many different periods of composition are represented, how many authors, and what succession of reactions. For — confession number three — just as there is an edi- torial "we," so there may be what I would call the categorical, or psychological "I." Choose whichever term you think the better. This "I" may represent several writers and as many points of view ; may pos- sibly render the judgment of that same I" of little value ; but it is a pronoun of much easier handling than the more truthful "we;" and you know yourself that it would seem a trifle strained if I should candidly write : "J une 2 §, on the ship's main deck ; here we sit in eight steamer chairs, wrapped in eight several rugs, our eight fountain pens in our eight right hands (ex- 31 EIGHT LANDS IN cept that two of us are left-handed), vainly attempt- ing to set before you in vivid colors the eight waves that dash at our sixteen feet." With no further apologies for my egotistical pre- sentation of "us," I proceed to lead up all of our dear ladies before you, and beseech you to receive them with good will. First, our matron, whom I call My Lady Practical, for I notice that she accepts the actual and the inevit- able in a charming spirit of making the best of all that comes her way. And for that we love her. Next, My Lady Bright Eyes. We have not been on shipboard for four days without discovering that she is our great discoverer. What she does not see is hardly worth seeing ; and it will not be strange if we use her as a kind of opera glass for the rest of us. By way of painting the rose, however, she can herself snatch out that little glass of hers from her handbag in an incredibly short space of time, and have it trained on a first officer, a distant iceberg, or the slowly approaching deck steward, while the rest of us are just finding out that such an object is heaving in sight. It is not strange if she has grown rather fond of this talent of hers, and would much rather discover an excellence herself than have it "starred" for her in the guide books ; hence, if you wish to be admired by her, don't go around with one of Baedeker's stars on your shoulder. Our Lady of the Star is number three. You may never be told exactly why we call her by this name, but it will suffice you to know that she has a way of hitching her chariot to a star; and that, whenever she feels that star begin to draw, a pretty light comes 32 EIGHT WEEKS into her eyes and steals over all her face, so that we, too, look starward. My Lady of the Guide Book comes next, and might perhaps be called My Lady Arbitrary; for when she says, "Go to the left," no man dares turn to the right, although he knows it is the better way. She wields the guide-book as a mighty rod, and if she wields it sometimes to the discomfiture of others, she has an admirable way of forgiving her own mistakes and of hoping that others will do the same; which, in the end, certainly draws from us all considerable forgiveness. 33 EIGHT LANDS IN 4^' p-" LH XJ X.; <-' My Lady in Green is already blessed for having chosen a suit by which we can describe her to any policeman in any language, in case of losing her from sight ; or better, can keep her in sight without help of policemen. She has a knack for mathematics and has ap- pointed herself especial agent to count the "eight suit-cases and two small pieces" that are to be our joy and our sorrow, our hindrance and our pride, our bottomless deep for purchases, and our widow's cruse for changes of wardrobe. My Lady in Blue is still in a maze of wonder that ever she is here; what the Germans call "a blue wonder." She wonders, also, whether Europe will be what she has imagined it, and if not, whether she ought at all 34 .JiV EIGHT WEEKS to approve of it. She and My Lady Bright Eyes have set up a good U. S. A. standard to judge things by; and if these do not come up to the mark of our great •Republic, no matter whether they wish to come up to that mark or prefer to plunge down to Hades, so much the worse for them. But my Lady in Blue will be good to such recalcitrants, even if they drop from the zenith to the nadir. My Lady Persistent has to pinch herself occasionally to be sure that it is she walking this deck ; but having amazed herself and all her friends by firmly crossing the gangplank, she means to let the good work go on, see all that is worth seeing, keep her strength in re- serve for the best things, and if she does not agree with the critics and their guide-book stars, know the reason why. Now, having counted seven, you suppose that I have kept myself for the last ; but there you are might- ily mistaken. My Lady of the Veil is the last, for she 35 EIGHT LANDS IN was the last to join our party. The initiated say that she has some pretty grey crimps under that black hat and dotted veil ; but so far we have not had a chance to find it out. I never would say so trite a thing of her as that "the best comes last," for she has not a trite word or thought about her; but I will say that she is our newest acquaintance; and that, by some queer witchcraft, she has captured all our hearts. Don't, I beg of you, try to remember or distinguish all of us eight ; but when I have occasion to mention one of us by name, just say to yourself, "Oh, yes, I can look her up in letter No. 5 some day." Lovingly yours, M. 36 EIGHT WEEKS VI— BELOW DECK. Tuesday, June 29. Beloved brethren ■' I cannot tell you how it grieves me to have no great sights and no deeds of prowess to record of this our notable voyage. Not a whale has spouted along our tracks, nor a porpoise flopped up out of the water; hence we are robbed disgracefully of the usual discussion on whales, sperm whales, whale- bone, and spouting; also on the difference between a porpoise and a dolphin, and the appropriateness of the term school as applied to the former. No phosphorescent polyps and globes of shining vanity have held us spellbound at the ship's rail by night; no vessels have spoken us along the way; only one inadequate iceberg has loomed up on our horizon ; the wireless has reported nothing greater than a cricket match; and the only resource still remaining is some prize athletics booked for the deck on Friday morning, and a concert for the benefit of a Sailors' Orphans' Home on Thursday. Ignominious we ! Hav- ing nothing in the line of narrative for to-day, and having given you as much of exposition and argument as you can bear, I will fall back on the only other division of prose given in the rhetoric books, the trav- eler's stock in trade — Description. You have not been down into our staterooms yet; and they look as well just now as they ever can, with a steamer trunk each under the lower berth and the red velvet couch, the glory of the latter nearly ob- 37 EIGHT LANDS IN scured by one of our suit-cases and a lot of ubiq- uitous wraps ; our few wardrobe hooks on and beside the door loaded with the traveling' suits we expect again to step into when we bid good-by to our steamer rugs and begin to have normal pride in clothes. You see, then, that the upper berth is also at times a catch- all; and, in spite of neat netted racks above both the lower and upper, and a clean linen set of pock- ets at the head of the couch, we do generally overflow our whole furnishings with our essentials of living; only the mahogany dressing table between the berths and the couch is such a cunning combination of shelves, racks and folding washstand that it can't be kept in disorder, and it rouses our admiration at every new viewing. When two of us are in this stateroom there is just space for us both to stand up, if we keep our arms close at our sides. Consequently, dressing and undressing become a matter of necessary succes- sion ; unless the human form learns to assume most inhuman attitudes in the attempt to perform these functions in a berth. The athletics that are employed by the energetic roommate who offers to occupy the upper berth rather than sacrifice that catch-all, the couch, are also a matter of training ; and we've learned things not a few in these seven by seven quarters. Along the narrow corridors, or in the spotless bath- rooms, where hot or cold salt water baths may be enjoyed by those who are so methodical and so sure of their sea legs as to make regular appointments with the stewardess, you will meet with this dainty, kindly official, or one of her sister stewardesses, all in black gown, white apron and cap, as though there were never anything rough or more ruffling on sea than the bor- ders of those same aprons. The cheery tone with which she predicts good weather, and reports of the last voyage, "Twenty-six ladies, mum, in my corridor, 38 EIGHT WEEKS and not one ill," can be equalled only by the sympa- thetic tone in which she comes to the assistance of My Lady Persistent, explains to her that her malady is nothing out of the ordinary, and that there is "nothing like a good dose of salts for the curing of it." Her patience never fails in bringing broths and filling hot-water bags. Her kindness and alacrity loosen the strings of our purse at once; and our loosened purse- strings react upon her alacrity. We cannot, for the life of us, tell whether it is a comfort or a terror to be told that during her first two voyages she had a bad head from beginning to end — '"but never gave up to it, mum, not for a moment, and since that time have been a good sailor every voyage." But suppose that we should happen to have but two voyages in our life, and those should be our first two? Some problems are better shifted to the future. Time is a great solver of problems. Along our little corridor, quite near the dining- room end, after you have passed the engine house, where it is good to stand and warm one's back against the tiled partition as at a big Dutch stove, and also beyond those fascinating windows that look into the kitchenful of shining sights and savory smells, stands a small boy in buttons, whose apparent duty is to emulate Milton's posts — to stand and wait. I've been pitying that poor little chap, who for so many hours just makes acquaintance with a square piece of floor under his feet and a larger piece of mahogany balus- trade opposite his eyes; and the following conversa- tion has ensued, scattered through several passing interviews : "Aren't you a pretty small boy to be here in buttons?" "I've only been here since December, mum." "But aren't you pretty young for buttons and a uniform?" "Just turned fourteen, mum." (He looks eleven.) "And how do you like it here in but- 39 EIGHT LANDS IN tons?" "Fine, mum." "And what is your name, my boy?" "Tummy, mum." "Tommy what?" "Tummy Answissle, mum." "And where do you live, Tommy ?" "In Liverpool, mum." "And is your mother on board?" "Oh, no, mum." "Or are there any other of the ship's hands that are your friends and look after you?" "Oh, no, mum." "Do you have any free time 40 EIGHT WEEKS in the day, Tommy?" "Oh, yes, mum, every after- noon two hours on deck." I assure you it has been a great relief to learn in time that Tommy has sudden calls from one and another to help, at this and that, and that at meal time it is his privilege and duty to hold the dining-room curtain as high as his little figure can stretch, and pass us gallantly through. Don't you think a certain mother's eyes get pretty watery when the time draws near for her shining-faced sailor lad to come home between voyages ? Our table waiters also rouse our admiration by their marvelous combination of the man and the machine; as methodical and perfect as the latter, as observant and courteous as the former; and when at dinner, our sixth meal of the day, at which they have some part to perform, they appear immaculate in cut- aways and white ties, and fresh for all the labor of that six-course function, we feel that we owe it to them to applaud. We do not begrudge them the half sov- ereign that is their expected fee from every traveler. But when the bedroom steward, big and burly, appears upon the scene upon the last day, strapping our trunks and bundling us out of our rooms, and claims, as I know he will, that the same fee is his right, according to steamer tariff, and that he, as bearer of all state- room responsibility, is to be remembered systemat- ically and generously, "and then ye may give what ye choose to the stewardess and the deck steward" — we shall feel to rebel, although we shall accept the inev- itable and pay our fee. This whole matter of fees is one which annoys a traveler from its bottom stone; it is degrading to the person feed, a constant puzzle to the f eer, and a thing to be wholly reversed before the matter of employer and employee can be satisfactorily adjusted. Why should one or two classes of people in the world be 41 EIGHT LANDS IN relegated to fees for their living? What service would you expect of a railroad conductor who depended on fees to piece out his salary? A drygoods clerk? A dressmaker? A teacher? We Americans have done wrong in bringing this vicious habit across the seas, and we should take hold with a will to root it out. Special pay for special service when you will; pres- ents to those whom you have associated with in rela- tion of employer and employee until you feel bonds of friendship between you ; but when, in any department, fees are replacing salary, in the name of American manliness and honesty, let us protest and save our- selves from becoming one of the "lands of the out- stretched hand.'' Now, with my tirade against fees, I have omitted to mention the rest of the personnel of the ship — the somewhat brusk purser in the little office where we get our money changed ; the obliging librarian who looks after a few shelves of books in the tea room, and the higher officers, whom we never see unless perhaps at a distance at the dining-room table. The captain may be, as in the olden days, a father to us all ; but we are too many to be made aware of it, except by his carrying us safely and rapidly through the perils of storm and fog and hidden rock. As for all the sailors, stokers, deck hands — they seem to do their work quietly and well, and we hope that at the end of our voyage they may have occasion to think as well of us as we of them. This is another of the letters that you may skip, especially if you know it all and agree with me in my judgments. If not, be sure to read it. Honestlv and pedagogicallv vours, M. 42 EIGHT WEEKS VII— A GRAY DAY. Thursday, July I. (A very brief letter, to be omitted by all those who have qualms.) Now, when we went to sea, dear friends, we set our faces as a flint against all, "mal de mer." My Lady Practical, not believing much in drugs, threw all re- sponsibility on Mother Nature and expected the best. My Lady in Blue, being a follower of little pills, fortified herself with a tiny bottle of Humphrey's Spe- cifics. My Lady in Green accepted with thanks a pre- scription prepared by the most eminent physicians with the noblest results, and implying a beginning some days before embarking and a continuation "till all danger of the malady should be past," if you can guess when that would be. One or two of us would gladly have taken up with a sure cure discovered some years ago by an observing cynic : "Get up a flirtation and you will soon find yourself on your feet." But alas ! the necessary ingredients for that cure are sorely lacking. The rest of us have meditated variously upon a plaster of codfish skin, a firm belt to be tightened as fast as the ship's fare would allow ; a daily irritation behind the ears caused by rubbing with the fingers ; and — Christian Science. And with all these cures, we have fared mighty well till the weather saw fit yester- day afternoon to turn the world gray, send down rain in gusty sheets, and chop the sea as fine as a New England hash; whereupon we all began, one after 43 EIGHT LANDS IN another, to lose interest in the six-course dinner, and to find our staterooms snugger and warmer than the deck. Did I say all ? No, indeed ; My Lady Practical, to her own amazement, felt no inconvenience what- ever, and continued to enter notes in that enticing lit- tle blank book that she always has ready in her little handbag ; and My Lady in Blue, deciding that "mal de mer" was not a good American infirmity, took no inter- est whatever in the same, and gave Dr. Humphrey the glory. Your humble servant has had to fall into verse to pass the time away, and if the results are a bit jerky, and quite heterogeneous in thought and meter, and in the lack of both, be assured that they represent just such a choppy sea as none of you would care to sail upon. A GRAY DAY AT SEA. Up hill and down dale, Harrying out to the west, A thousand thousand waves in gray Tossing their plumy crests; Nature's palette all rubbed down To shiny gray-in-gray ; Cerulean seas and azure skies Scudding far away. Stevedores in their rubber suits Scouri)ig a slippery deck, Graceful men and maids alurch, Bowing at Ocean's beck. Mummies tvrappcd in steamer rugs Stretched on steamer chairs — Smiling lips and sinking hearts, Hopes and fears and prayers. 44 EIGHT WEEKS Dinner served at its very best, Soup and fish and flesh; Waiters all in their cutaways, Table linen fresh. Diners few, and — zvcll-a-day! Who is this so far away, Flat on her weary back Munching raisins — in the gray! Munching biscuits — woe's the day! Alack and alas and alack! "Poor little porpoises, heels over head, "Dizzy as dizzy can be! "Poor old Jonah, and poor, poor whale "For centuries out to sea! "Poor old Neptune and all his sorry maids, "Sighing for a summer drought! "Crazy, cold fish, with their eyes abulge, "Wondering what it's all about! "Poor, poor me, that sail upon the sea, "And how shall I ever live it out?" O, craven soul, O, cringing soul! Forgetful on the wide, wide deep Of our captain walking the bridge by night; Of the crow's-nest watch in his giddy height; And of Him, who, keeping Israel, Will slumber not nor sleep! 45 EIGHT LANDS IN VIII— THE DESIRED HAVEN. Friday, July 2. Is it possible that I am beginning to record for you the end of our ocean voyage ? This week, which was to give us leisure for answering all letters owing in the past and two or three big steamer epistles, besides writing a shoal of postals with views of our ship to all the friends who had wished us bon voyage; leisure also for reading sundry critical works upon foreign travel, looking up our guide-books, and skimming over a few novels ; this lovely week in which we were to take naps every day, gossip at our ease with our fel- low passengers, write up our diaries and notebooks, and make a few sketches ; this immortal week — where is it gone ? Early in our voyage we began inquiring into the feasibility of becoming acquainted with the inner work- ings of our ship, and some officer in uniform — captain or deck steward — assured us that nothing was simpler or more reasonable. Did we ever go even so far as to our own kitchen that looked out into the stateroom gangways ? By no means. "Oh, no, not to-day ; wait till we get out to sea, ma'am, and everything is in order." Did that orderly time ever come? When we got out to sea we thought much more about re- maining happily on deck than about exposing our- selves to kitchen smells and machine smells in the interesting interior. Of course during that miserable two days' storm no one cared to go chopping down the 46 EIGHT WEEKS stairs to a still more choppy hold; and naturally this last day we are packing our trunks, to be left in stor- age or forwarded to our returning steamer, and are looking up the various fountain pens, fur boas, and pet scissors that have been "perfectly safe" among these trustworthy stewards and charming passengers,' that could not possibly have thrown themselves over- board, and yet that cannot now be found. Well did my wily Captain-Deck-Steward know that he would be bothered with no procession of snooping women, mak- ing trouble in his snug laboratories and provision stores ! Then here is another trouble. So fast have we trav- eled to the east that we have each day made an hour's stride ahead of time ; that is to say, have lost a solid hour by our watches ; and worst of all, that hour has been readjusted on the ship's clock every midnight, thus shortening every night's rest since we came on board. Many a time are we reminded of old Jinnie, the family slave of long ago, who summarized it thus : "Laws, Missus, dat so! de days ah so shoht an' de nights ah a mere nuffin." We have been passing the Emerald Isle to-day, and it is Fairyland all right. We had forgotten how trees and green fields looked, and are as pleased as the pro- verbial child with a new toy. I can see now how it is that, for us old travelers in life, all things might some day be made new. It takes so short a time of whole- some rest to wash out the memory streaks and leave our minds white paper for the new and grand picture. We are ready to be little children once more and learn grass and flowers and sweet nature's face all over again. Unfortunately the ship's company has kept the human element so vividly before us that we cannot honestly claim to be unprejudiced explorers in that realm of attractions. We are not quite sure that we .47 EIGHT LANDS LN shall see cabmen and hotel keepers in that lovely light that "never was on land or sea." Speaking of the ship's clock, I must also tell you about the ship's chart. On that important stairway landing where the two flights from the deck floor swing round together to make a broad flight down to the dining room, that landing where notices appear of deck chairs and Sunday services, of concerts and games, and our lost fountain pens, there hangs also a fine chart of the Atlantic Ocean and of our proposed route across it; veering just enough north of the longi- tude line to describe an arc of a great circle — for that, you know, is the equivalent on a sphere of a straight line in a plane. On this inspiring line there appears every day at noon a tiny flag marking the definite point of latitude and longitude where we now float; and alongside of the chart is an exact record of the number of knots made each day. When you see a lit- tle whirligig of a machine running a line off from one side of our stern toward something bobbing in the water, you may know that in some way that innocent contrivance is marking the speed of our greyhound and her progress through the fields of foam. Eighteen good knots an hour we have made most of the time, except when Newfoundland obliged us to feel our way over the "Banks." We are very proud of our twin- screw propellers and turbine wheels whose intimate acquaintance we had hoped to make during that tra- ditional inspection of the ship, but now we shall have to continue on our way through Europe, confessing that we never saw those turbines, and have but a shadowy idea of the way in which our engine pumps the water against their phalanges and makes the great wheels go round. We are turning south into the Irish Sea, and they say we shall be safe in Liverpool docks by the time we have finished an early breakfast ; so we 48 EIGHT WEEKS must hie us to our little berths betimes ; who knows when again we may be able to have nine hours in bed with no call to the strenuous duties or pleasures of the day? Our text-book that we are making for the hearten- ing of this little pilgrimage records to-day : "So He bringeth them to their desired haven," and that gives me a lot of beautiful things to think about as I lay my head for the last time on the tough little pillow of my narrow-minded berth. Adieu, and pleasant dreams. M. Post-scriptum, which is unusual — Some one of you who is statistically inclined may care to know that our steamer measures 450 feet in length, 65 feet in width, and is reckoned of 12,000 tons burden. You may also like to know that the biggest ships now afloat measure some two hundred feet more than ours in length, and are of 32,000 tons burden, and that, by the time these letters reach you, all such measurements will be ancient history, so fast does each great ocean line try to outdo its rivals. As for comparing our X Y Z with Noah's Ark and the Great Eastern, there I draw the line; although I have the measurements safe at home and can give them to you in private, if you will come to me in an humble spirit of inquiry. 49 PART II— ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. IX— LIVERPOOL TO CHESTER. Saturday, July 3. First day on land. Also our first day in merry old England, and already we feel as though we had been here a week, or — to put it mildly — -were Englishmen born. We had in anticipation fortified ourselves with cer- tain facts — first, that "England," geographically speak- ing, includes about one-half of one small island, com- paring unfavorably in size with our little New Eng- land ; that "Great Britain" is decidedly larger, com- prising England, Scotland and Wales ; that the "Brit- ish Isles" reach out to include Ireland, the Hebrides, and other lands lying near ; and that the ''British Em- pire" — or even little "England" herself, in a political sense — flings her arms wide about the big, rolling earth, takes a bit out of every continent on the globe, and lives in everlasting day, her sun — that little lamp set up for her benefit some millions of miles away — having of recent centuries never been known to set. Fact number two — that England has three favorite ports as termini for her steamship lines from the west — four, if I may include Scotland : Glasgow on the Clyde, the real port being Greenock, a place approached through charming islands with pretty names, like Arran and Oban, Staffa and Iona; secondly, Liver- pool on the Mersey, the greatest commercial city of the kingdom, with dry docks and wet docks innumer- able and vessels of every nation on earth loading and unloading at her wharves, and approached through the 53 EIGHT LANDS IN Irish Sea, passing Ireland on the north near Moville, as in our case, or at the south with a stop at Queens- town ; thirdly, Southampton on the English Channel, or her neighboring port of Plymouth, where also in- numerable steamers start for southern and eastern ports, and where German and Dutch vessels make connection as they pass up and down the channel; and last, London itself, where steamships having large cargoes for her warehouses prefer to put in, even at the expense of time required in sailing around Rams- gate and Margate and fifty miles up the River Thames. Our third fact was that all the lakes of England are little and all the mountains low; but that, owing to the beneficent influences of a generous American ocean current, the air is never very cold and turns itself into a perpetual watering pot to keep the lovely land- scape green. Also, we had looked up our English his- tory with great zeal and could say the rhyme of the kings backward and forward; for My Lady of the Guide Book had impressed upon us that it would be impossible to land our trunks safely at Liverpool, still more so to buy cairngorms in Scotland, unless we had our historical points at our finger-ends. So here we are, just spilling over with England of the past; and here is tangible England of the present coming upon us like a flood. Our theory says, "Skip, skip;" and where shall we begin the tantalizing process? With Liverpool, certainly ; so we never stopped to ask the population or look at a map of the city, but hustled our trunks as fast as we could into the hands of the warehouse and customs officials. One of these made a pretense of examining the suit-cases which were to go with us, although he plainly read in our every form and feature both poverty and honesty; another put our trunks ort the high road to meeting us two months hence in Naples by handing each of us a small pencil- 54 EIGHT WEEKS marked slip, which he claimed corresponded to some valuable fact in his own memory ; at least, not even Lady Bright Eyes could detect other designation on the baggage than a chalk cross-mark meaning, "passed by the customs." Shall we ever see those beloved trunks again — those indispensable rugs and bags and stateroom slippers? So then we shifted that anxiety according to the second tenet of our traveling code: "First, Skip; sec- ond, Be prepared for the best," and found our first great satisfaction in seeing ourselves fill two Liver- pool cabs, and our eight trim suit-cases of freshest straw and bamboo careen jauntily upon their roofs. Do you know what importance it gives to the hum- blest individual to be one of eight? Did you ever hear of esprit de corps? Why, we should every one of us be ashamed to be tired or dull or cross, or even to take a false step in entering our cab. And what do you expect of our leader? Well, my Lady Arbi- trary declared that for the first time in her life she held her head high with a sense that the world was glad to see her and was waiting to do its best for her and hers. Don't you see ! When she beckons a cab- man as though she expected to be obeyed, fills up one coach and at once summons a second, asks the price as though she were expecting to hire the British convey- ances right down the line, no cabman dares protest or overreach. He feels that there is a lot of accumu- lated momentum pushing against him also ; that in a matter of a possible procession of cabs there may be considerable competition, and that it will not be well for him to lose the opportunity of being number one in that cavalcade ; at once he is on the side of My Lady and bosses cabman number two and loads up the suit- cases equitably with a loyalty touching to behold. And so off through the wide and pleasant streets of Liver- 55 EIGHT LANDS IN pool, stopping to admire the pretty parks about which the principal buildings centre ; and to take a quick walk through the large market halls, where long, green eels of "vegetable marrow" puzzle us, peas and beans and golden squashes look just like home, fish and flesh and fowl salute the nostrils, masses of flowers give delight, and the biggest strawberries ever grown on earth just shout to us from leaf-covered trays. Already we begin to weaken regarding the dwarfish dimensions of England. But do you believe that I am dutifully writing all these pages with lovely Chester waiting for my pen ? Of course, we knew all about her charms; her ancient city walls ; her rows ; her timbered houses, and were holding our expectations in leash so as not to experience a first disappointment. We wondered at the English skies, as blue as Italy ; we admired the clear, green water of Liverpool harbor before turning our backs upon it; we rejoiced in our first English lane with the hawthorn hedges and brambles holding it to its narrow way; we peeped lovingly at our first thatched cottages, generally set together in rows as snug as a block of city houses, and attended by thatched barns and haystacks that invited admiration from a picturesque distance ; and all the time we tried to check that persistent inquiry, "What if we should be disappointed in Chester?" Useless query. He who is disappointed in Chester has no artist's soul, no anti- quarian talents, no sense of the rhythmic poetry that can be sung into walls and fields and winding river. We have already seen enough to write down Chester as our first love. We have watched the sinking sun from the city walls ; we have lost our hearts to the medieval streets, so quaint and yet so ccomfortable ; and we have learned that England, with all her old- timey wavs, is no such slow coach as some of her west- 56 EIGHT WEEKS ern sons would fain believe ; for, "first episode," as the rhetoricians say, We eight went for our first trolley ride on the roof of one of these charming two-story trams. Contrary to all British precedent, the trolley broke; second contrariety, our carload waited a full ten minutes till another tram should come up to push us to a convenient place for making repairs ; third contradiction to our preconceived notions, such hus- tling speed was used in transferring us to a new tram that My Lady in Blue was nearly tripped up on the first step of the little winding stair where we women are learning to climb airily, as though we were daugh- ters of the circus ring, and My Lady Practical was calmly left standing upon the curbstone. Of course, My Lady Arbitrary did not propose to lose one of her flock at this early stage, and insisted on being let off at the first possible stop ; and then followed an agitated search of the streets, a consulting of policemen, on inquiring into the possibility of entering complaints against a conductor whose number she had failed to note ; and finally a return to our good Hotel Wash- ington where, under the shelter of the Father of Our Country sat My Lady Practical, calmly awaiting her future fate. An excellent omen for our first peril. Tenet number three : "In case of doubt, return to the hotel," especially if this has the good sense to be named from the Father of Our Country. To-morrow is the glorious Fourth, and then I will deliberately attempt to make you know at least the ele- ments of the beauty which takes us captive in this little city beside the River Dee. Yours to command, M. 57 EIGHT LANDS IN X— A GLORIOUS FOURTH. Chester, Sunday, July Fourth. A great day and a high day, this ; and we Americans sitting around our flower-decked breakfast table of Hotel Washington have clusters of tiny American flags stacked in front of our plates, and high up in the love- in-a-mist of our central nosegay a Union Jack in sweet communion with the Stars and Stripes. We make our grace a thanksgiving for the past and the present of our great country and of us, its little representatives, and we inscribe in our growing text-book : "Our fath- ers trusted in Thee; they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them." Now, how do you suppose it came about that we had all these dainty silk flags for decoration, and drew the eyes of all the neighboring tables admiringly to our corner? And also that Union Jack, a full inch larger in breadth and length, to show our loyalty to the great land that was entertaining us ? Oh, the secret was that both we and our friends had been long-sighted and provided for just this festival of thanksgiving. It is surprising how many essentials can be stowed away in one and a half cubic feet of bulging suit-cases; and when there comes a rainy day, with no city walls to climb or cathedrals to explore, I'll tell you all about it, and give you advice for your own conduct in like circumstances. Chester, as you probably know, is situated on the River Dee, famous in folk-songs, and dates its greatest 58 EIGHT WEEKS reputation back to Roman days when it was, as its name still tells us, a Roman Castra. The Roman camp, you may remember, was always laid out on a definite plan with the commander's quarters in the centre, and broad avenues extending at right angles to a fixed number of gates, so far as the lay of the land allowed ; and this original plan still appears in many, or most, of the towns that have grown up from such origins. So Chester has two great axes of the city, crossing at right angles, these being the streets that are bordered with solid old colonnades known as the Rows. Upon the colonnades rest the projecting upper stories of the houses, and in their shelter are the shops, thus front- ing on a continuous covered passage, most picturesque in its heavy wooden pillars and interlacing of old beams overhead. An added fascination comes from the fact that these Rows are on different levels in the different streets, usually about ten feet up from the sidewalk, and must be approached by steps as old and varied, which occur every time a cross street breaks the con- tinuity. When you are in these Rows you feel as though you had stepped back into the Middle Ages ; and as for the quaint bits of crockery and brass, the enticing old mirrors and candelabra, the brocades and laces here to be found, when you remember three things — your pocketbook, your suit-case, and the fact that this is but the beginning of your journey, you give thanks that most of the shutters are up for Sun- day, and that where they are not, the shops are locked. For evidently, except in the way of single stealthy doors ajar, and a few places for the necessities of daily life, England keeps the Sabbath day. So we come down from the Rows to get a better view in the narrow street of the stories that are above them ; not so very many, nor very high between joints, but timbered, every one of them; that is, of a construction that 59 EIGHT LANDS IN shows beams perpendicular and horizontal, with diag- onal beams for braces, and all filled in with brick or plaster. The upper stories project as much as possi- ble, adding room to the house within, and shelter to the street without ; delightful combinations of bay win- dows and oriel windows, with latticed swinging sashes, admit as much light and air as they can; under the steep gables more latticed windows climb to the top, and the whole fronts, which really deserve to be called facades, are made rich with carving, or with a variety of coloring that distinguishes the framework from the plastered filling. Every house is a study ; almost every one is an aesthetic delight; even warehouses and barns scorn to drop down to the commonplace, and the build- ers of to-day, instead of considering only rapid con- struction and money returns, hold to the charming models that have justified themselves through the centuries. As though this forest of timbered beauties, up and down the city streets, were not enough to make Chester a delight, the recent movement toward inviting Nature to do her best has taken such a grip on the dear old place that in every available bit of ground a flowering shrub, a triangle of greensward, a climbing rose, is to be found. Not content with the beautiful park that winds in and out between the walls and the River Dee, and that boldly takes possession of one whole broadside of the busy town, with statues and fountains, avenues of pyramidal holly trees and blos- soming bushes, this damsel Nature, of whom Chester has made a sweetheart, comes stealing in beside the public buildings and business blocks, and takes full possession not only of little areas that front the street, but of the tiny plots of ground behind the smaller houses, which you look down upon with delight from your walk upon the walls. 60 EIGHT WEEKS And do you begin to think that these same walls are the charm I am going to skip? Oh, no, indeed; only I have such a fear of them, because they are beyond me to grasp or describe; sometimes they are low, sometimes high; sometimes reached by a slow incline and joining the drive that circles around the city within them; sometimes yielding in spots and sending a pleasant branch road off into the country; and sometimes reached only by long nights of worn steps, being as narrow and well protected by stone parapets as though they still belonged to the days of sieges and were guarded by sentinels in these watch towers day and night. Y What soul-satisfying views down upon the borders of the winding river and across its low-arched bridges of stone, with here a glimpse of the veritable old mill we have so often sung about ; and yonder a cluster of blue mountain peaks in far-away Wales! And at a certain point you look down into some bishop's gar- dens or some dean's school ; and here you descend, to follow a little path to the Anchorite's Cell, where a 61 EIGHT LANDS IN legend has King Harold spend his last days, wounded but not slain in the battle of Hastings. And next you quite forget walls and park and River Dee when, before you rise the crumbling, ivy-grown, roseate stones of the old Abbey Church of St. John. In and out the ivy creeps, or hangs in massive dra- peries ; in the luxuriant greensward lie fragments of arches and capitals ; high against the unruined and restored parts of the church rise the broken arches of the ancient choir. Now, if you feel that you have had all the outdoor beauty you can digest, come with me inside the old Gothic porch, turn into the Norman nave, so simple and satisfying that you sit quietly down for a while without exclamations or inquiries, and listen to the sermon delivered to a congregation of children by a white-haired, white-robed rector, pretty dull at first, while he discusses in grown-up lan- guage the virtues of the Moabitess Ruth and her con- jugal rewards ; pretty lively a little later, when he turns from precept to rebuke of the naughty little girl who has failed to sit up and listen ; and most delightful to the young auditors when he closes with explanations in regard to an approaching excursion. Then follows the benediction, and the little lambs, having been instructed, reproved and exhorted, are hustled out of the pews by the pretty young ladies in charge, and take their way, two by two, down the dim aisles that have echoed to such various reproofs and exhortations in all the centuries since the days of King John. If my mind seems especially full of the memories of St. John's, and I say little about the cathedral whose mellow bells call us to worship early and late, let it be no slight upon that noble building. Not so large as many of its compeers, nor distinguished by any especial features, unless it be the pale and beautiful modern mosaics that line its lower walls, it is still 62 EIGHT WEEKS most satisfying for one's first cathedral. A realprince among cathedrals would be wasted upon one's first days. We, from the land of churches and meeting- houses, who think a house of worship is built with reference to its acoustic properties and its ability to give good seating room to a listening congregation, have first to familiarize ourselves with the terms nave and aisles, choir and intersection, transepts, triforium and clere-storey. We have to brighten up our archi- tectural memories on the subject of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance, pounding it into our noddles that this is their historic order; reminding ourselves also that the Romanesque of England is known as Norman, and the Renaissance often as Classic. We must learn also to admire both the proportions of the whole and the loveliness of the details; to delight in the carved groins of the Norman doorway, even when the rest of the faqade is unattractive; to lift up our 63 EIGHT LANDS IN hearts with the upspringing arches of a Gothic in- terior ; to bask in the beauty of old stained glass ; to interest ourselves in carved choir stalls and mosaic floors ; to take pleasure in the elegant tracery of a choir screen, even if it does shut off a part of the grand view of the nave ; and above all, to put ourselves into sympathy with the worshipers who have found God in other ways than we, and who have been wont to seek Him alone upon their knees, instead of in the midst of a quietly seated congregation. Now we, you see, are not yet up to the level of that appreciation; and it was much better for us, when Chester Cathedral seemed to some of us not to reach the skies, to be told that it was just a good, typical, medium-sized Gothic minster with a square tower over the inter- section, as the English like to have it; and that, if we could not feel a solemn beauty and grandeur in that bronze-like interior, it befitted us to wander in and out of it until its beauty, like the ringing of its bell, should steal into our soul and prepare us for greater beauties yet to come. We have tried to keep Sabbath and rejoice in the Lord; but at the coming of the twilight we feel that there has been more of the rejoicing than of seventh- day rest, and we are ready for the daily Sabbath of a night's repose. Good night, and many dreams of a Fairyland as sat- isfying as Chester. M. 64 EIGHT WEEKS XI— COACHING AMONG THE LAKES. Monday, July 5. Well-beloved: There was once a time, and I can still remember it, when I did not know what or where the Lake Region of England was, nor what were its literary associa- tions. You will pardon me, then, if I fall back on the schoolmistress's privilege, and make believe that some one of you is also a little misty on these points. England, with all her loveliness, her abundant rivers and meadow brooks, is poor in lakes ; she might well cast an envious eye on the shining lochs of Ireland and Scotland, were it not for that one rare jewel of her own in the northwest, bordering on Scotland and the Irish sea, a grouping of the mountains and valleys of three counties known as the Lake Region. Cumber- land, Westmoreland and Lancashire here push their noses together close beside the sea, and among them furnish sixteen of the loveliest sheets of water to be found in many a long journey. The largest of them is but ten miles long — a third the length of our Lake George — and the mountains that rise in jagged peaks or sloping pyramids at their sides are scarcely as high as Massachusetts' Berkshire Hills ; but land and water, rocks and trees could not combine to make a more charming picture gallery. Just the pretty names are enough to set your fancy at work : Windermere, Grasmere and Thirlmere ; Coniston Lake and Coniston Old Man ; Bowness and Ambleside ; Rydal Water and 65 EIGHT LANDS IN Rydal Mountain ; all these where the scenery is delight- ful in the south ; but toward the north abrupter crags and loftier peaks, fells and pikes and nabs and scars mirrored in Ullswater and Derwentwater and the smaller tarns, till it would seem that Nature had no grandeur reserved for any other lakes on earth. This region is entered by railroads at the north and south, but further than that the iron horse may not pass to thunder through the valleys and drop coal smoke upon the meadows ; so here all England comes to bike and hike in the vacations, to set up painters' easels or whirl along in touring cars. A century and more ago, about the time when Byron and his poet friends were making foreign travel a new fad by their poems from Switzerland and Italy, William Wordsworth decided that no regions had inspirations for him equal to those of his boyhood home; and his friends, Southey and Coleridge, settled near him there; De Quincey and Hartley Coleridge continued the tradition, and so arose the name Lake Poets, applied to the first three and their followers. All the countryside is full of their memories and their poems, as the meadows are of daisies. Here is Dove Cottage, associated with Words- worth's idyllic days of plain living and high thinking, with his sister Dorothy and the girl wife who was his "phantom of delight." Later it was filled to the ceil- ing with De Quincey's beloved books, and was a wit- ness of the years of his slavery and of his emancipation. Here is Rydal Mount, where Wordsworth spent his later prosperous days, and Grasmere Church, where he is buried; here are the hillslopes on which he watched the pretty Lucy, and yonder the banks where the daffodils waved that have ever since been "the joy of solitude." In Keswick, where summer conventions assemble every year to mingle Christian meditation with the teachings of Nature, Southey wrote his 66 EIGHT WEEKS voluminous histories and dashed off his matchless word picture of the Falls of Ladore. And now, suppose the weather should be inauspicious, and the Lake Region not at all what it has been rep- resented? But our beginning was good — our railway ride from Chester to Windermere; our lunch most excellent at the Windermere Inn ; and here was our four-in-hand coach, and our driver in scarlet, as though he had stepped out of an old English reading book, ready to give us choicest seats on the top of his old-time conveyance. I acknowledge a lurking fear that when I should take my place in that perilous posi- tion the coach would proceed to lurch into the ditch and disgrace its long and honorable record. But no disasters occurred, nor did a quiver of the old creature betray the fact that all the brains and brawn were on the top, and only some empty cushioned seats below. Now, put together all your memories of sunlight and shadow on steep hillsides, of reflections in limpid waters, of sloping banks always changing from flowers to vines, from vines to velvet greensward, and from greensward to pebbly shores ; fling up against the sky picturesque rocks seamed by storms, brown with old heather and yellow with gorse ; then scatter along their bases the thatches of cottages almost hidden in trees, gentlemen's parks, hotel lawns, dainty gardens, and climbing roses, red and white and alabaster yellow; how they climb and how they blossom ! and you will not wonder that the face of My Lady of the Star shone more and more, and that we felt she was voicing the feelings of us all when she cried out with a vivacity unusual for her, "Doesn't it seem to you all as though the one object of every person in this region was to make the world beautiful?" When our scarlet-coated driver made his first call at 3. wayside inn and stood chumming with mine 67 EIGHT LANDS IN hostess at the door, his tall white hat atilt and one hand uplifted in gesture, we had no longer a doubt that we were all back in the above mentioned picture book. When he next stopped during our first pelting shower to show us the smallest church in England, and insisted on our alighting to inspect it and to drink a cup of tea at the cottage across the way, we began to wonder how often he, too, might need a refreshing draught; and when inns became more frequent, brief calls more necessary, his face, of the color of his coat, more genial — we almost felt like spoiling our glorious drive by setting a guard upon his actions; but what- ever his exhilaration he never forgot his art acquired through many years of practice, and brought us with an air of nothing less than princes down the narrow pavements of Keswick and, with a grand flourish of his four horses, up to the platform of the railway station. Episode number two : "Which one of you has that lunch that was put up for us in Windermere? Left in the coach? And the coachman off with his four horses? And the train for Edinburgh due at any moment? A cab, and the possibility of overtaking him ! Why, of course ; tell him he will remember that he put it inside, while we sat on top, and that he told us everything would be safe. And you have not brought the bundle? Could not be found? Nothing inside the coach ?" Oh, that villain in the scarlet coat ! with which of his tea-drinking hostesses is he now discussing those chicken wings and dainty rolls ! And here must we clean out this whole railway buffet of sandwiches, pork pie and plums to furnish us a scanty meal! A dark and rainy night to arrive in Edinburgh, and glad we are to see two dear familiar faces come out of the long ago right up before our railway window, 68 EIGHT WEEKS and to hear a friendly voice exclaim, "Yes, it's all right, letter received and carriages waiting." To-morrow for the glories of Auld Reekie ; so good- night, and especial love to all lovers of Wordsworth. I think some of you want his daffodils as a night-cap, coming as they do so fresh from the banks of Ulls- water. So here they are ! I wandered, lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle in the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay ; Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 69 EIGHT LANDS IN The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee; A poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company. I gazed and gazed, but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought. For oft, when on my couch I lie, In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the joy of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure thrills, And dances with the daffodils. 70 EIGHT WEEKS XII— AULD REEKIE. Et!i riD U JL3 %?M 6 It is quite reasonable for Auld Reekie (Old Smoky) to greet us with half a smile and half a frown. We should know that something was wrong if his skies were really blue ; although our Scotch friends say that that is frequently, or generally, the case in summer, and that we must not fall back on our old winter experiences when fogs come to stay, and coal smoke from all the houses of the city finds a soft gray couch to settle down upon. In any case the city is beautiful. Its glorious situation presupposes this fact, its struc- tures of solid stone, yet not too crowded for air and light, and surrounded with parks and private grounds, continue the good work; and, last of all, a recent movement toward civic adornment seems to have swept like a fairy with a wand through all this part of the country. I see that I have given you several heads that I must enlarge upon. Edinburgh is situated about two miles south of the Firth of Forth, on a series of rocky ridges running east and west. The most southern of these rises gradually to the west until it terminates in 71 EIGHT LANDS IN the finest mass of precipitous rock that nature could invent or man admire. The sight of this rock, crowned by the historic Edinburgh Castle, and trailed all over by stories of marvelous scalings and hair-breadth es- capes, is a joy every time you look at it; and as it stands up bold and craggy, with bits of emerald vines and grasses waving from every available niche, and a violet atmosphere of its own lurking in every fantastic hollow, you forget from one glance to the next how beautiful it is, and turn away to cab drivers or shop windows just to have the luxury of a new surprise when you turn back again. This southern ridge con- tinues steadily east as High Street till it has passed beautiful St. Giles, has given sites for the old-time houses of the aristocracy — now dingy enough and given over to tenements for the poor — and for the opening of sundry "winds," narrow streets winding down to a lower level — and "closes," short streets with- out a thoroughfare; then, about the time it passes the old John Knox house with balcony and outside stair, it becomes Canongate, fronted by mansions that were, and Canongate and Tolbooth, and then it flattens quite out into the plain where stands old Holyrood Palace and the ruined aisles of Holyrood Abbey Church. But just here, where you think that grandeur has given way to beauty, you see beyond this foreground a noble sweep of precipitous rocks known as Salisbury Craigs, and behind them, partly embraced by them, the bold bare mountain of Arthur's Seat. These two always seem to be saying, "Come and climb me, come and climb me;" and they are down on our program for this, our first day. Ridge number two, an eighth of a mile, perhaps, north of the other, bears the pride of Edinburgh in its name of Princes Street, and in its long array of splen- did business blocks — most of all in the monument to 72 EIGHT WEEKS Sir Walter Scott, a lofty Gothic canopy of stone above the sitting statue of the author; and in the pillared height of Calton Hill, with which it terminates at the east. For this ridge rises to the east, as the other did to the west; and the monuments to Nelson, Dugald Stewart and the rest on Calton Hill are a lovely pend- ant and contrast to the old fortifications on Castle Rock. This unique street is also built up only on its northern side, its southern lying open to a series of parks and gardens that partly fill the valley between the two ridges. Through this valley also runs the railway, quite out of notice; and across it from High Street to Princes Street stretch the striking cause- ways of North Bridge and Waverley Bridge ; also the artificial "Mound," beautiful with some good Greek buildings and furnishing a pleasant winding drive for those who object to dizzy bridges. Now, north of Princes Street and George Street and Queen Street comes another valley full of grandeur, and another ridge, beautiful residence sections on and on into the country ; as, to the south, a still newer part of the city stretches out around the "Meadows" and through the "Grange," always streets of homelike houses of stone, and flowery gardens in front or at the rear. To us Americans there is too much of solid walls about these little lawns and gardens — too much locking of garden gates and ringing of garden bells, and waiting of visitors on the sidewalk; but at the same time there are more glimpses above this masonry and through these gates, of ivy in luxuriant masses, of greenest grass in gayest flower borders, and of roses, roses climbing everywhere, than could be found in half a dozen American cities. Partly the climate does this ; for the ivy is never frozen, the roses need not be laid down in winter, grass remains green under the short-lived snowdrifts, and droughts are rare ; but 73 EIGHT LANDS IN partly it is the work of a great movement toward civic beauty which is being felt in all lands, and which warns us to do considerable hustling, or be left behind. In these respects there has been a wonderful advance since my visit of fifteen years ago. The convenient and unobtrusive wire basket "for papers and orange peel" which was attached to multitudinous corners in Chester, is following us all along the way; the beauti- fying of rear gardens, as well as of those in front, and of railway approaches, is striking ; and also the use of window gardens in business streets. We shall watch with interest to see how far this wand of Flora has waved ; and shall be thinking all the time : "How can we at home, in our northern states, with our six months of winter, accomplish something of the same kind?" A larger use of evergreens in our lawns; a winter trimming of verandas, and winter casing of tender plants with spruce or hemlock or fir, such as I used to see in Scranton some years ago, and a larger introduction of flower-trimmed windows to send a summer greeting into snowy or sloppy streets, would do much toward this end, and would seem more in the spirit of true citizens of the north, than merely to kindle blazing fires within and defy the cold in fur coats without. I am hardly leaving time to tell you that we vis- ited Edinburgh Castle, and were shown through its strongholds, its banqueting hall, with the big fire- place, its armory with an array of spears, swords, shields and helmets, all set in lovely clusters on the walls or on models of horses about the room — a much more satisfying sight, I should think, than the same polished steel starting out to stain itself in human blood — the little chapel where good Queen Margaret used to pray, and the tiny room where James the 74 EIGHT WEEKS First was born. We had the raciest of guides, an old soldier, who took us in hand with as much enthusi- asm as though we were his first party, and told his funny stories as naturally as though they had just occurred to him. We put down in our notebooks, "If it ever falls to your lot to act as a guide, try to do the task con amore." "Now, step right to this cor- ner, ladies, where you can get the best glimpse through the gate. Thank you. No, of course, those moats were never intended to be filled with water; they lie quite too high for that. This way a few steps, please, while one of our modern rubber-tires passes by !" — this as a lumbering old cart thundered over the pavement. "Yes, ladies, that is a portcullis ; rather unpleasant it would feel on one of your merry widow hats ; and here are the grooves where the big thing dropped, and the hinges for the huge gates, much larger than those of the present day. Oh, yes, they are shut every night at nine, more, I imagine, to keep the residents in than to keep the enemy out. Now this way, please, past these airy buildings where the soldiers are garrisoned ; I spent thirty years there myself, and on the occasion of an arrival of new troops from India, we lived snug for a while, you know. I should be inclined to think that little sardines in their boxes have roomy surround- ings compared with ours. No, I don't live in that building any longer; now I am old, as you see; so I walk at liberty and take pleasant ladies to see the prettiest sights. At noon, ma'am, that old gun will be fired ; a great source of pride, I dare say it once was to this castle ; but now I doubt whether the noise of it will permanently deafen you, and I am sure, if it were loaded with the balls it was intended to carry you'd be much safer in front of it than in any other place in its vicinity. Now this is 'Mons Meg,' the most 75 EIGHT LANDS IN famous cannon of all, you know, and really a historic beauty; but it's quite beyond being of any use now, ladies — quite like myself, you see. Just look over the bit of a parapet there, where the soldiers have made a little triangular cemetery for their dogs. Soldiers are not all barbarians, you see, and they may love their dogs, even if they sometimes happen to shoot their fellow men. Yes, you'll find a good collection of pho- tographs inside, and I've no doubt the lady in charge will be willing to part with a dozen or two, just as a favor. No, there you're a little wrong, mum ; our Highland ladies don't seem to care as much for plaids as the gentlemen ; you'll find it's the Highland laddies that sport kilts and fox-tails, with gaiters laced about their ankles and plaids dangling over their shoulders; here come some of them now, in the little caps they call bonnets, marching to the sound of the bagpipes; a very pretty nasal music, ladies, that ought to suit you Americans. But the dress is inconvenient, to be sure, compared to the khaki suits of the English sol- diers ; however, it has established a reputation for pic- turesqueness, and even the army must do something, you know, to please the artists and the ladies. Good- day, ma'am, good-day; thank you very much. Amer- icans always know a good thing when they see it, and are willing to pay for it, too. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, ma'am, I was referring to the castle, you know." And after this followed St. Giles, Holyrood, the Queen's Drive, and a dinner party; all which I must reserve for to-morrow, when the barometer says we may expect rain. Please read up for yourselves all about the Scotch kings from Duncan, whom Macbeth killed, up and down ; and about Queen Mary, and Bos- well (not Johnson's Boswell), and Darnley and Rizzio; and pray that they may not jumble together in your brain as they do in mine. 76 EIGHT WEEKS Edinburgh is beautiful ; and Keats says that Beauty- is Truth, and Truth Beauty; so I hope that in some way my love of its beauty may lead you and me along the highroad of truth in our conception of it. Sincerely, M. 77 EIGHT LANDS IN XIII— "A CUP OF KINDNESS." Tor a-vld laucj stjne. Cor a^uld. lancj sijtiCj We'll 'tak a CAxp of ki-ttdness^eb Tor tke dLaj^s of auld la*^ siL^ne Edinburgh, Thursday, July 8. To continue my story of Edinburgh, I must say to you that the apprehending part of our brain, and the retaining part are feeling a pretty severe strain; and as there is but one unfailing relief, a woman must at such times go shopping. Therefore, in my accounts of our brief days in Edinburgh, please throw in at your own discretion a shop — and when that fails to alle- viate the weariness, another shop. Later on come 78 EIGHT WEEKS more shops of a different character — cairngorms in- stead of plaids, stout traveling suits in place of cairn- gorms, and ever and anon photographs, picture pos- tals and more postals. To continue from our beginning at the castle ; we went next to beautiful St. Giles' in High Street, quite near to the old Parliament Buildings, used since the union of England and Scotland as law courts. The old prison, the Tolbooth of the city, made famous by Sir Walter Scott as The Heart of Midlothian, was also once close by, and its site is now marked by a heart in the pavement. St. Giles, a Greek cross in shape, with a royal crown of stone surmounting its central tower, is unique among churches; for, lacking the usual long nave of the Gothic, its four arms draw their aisles and traceried windows so near together as to form an enchanting grouping of pillars and arches lighted with gorgeous colors, and to make you wonder that other architects have not followed out the same plan. A crown is a worthy headstone for such a building. St. Giles has had a varied experience. It was early changed from Catholic to Presbyterian, in the days when John Knox thundered out his denunciations from its pulpit, and Jenny Geddes threw her stool at the dean who was reading the Church of England service to the ears of Scotch Covenanters. "Will he read the mass at me very lug (ear) ?" called she. Later it was partitioned off into four rooms to accommodate as many different factions of the Scottish church. But now it has returned to its original purpose, except — sad exception — that one must pay to enter it; for do you know, the famous churches of Europe are so flooded with visitors that they are beginning to decide, first, to charge a little pittance to pay the custodian who sweeps out these visitors' dust; secondly, to add 79 EIGHT LANDS IN an honest penny for helping on the yearly repairs ; thirdly, to ask enough to pay the salary of the collector of these fees ; and fourthly, to consider a little revenue for the church itself. But waiving this difficult prob- lem, we pay our sixpences and delight in St. Giles. Then we find two willing cabmen who can look at the clouds through a drizzling rain and opine that "it's clearing fine, mum," and will not "be saft" very long; and, well wrapped in rain cloaks, we drive to Holyrood. There we walk through the portrait gallery of the Scottish kings and look up Duncan, Macbeth and Malcomb just as though we believed in cameras and reporters in those ancient days ; visit the private rooms of Queen Mary; admire the pillars of the roofless abbey, just being scraped of their blackness and restored to the condition of reputable ruin; and then find ourselves with great delight sweeping around the circle of the perpendicular Salisbury crags, past St. Anthony's Well and Hermitage ; gathering "whins" or yellow gorse from the rocky banks, and catching glimpses of the wide-spreading Forth, at one point even descrying a dozen miles away a speck against the sky, which means that wonderful construction of can- tilevers known as the Forth Bridge. All the while, as you follow the windings of the broad, smooth turn- pike, you have changing views of Edinburgh on one side, and on the other the grassy and rocky steeps of that mountain throne that is honored with the name of King Arthur. It is charming to see how many lands contend for the possession of that king of valor — Scot- land, England, Wales and Brittany — every one will have it that he belonged to it, that certain traditional names prove him to have set up here his round table, to have founded here his Camelot, to have set sail from here on his last voyage to Avalon. Even Germany has drawn upon the Arthurian legends to develop her tale EIGHT WEEKS of Parzival, and it speaks well for all these countries that in the heart-to-heart stories of their national child- hood they have had pride in this Christian king of "high erected thoughts set in a heart of courtesy." And so, by the way of Scottish rulers and British memories, we fetched a fine compass through rain and shine to Calton Hill and the monuments of Nelson and Burns, past art museums that we had no time to enter, and back to our boarding house to make such toilets as hand luggage allows for a Scotch dinner party. You have doubtless heard that the true Briton promises little and performs much ; that to a guest prop- erly introduced he shows hospitality unbounded. So we found it. Can you imagine eight women invited to a dinner party on the basis of an old friendship with three of them, and the Edinburgh clergyman not afraid to be a thirteenth to a hen party of twelve? And this thing continuing in other forms until it culminates in Scotch songs for our benefit at a genuine Scottish ingleside evening ? My Lady Practical had, of course, a lot of Scotch leanings and affiliations, even if she is not Scotch herself. She has a gift for leanings and affiliations, and leanings and affiliations have a recipro- cal tendency toward her. Of course, her mother used to read Scotch tales and sing Scotch songs, and the sweet prima donna of the evening could scarcely men- tion an old ballad that did not call up some memory to her. So we all reaped a benefit, and we eight women, who ought to have been at home packing our endless suit-cases and preparing for an early start, kept lin- gering for one more song, until "Jack of Hazeldean" and "Will Ye No' Come Back Again ?" made us ready for any dissipation, and found us, long after our pre- arranged hour, standing in a circle with crossed hands keeping time to Auld Lang Syne — faster and faster ; down with the clasped hands to beat the measures off ; EIGHT LANDS IN firmer the clasp and faster the beat — "For auld lang syne, for auld lang syne. We'll tak a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne." Now you see that Scottish hospitality has carried me a'rush through two days instead of one, and obliges me to state that the second of the two, when the heavens emptied themselves in fine style for our benefit, found us frequenting various fascinating shops, sampling the excellent lunches that could be obtained in department stores for a shilling; learning the difference between the clear yellow and violet topazes known as Cairngorms and the party-colored, opaque Scotch pebbles ; hearing over again the tale of Scotch plaids — how each several pattern belongs to a separate clan or family, "except, you know, mum, a few plaids that are modern, and really don't belong to any;" trying to meet in various departments and get- ting lost so often that My Lady of the Guide Book began to be a familiar figure gazing wildly about the deserted rainy-day stores, and answering the polite inquiries of the clerks, "Is there anything I can show you, mum?" with the smiling rejoinder, "A few ladies that I have lost, if you please." Joke while you can, My Lady ; the time will come before the fort- night is over when you will be among people of a strange tongue, and asking and replying will be no joking matter. We have discussed all the possible excursions that might have been put into this day if the heavens had smiled — a twelve hours' trip to that lovely region of Lochs Lomond and Katrine and the Trossachs, made familiar by Scott's "Lady of the Lake;" or, not so far, to Sterling Castle to see another great rock fortress associated with Wallace and Bruce, Doug- lases and Stuarts; or only out to the site of Forth Bridge; but weary bones and Edinburgh shops have 82 EIGHT WEEKS prevailed, and we are off to-morrow to Melrose, sorry indeed to be turning our backs on the land of Scott and Burns. "And will ye no come back again? And will ye no come back again?" Good-night, and dreams with songs in them. M. 83 EIGHT LANDS IN XIV— MELROSE AND ABBOTSFORD. Thursday, July 8. The end of a busy and rather tiring day, all the way from Edinburgh to Melrose. However, four of the party have energy to go on for the night to Dur- ham, while the rest remain in Melrose, visit the beau- tiful Abbey a second time, and select some choice photographs. Already our postal cards are begin- ning to make a heavy package, and we have a saying that certain of us are so anxious to secure photo- graphs of the notable sights as to leave no time for the sights themselves. It is a fact that a postal card window is about the first object to attract our atten- tion when we come to a new town. And what do these postals mean to us? Why, just about their weight in gold. When we get home every one will be an embodied memory. And what will they mean to our friends ? In anticipation, much ; in reality, very little. Have you ever tried handing an album of your choicest views to a friend to entertain him or herself with in your absence? No matter how short the time, on your return you will find the book laid quietly aside, and few questions asked about its contents. But if, instead, you begin to look over that book with your friend, and give a running comment on each view, at the end of half an hour you will still have an interested audience, and be thought to have made a remarkable collection. And how do you explain it? Why evidently we every one of us have imagination 84 'EIGHT WEEKS enough to carry us to foreign countries or distant cen- turies if only a good story teller will help us out a bit. But how shall we keep this faculty doing its work without the help of an outsider? For imagi- nation is about the most useful faculty we have, next to perception and memory and a little common sense. Imagination makes all the difference between a nar- row horizon and a broad ; between a sympathetic per- son and one that is self-centered. Who is the man that has admirers among his employees? The one that can easily put himself in their places. Who is the woman that is found charming by all who come in touch with her? The woman that really touches them, because she takes their standpoint and enters into their interests. What faculty did our Lord call for when He gave us the Golden Rule? and good, practical Confucius in his negative rule of six hun- dred years before? This same faculty that makes it possible for us to look through another man's eyes. Now we eight are having a tremendous drill in exer- cising our imaginations. A guide takes us around the country seat of Abbotsford, or the Cathedral of Dur- ham. We knew that our attention and our memory would have a severe strain ; but look at the burden that is being thrown upon our imaginations Either they must shirk, or be crushed, or get up their muscle in short order. My Lady Persistent has taken for her motto, "I want to get just as much out of this trip as is possible for me." You see she modestly refrains from saying, "As much as there is in it;" for she knows that we have each to act according to our abilities. And we all admire her watchword and hope that to a certain extent we are making it our own; but how to be able to put ourselves into the place of the architect who wrought the beautiful window of Melrose Abbey, called the "crown of 85 EIGHT LANDS IN thorns ;" and also of the monks who went in and out of the stately Abbey, felt its beauty steal into their souls, and all the time followed out strict rules of obedience and silence, doing penance by day, and ris- ing all night at the bell's call to say their prayers? And how to feel in touch with Sir Walter Scott, who could see life from the standpoint of a world of peo- ple of all stations, and yet, in his heart of hearts, could not be happy till he had acquired an estate and a title ! However much we may sneer at this last little foible, we cannot help feeling its force; for who can speak of the great author without his title? Try to say Walter Scott, instead of Sir Walter, and convince yourself of the truth of my statement. Therefore, for our notebooks this entry : "When you find yourself an utter alien to your surroundings, be it in the mar- ket-place, the cathedral, or the ruined castle, rub up your imagination till it shines, and never give up until you can look through it and put yourself in the other man's place." During which digression we have been speeding down by train to Melrose through the loveliest country you could desire to see; not only the natural beauty of hills and pastures, moors and forests, but the beauty made greater by the sympathetic hand of man, who crowds in pretty ideas of his own where Nature feels inclined to scrimp. The railway stations are a con- stant delight, adapted in size and pretension to the towns they represent, but always accompanied by lit- tle gardens that keep the railway travelers craning their necks and crying out for delight. Also in little Melrose, built mostly close upon its paved streets, and giving few opportunities for Nature to make a showing, her rights are secured in corners so tiny that it makes you laugh and rejoice. Here we go, along the most arbitrary twisting highways, with EIGHT WEEKS walls of brick houses and stables turning them into canals ; yet beside the gate of this walled-in garden are two little triangles set back from the sidewalk, and holding each a flowering shrub; at the entrance to this old church is just room for an ivy that makes one of its brick walls a thing of beauty; and over the thatched cottage where we pay our sixpence to be let in to the Abbey ruins, a climbing rose blossom as though the whole town depended on it for color and fragrance. The ruins themselves rise stately and graceful in their pale pink sandstone, the broken arches of the aisles giving you vistas that rouse this same imagi- nation to glorious flights. The old cloisters around the grassy court, all set with roses and ferns, send you pacing round and round them with thoughts of rosaries and breviaries, and the gravestones set thick in the grass outside call you to read their worn MELROSE ABB£Y 87 EIGHT LANDS IN inscriptions, where more roses bend to give loving kisses. Do you have a clear idea of a cloister ? Suppose an ancient monastery, built on three sides of a court, the monastery church closing the fourth, and this court faced all around with a continuous porch or colonnade, in which the monks may walk to say their prayers, and under the pavement of which their aged bodies will eventually be buried. These cloisters — and the word really means enclosures — gave an opportunity to the builder to follow out the architectural beauties of the church in elaborate pillars and arches with ever varied tracery, like that of the church windows, only not set with glass; and the little grass plot enclosed was usually made a thing of beauty with vines and flowers, and often a fountain. You see, these old monks, or their priors, had marvelous ideas of a union of grandeur and severity, beauty and self-de- nial; a separation from the world along with an in- dulgence of many of the tastes that this naughty world approves; elegant libraries and dining halls, which last they called refectories, beside of the tiniest of gloomy cells opening out of narrow corridors, and the plainest of fare, not inconsistent with choice old wine cellars. I confess that our imaginations find it staggering. Among the irregular stones of this pavement My Lady Bright Eyes discovers one inscribed, "The Heart of Bruce;" and here is another spur to the historic sense as well as to the more airy faculty. Like many other places that we visit, we say of this, "If we had a week here we might accomplish something ;" and then we take the big carry-all through a lovely landscape to Sir Walter Scott's estate of Abbotsford, and are again torn in twain by our desires to be reasonably loyal to Sir Walter, and our impatience of the demands made 88 EIGHT WEEKS upon us. We are driven from drawing-room to study, and from study to bedroom, in a crowd of visitors who sway in great waves first to this chair of carved teak, the present of one of the Georges — then to yonder portraits of the author's daughters — then to the grate of Archbishop Sharp, who was killed at St. Andrew's — and next to the carved oaken chest in which the real Ginevra lost her life, according to the familiar tale. Thirty-two tourists can exhaust the oxygen in a medium-sized room much faster than they can exhaust the facts about it, and on a July day we soon find our- selves not caring a rap which one of Sir Walter's daughters lived an old maid, which chair was of ebony and which of teak, and whether the good man came down or went up a certain winding stair at half-past eight of every morning. "Or, was it at half-past ten?" "And have you that down in your notebook?" The good Fates deliver us from ever being so famous that our residence has to be turned into a museum to make the heads of tourists ache as ours ache now. And probably the good Fates will hear our prayer. Abbotsford and Melrose are about five miles apart, Melrose being the railway station, and a snug little town with the ruined Abbey at its edge, Abbotsford being merely a large estate with a castle-like mansion upon which Sir Walter Scott spent thousands of pounds to turn Clarty Hole into its high-sounding successor ; and there he had the happiness of receiving foreign guests and home princes, and of gathering a lot of costly memorabilia that gradually turned it into a museum. When the crash of his fortunes came he closed his beloved villa, took modest lodgings in Edin- burgh, and began that tremendous labor of constant writing that cleared off his debt and ruined his health, so that with an unblemished name he could come back to Abbotsford to die. In the splendid ruined Abbey 89 EIGHT LANDS IN of Dryburgh, some five miles to the north, his body was laid to rest under the pavement trodden so often by his never-resting feet. We wished we might see the grave and the remarkable ruins ; but here was a fine opportunity to cultivate the skipping habit, and we have made a virtue of necessity. Abbotsford is now a national museum, and we are glad to have surveyed conscientiously its elegant rooms, its carvings, its latticed windows, its tiled and deco- rated fireplaces, its library, galleries, and winding stairs ; and we are glad to remember that stout English matron who refused to be hurried in furnishing her thirty-two tourists with tickets, in punching every one conscientiously at the dining-room door, and in insist- ing that each man and woman of the crowd should see every gift of crockery and every family portrait, dropping her h's most charmingly all the time, and gathering them up again whenever an initial vowel gave a choice point of attachment. "Hi wouldn't wish hany of you to think, Sur, that A 'ad 'urried you through these sacred rooms, or that there was hany of these hantiquities wich you 'adn't 'ad a hopportunity to see, Sur." We are glad to have visited the beloved home of a great and good man ; and if there shall ever come to any of us honors commensurate with the small "work of our hands," we don't care if our friends' heads do ache in the attempt to show their appreciation. Some of us go on to-night to Durham ; but the story must wait until to-morrow. Please dream not of brass-bound chests, carved chests, Ginevra's chest, but of arches grey and pink and ivy-grown, and of roses blossoming among ruins, and read a good bit from Sir Walter's poems, for my sake. M. 90 EIGHT WEEKS XV— DURHAM ON ITS HILL. On the Morning Express to York. Friday, July 9. Dearly beloved: Can you visit two great cathedrals in one day and be neither overpowered nor helplessly mixed? They are as different as you and I, the Norman Durham on its hill, and the Gothic York in the middle of its ancient city; and if you will make a break between the two of a three hours' journey and a hotel lunch, I think we can manage it. I cannot turn my thoughts to either of these houses of God without an inrushing tide of wondering and grateful memories ; memories of what they mean to me, as pictures in my mental gallery, and memories of what they have meant to the world. Next to ven- erable Canterbury, where we hope to worship ten days from now, they seem to me the greatest light- houses of early Christian missions to be found in Great Britain. York is the older in its beginnings, the original church having been hastily built by Bishop Paulinus as a place of baptism for his royal convert, King Edwin. Christianity was creeping in from the south. St. Augustine had converted the King of Kent from paganism ; now his missionary, Paulinus, accom- panying a Kentish princess to her new lord in North- umbria, had met with similar success. Durham, on the other hand, was three hundred years later, and had its origin in the missionary work of those follow- ers of St. Patrick who had come across the south of 9 1 EIGHT LANDS IN Scotland and established monasteries on the north- east coast of England. The converts of Paulinus had been so harried by invading Danes as to be hardly able to keep their own little light ablaze, and these zealots from the longer established Church of Ireland had come to their aid at an opportune time. Their greatest leader had been St. Cuthbert, about fifty years later than Paulinus; and it was as a burial place worthy of such a missionary hero that they founded the so- called "Abbey" of Durham. A strange thought it is to us, that of missionaries to England. The "introduction of Christianity" has al- ways stood for some vague fact in our school books, but now that we are associating it with these moun- tains of choice master building, we begin to ask our- selves just what it means, and how clear an account we can give of it ; and thus we revise our knowledge on the train to York : Christian churches had undoubtedly been estab- lished in Britain during the years of Roman occupa- tion ; and we know that King Arthur, a Celtic prince opposing the incoming Anglo-Saxons, is always rep- resented as a Christian king fighting against pagans. It was our ancestors, the Anglo-Saxons, of whom we are so proud, who gave Christianity its first great set- back through destroying churches as well as castles and city walls. After they had ruled England for a century and a half, gaining civilization from the very people they had conquered and from the responsibilities of government, St. Augustine brought the gospel from Rome, being sent by Pope Gregory the Great, 597 A. D. Fifty years later Bishop Paulinus carried the glad tidings to Northumbria, of which York was the capital. Fifty years after this, amidst many perils from the terrible Danes, St. Cuth- bert and the monks of Holy Isle followed up the good 92 EIGHT WEEKS work, having come, as I have said before, by way of Scotland from Ireland, the so-called "Island of the Saints." In the two minsters, then, that we visit to-day we reach out our hands to those great and helpful hands that brought the bread of life to our pagan ancestors. Some of us have been in the way of thinking it a considerable waste of money, energy and human lives to send the Gospel where it received but scant wel- come — to displace the picturesqueness of naked savagery by the commonplace of western Christianity ; but such enterprises wear a different aspect to us when we think of them as the means of turning our sturdy brutal grandparents from the worship of Odin and the destruction of civilization, to the life of law-abid- ing citizens. Well for them and for us that the saints of the sixth century believed in foreign missions. And so, while trying to clear up the historic back- grounds for our two cathedrals, we have been speeding away from quaint little Melrose and its neighbors of Weems and Hawick and Jedburgh, speeding on through the famous Scottish Border, a land enriched with the blood of fratricidal wars and adorned with tales of clan this and clan that and all their ancestral feuds in behalf of bonnie lasses and doughty braves — on our return to merry England. Look at the stone walls dividing field from field, and at the frequent circles of stone, open at one side, that constitute the sheep- folds. See the station mistress, who supplants the sta- tion master at the smaller places, standing with flag- staff of office in her hand, proud in her consciousness of authority and in her shining copper-toed shoes. Here blackfaced sheep are a specialty of the farmers ; yonder, wire fences are pushing out the old stone dykes ; and now, look, look at our roadbed banks, all white with the blossoms of "snow in summer !" 93 EIGHT LANDS IN Long, long ago, when first we started on this rail- way tour — six days, you say ? Impossible ! Calendars are such unreliable chroniclers. Well, in those first days we were somewhat chagrined to find that we were booked to travel through Great Britain in third-class carriages. But in general we have found them most comfortable — the upholstering a little dingy, no white antimacassars behind our heads, and five people to each settee instead of four. In many trains there is no second-class, and travelers of economical tenden- cies all go by the third. We soon adapted ourselves to the British notion that compartments — that is, cross- wise divisions with each its own entrance — must exist, or the foundations of the Kingdom be undermined ; we canvassed our eight to know who could be depended on to see the world backwards without a resulting headache, and we also learned that here, as in most cases of clouded skies, there is a silver lining; for eight people, you see, just fill a compartment without a bit of crowding; and there is a law in England, emanating either from the railway companies or from High Parliament, whereby if you send a postal card to the station master on the day previous to your de- parture, you can have your compartment, or your rea- sonable share of it, reserved for you so far as you choose to specify. This, for us, has been glorious; and on every occasion when we have bethought us to write our postal in time, to specify the train, the day, the class, the name of the party, and finally to mail this accurate card, presto-change, up has come the compartment all right, a box for Jack, instead of a Jack-in-the-Box, the white label "Reserved" pasted aslant its window, and our name in pencil underneath. Mark you, however, that before securing such a com- partment we have had six chances each time of fall- 94 EIGHT WEEKS ing foul of it, all of which we successfully and suc- cessively tried, grumbled dutifully at the British gov- ernment, and discovered, with abasement, that we had only ourselves to blame. But why do I linger so long in a third-class car- riage when on my way to glorious Durham ? Because on the morning express of the North Eastern Rail- way we have reached the ne plus ultra of such a con- veyance. We have windows as wide as for an excur- sion car, glass that drops without a murmur, and the finest of wire screens to cover the ventilators ; also a table to let down between every two seats, for in this car there is a partial giving way of partitions, so that through a corridor at one side we can overflow into neighboring compartments ; whole clusters of electric lights ready for evening, and racks so capacious as to make our suit-cases appear like airy nothings. At this point we have just rumbled through New- castle on Tyne, and glad we are to have left it behind us ; for to whirl suddenly from fields, gardens and vine-covered cottages into miles and miles of solid brick walls, house on house, monotonous paved street on street, brick enclosed areas by the acre, with not a green thing to be seen ; and this in the home of ten thousands of women and children, as well as men, not one of them able to escape from these dungeon homes except to noisy dungeon factories — this is to be plunged into the pit right here in Fairyland. Alas and alas ! We hope there are parks somewhere within reach of these working districts ; a chance for Sunday walks where there is a tree and some grass ; some playgrounds for growing children. The Playground Association is hard at work on this side the ocean, and we are told that we shall see more of it across the channel. O, good fairy, who loves little children, 95 EIGHT LANDS IN forget not the poor of your great centres of industry because your hands are so full with the entertainment of us travelers ! Here come the hedgerows once more, sometimes of privet clipped close, sometimes of hawthorn, white with blossoms before we came, and later to be red with haws ; often of a mingling of all sorts of shrubs like our rail-fence growths at home, only that here the charming creatures are invited to be permanent set- tlers, with no fear of a sudden notice to quit. Such hedgerows are the prettiest possible division of fields, and wherever a stronger barrier than the shrubs is needed, an unobtrusive fence of wire or wood running down the middle supplies the want. Every kind of shrubby flower may here climb up in sight; brambles may flaunt their thorny branches, and ferns, anem- ones and violets may snuggle comfortably along the protecting edges. Give us some hedgerows, too, some authorized hedgerows, to us who have the blood of England in our veins. But see, yonder is the great hill of Durham Cathe- dral, rising up across the River Wear. Eyes to the east now, and look with all your faculties, so that those of us who have been lodging at Melrose may be able to make believe that we also have had a night and a morning in the Church of St. Cuthbert ; for — let me break it to you gently — this elegant express train does not stop at Durham, and what shall we do ? Oh, here is the advantage of being eight. Four of us have actually done this thing, so that it is all in the family ; and My Lady in Green has been put under bonds to write it all out for our later perusal. Near the station lies the city, and beyond it, circled by a loop of the river, is the lofty site that invited the monks of Lindisfarne to set down there the coffin of St. Cuthbert, which they had carried with them from 96 EIGHT WEEKS Iz^hl : ^3 ■ b^j "Durham- on. ih Hill. place to place for a hundred years in their flight from the Danes, and to erect over his grave the original church of which this one, begun in 1093, was the direct successor. For with the Norman Conquest archi- tecture received a great impulse, and not only were massive castles established all over the land as strong- holds for the new dynasty, but also the churches of Anglo-Saxon times were replaced by others of greater size and beauty. So William the Conqueror erected here a castle which, with many later additions, stands to-day, and has become the seat of the Durham Uni- versity ; and twenty years later his titled bishop — the prelates of Durham and Ely having been made earls as well as bishops — began to replace the Church of the Lindisfarne monks by the present splendid struc- ture. Firm as its foundation rock the Abbey stands, its lofty square tower dominating the landscape, its choir and transepts, nave and Galilee chapel reaching out 97 EIGHT'LANDS IN like the hands of some great angel laid upon a wor- shiping people. Could it be any finer seen from close at hand? More beautiful in detail, of course, but hardly more impressive. The same violet shadows that haunt Edinburgh Rock are lying in the valley, and the gold of morning is on the uprising towers. So the great and good deeds of far-away saints rise from legendary shadows, and stand strong and golden, our models and our inspiration. In York we shall meet the happy four who have held closer communion with the men and monuments of Durham, and they shall tell us such vivid tales as to strengthen us in the belief that we have been there, too. ^f. ;): ;): s|e =f= >f: It was on this trip that the Lady in Green had her innings ; for it was she who marshaled half of the party to Durham, while the rest stayed with headaches at Melrose. She first distinguished herself by insist- ing that when you are in Rome you should do as the Romans do; so henceforth baggage is to be denomi- nated luggage; and, instead of taking the suit-cases into the compartment with us, they are to be marked and put into the luggage van. Emancipated, then, from these impedimenta, and — whisper it under your breath — from the tyranny of the Lady of the Guide Book, this quartette merrily took train from Melrose, and enjoyed every stage of the accommodation which carried us through the long northern twilight from one English village to the next. It was dark as we reached New Castle, with its endless rows of elec- tric lights. And here we changed to an express train and made the short run to Durham without a stop. Dismounting at ten minutes past ten o'clock, the emptiness of the long stretch of platform, the quiet that reigned as our train disappeared, the sleepiness 98 EIGHT WEEKS' of the one porter, were somewhat disconcerting even to the Lady in Green; and the reiterated assertion, "There is no luggagge 'ere, ma'am," and "Ho, no, ma'am; there'll be no cabs 'ere hat this hour of the night, ma'am," might have left us indefinitely tarrying on that station platform, had not an interested party of fellow travelers shown us the way out and helped us to pack and squeeze with them into the two small cabs sent from the hotel to meet the two parties of defenseless women. At the Gray Lion or Red Mouse, or whatever inter- esting animal we were lodging with for the night, we had two new experiences before going to sleep. First, we were offered tiny glasses of the excellent brandy for which the house is famous ; and second, we found that in Durham, a city of 15,000 inhabitants, it is impossible to send a telegram between 8 in the even- ing and 8 the next morning. "Yes, madam, Hi can give you a telegraph blank, but you won't be hable to send it hoff before height to-morrow morning." "Not from the hotel, perhaps, but could I not send the messenger down to the night office ?" "Ho, no, madam, the posthoffice closes at height o'clock." An appeal is made from the office clerk to the smiling hostess, and she, though without supernumerary h's, affirms the same thing. So the Lady in Green, who is reputed to have a head for figures, comforts the rest of her quartette with the assurance that the miss- ing luggage has been left at New Castle by that superior express train and will appear all right at the station the next morning; and with this poor conso- lation, and such resources as the small handbags of- fer, we worry through or sleep through the night, and all appear at breakfast with loins girded for a visit to our first great Norman Cathedral. Up we go through the winding streets, which grow 99 EIGHT LANDS IN narrower and steeper as they and we ascend, and out onto the wide cathedral square, broadside to the noble building. The Lady in Green does her best to retrieve any prestige lost with the lost luggage. Determined that the Lady in Blue shall appreciate that Durham Cathedral is a trifle larger than a certain beloved First Church at home, she marches the company entirely around the building before allowing them to enter it, discoursing on round arches, small windows, arcaded cornices, the thick walls that do not need external but- tresses, and the genuineness and simple honesty of it all, until she and they have reached the right glow of expectancy; then she leads them to the modest side portal and steps back to catch their expression of won- der and surprise. And the Lady of the Veil, at least, does not disappoint her. With the sunlight streaming in at the small windows and making a luminous dusk through the whole interior — those great cylindrical columns with their different zigzag patterns, standing like towers of strength under the low, round arches, the changing vistas as you move from place to place — always a nearby column between you and the most interesting point in the distance — an interior that looks as though it had been hewn out and not builded — hewn out, oh, so lovingly and skillfully, with every thought and purpose that of doing the best and brav- est and biggest possible — who could be disappointed in Durham? And when a verger came who loved the old place, and who caressed the stone over the tomb of the Ven- erable Bede, and at the other end of the church showed us how in the old days the coffin of St. Cuthbert was once a year raised from its burial place under the choir, and "the silver music of the chains that lifted it" was heard by all the kneeling congregation, then the Lady in Green wished that the Lady of the Guide ioo EIGHT WEEKS Book were only there to hear herself outdone in his- tory and ancient lore and high enthusiasm. This delightful verger really interested us in the statistics of the church, 510 feet long, 80 wide, 70 high; begun in 1093 A. D. and finished in 1480; an Abbey, with a blue marble cross set in the pavement by the second pillar from the west end, beyond which women might not go; and its beautiful east end choir with the nine altars in a row, background to the shrine of St. Cuthbert. Protestantism has done away with the shrine, and the original level of the choir floor has been changed ; but by looking into certain black holes one sees the bases of the columns, and the verger reconstructs for us the older choir and fills it with bishops, priests and monks ; with a crowded congre- gation of men on the lower level of the nave, and the worshiping women in the far distance. He tells us how the Lady Chapel should have been back of this choir, how it was begun there, and how every night the work of the day before was mysteriously thrown down, until it was at last borne in upon the obtuse minds of the authorities that the holy St. Cuthbert was not going to tolerate the near proximity to his tomb of any woman — not even the blessed Virgin Mary. So the Lady Chapel was degraded to the west end of the church, where it is called the Galilee Chapel ■ — Galilee of the Gentiles, as being outside of the sacred precincts ; but here it was built with wonderful clover- leaf arches, so ornamented and crowded together that the effect is florid, almost Moorish. And here is the tomb of the Venerable Bede, that first of English church historians, beloved by his pupils, beloved by all the ages since. And it was an angel, you remem- ber, who carved in this stone the adjective venerable when the pupil who was set to cut the inscription had stopped in despair of finding the word which should 101 EIGHT LANDS IN at the same time properly characterize his master and fit into the rhythm of his Latin lines : Hac sunt in fossa Bedae venerabilis ossa. And it was in this room that the Lady in Green — almost the senior of our party — when she asked the verger where she could find a cab to take her to the railway station, being minded to look up that missing luggage or perish in the attempt, received the reply, "Why, my dear girl, you are nearer to the station than you are to any cab." That being the case, she left the rest to look up photographs, and tripped as youth- fully as she knew how down a winding path under the trees and below the foundations of the cathedral, across the river Wear on a foot-bridge, and up the other bank. At a perplexing forking of the paths she met a slip of an English girl who gave her the right turning, climbed a steep street, and found the familiar suit-cases on the platform of the station, as she had prophesied. So merrily again on to York, and in the great minster there, headaches left behind and luggage all right, our party was reunited, and the reins were again passed into the hands of the Lady of the Guide Book. * * * Later, at the King's Arms in little War- wick, four of us in one palatial room with two mahog- any tester bedsteads and other furnishings to match; two feeble candles to throw this splendor into chiaro- oscuro, and outside, in the court below, a chattering of coachmen and maids that calls me away from my half-discerned manuscript. Now are you not glad, dearly beloved, that for once in your life you have consented to be inconsequential, inconsistent, absurd, by putting yourself in two places 102 EIGHT WEEKS at once? You went to Durham on the evening train with the four persistents, had all the fun of the crowded coach and the missing luggage, saw the Abbey at its best, and also came whizzing down with us laggards next morning on that model express right past the hilltop vision and on to famous York. At present you are at Warwick — at least we are, and we are taking account of our whereabouts. We have come to-day some three hundred miles from Scotland 103 EIGHT LANDS IN and the very northeast of England to a point pretty far south and west. What are we leaving unvisited, and why? All the eastern half except what we shall see when we finish our English tour with London and Canterbury; and that includes a splendid row of cathedrals, Lincoln, Peterboro and Ely; also the Uni- versity of Cambridge, and, of course, a lot of great cities much more important to manufacturers and com- merce than to the art- and history-loving traveler. We have turned our back on these, not because we love them less, but because we love Shakespeare more, and must see the city of his birth and death, and the famous castles that were his commonplaces in the days of his education. In coming thus across coun- try we have really been traveling almost due south, and about half-way here we made our stop at York, the ancient capital of the Roman province of Britain, the seat of the Archbishop of England, and the site of the cathedral that for grandeur and com- pleteness ranks first in the land. Now, when you stopped there with us, did you yawningly say, "Alas, another cathedral ! and what's the difference between them, any way? And when shall we come to an end ?" Perhaps so ; but if that is the case with you or with any of our eight, we evidently need more cathedrals, or a better way of looking at them. We have already learned our little repertoire of architectural terms, and can make some kind of a picture to ourselves when our guide-book says Nor- man, "Yes," we repeat, "that is English Romanesque; round arches, arcaded frieze" — or Gothic, and we answer, "Pointed arches, traceried windows and tow- ers ;" — or classic, to which we say, "Another name for Renaissance, with all those little gabled windows, big cornices, and a dome." Also we have put away in our memories two approximate dates, 1150 and 1550. 104 EIGHT WEEKS Before the first of these the Romanesque prevailed; between the two, the Gothic ; after the latter, the Ren- aissance. "Transitional" refers, of course, to the bor- der lands between these, "Tudor" and "Elizabethan" being variations of the transition from Gothic to Renaissance; and Jacobean and Queen Anne, varia- tions of late Renaissance. With this rude architectural furnishing in hand, what shall we look at to make our minds help our zn IViin." Ilt-qi y^i m — %-mwm iMMMe 4fh^t VoRK INSTER. 105 EIGHT LANDS' IN souls? Our minds demand facts, our souls, inspira- tions. First, I think, we have learned to crane our necks for a sight of the cathedral from afar. While all the city houses, business blocks, manufactories, ordinary churches — everything but a few furnace chimneys or grain elevators lie low in the oncoming toy city, up rises our cathedral from their midst, a massive sil- houette against the sky, towers, roofs, spires, as it may be, so that we grasp it as a whole. We shall never see it quite in its entirety and immensity again until we are once more upon the train, speeding away from it. Next we watch it grow upon us from our whirling cab — now a bit of the great tower, now a gable up this narrow street, now a portal right before us, and here we are, gazing up at the great fagade, having our first impression of splendid proportions and unity, or, perhaps, of a little lack in these, and taking in rapidly the charm of Norman doorway or of Gothic portals and rose window, and promising our- selves a stack of photographs of all those enthroned saints. Next we enter; and here there is little choice, as usually only one door is open. But whether we are introduced directly to the nave, or approach it through a vestibule or one of the aisles, let us turn our facul- ties first of all to the great vaults above our heads, to the great spaces stretching out before us, to the ave- nues of pillars and to the soaring dome or lantern — to everything that says to us, "Sursum corda;" for that is the first and the last word of every cathedral, "Lift up your hearts;" and if we are not ready to respond, "We lift them up unto the Lord," that cathedral is wasted upon us. Above all, let us not fritter away our time and our sentiments on some archbishop's tomb or some spangled reredos until we have taken in the whole, or, rather, have poured ourselves out 106 EIGHT WEEKS into the whole. If we find that we have been on pil- grimage, and that this is our shrine, happy for us. If there are discords in color or shape that jar upon us, forget them if we can in the great entirety ; and when we have time and feeling left over from that, look up the archbishop and the reredos, the altar pieces and the Easter candlestick, the carved pulpit and stalls, and the stained glass of which we have all the time been feeling the warmth and fantasy; but ever and anon let us turn suddenly from the near details and allow the great whole to astonish us anew. My Lady in Blue says that her near-sightedness is a great draw- back in appreciating cathedrals. At least, then, she has this advantage, that the pulpit saints and the organ pipes do not at once claim her attention to the exclu- sion of the great interior. We remember very kindly — now don't think I have forgotten my theme — a cer- tain head waiter who said to our leader when we had asked for a hasty meal and cabs, "Yes, Miss, I will have them all on time if you can get your ladies to- gether. You do your part, and I will do mine." There was no special brilliancy in this sententious remark, but somehow it goes with us even into York Minster, as though that great church called to us of little soul : "You do your part and I will do mine." After this first draught of grandeur and beauty it is well to turn systematically to what our knowledge of architecture can tell us about the different parts, and to call in counsel our guide-book or our guide, until we can see at a glance the older structure and the new, and follow to some extent the life and growth of this great work of art. In connection with this we will observe, according to the time we can give, the frescoes and carvings, noting whether they were a part of the original design or have been super-added, and whether in our judgment they carry out the effect 107 EIGHT LANDS IN the whole was intended to produce. In these investi- gations you would be surprised to find how a duty- task becomes a thing of pleasure ; and when you reach the point where you can act as guide yourself, and say to a friend, "Look at the round arches of that old transept ; see the transition here from huge Nor- man pillars to the Gothic clustered columns; note the simple tracery in that early tower, compared with the flamboyant branchings of this later one; and do come as soon as you can to the choir to get acquainted with my pet carvings ;" when, I say, you have reached this point, you are well on the way to being old friends with that cathedral ; and you know that there is only a faint family resemblance between it and its cousin fifty miles away. Next, secure the photographs that will make perma- nent the results of your study, and when you show them to your friends talk them over until they, too, begin to enter into your knowledge and admiration. Now, having surveyed with me this Gothic nave, 525 feet long, and looked up into the square tower over the intersection, over 200 feet high, and having smiled a happy smile at that lovely row of lancet win- dows in the north transept known as the Five Sisters — fifty feet high, and slender and stately, every one ; hav- ing followed the conscientious guide through the in- teresting choir and down into the crypt, where he shows you massive pillars from the church of Paulinus' time still helping to bear the weight of this newer structure, and, in a shadowy nook well worth the screening of your eyes, an old, old spring which is connected in legend with the baptism of King Edwin — having also learned that the enclosing of the cen- tral part of the nave is a necessity for warming it suf- ficiently for service — that that carved screen does not break the continuous vista with malice prepense but 108 EIGHT WEEKS of necessity, and that even now an incredible number of tons of coal are consumed each year — I remember that it struck our northern New York ears as about enough for an average sized church — you are, last of all, taken to the Chapter House, the unique pride of the minster. This is a lofty octagonal room entered from the north transept, every side but one consisting of one huge tracerized window with superb stained glass, the vaulted roof by some magic of buttressing being upheld by this fragile wall, with no assistance of the central pillar usually assigned to this task. We long for a week of Sundays to study out these saints and angels in color, and the tiny carved heads that finish the marble wainscoting below the windows. We agree perfectly with an ancient Latin inscription pointed out to us by the verger : "Ut rosa flos florum, sicut est domus ista domorum," and feel that the charm is complete when this good man translates it for our unlearned ears : "As the rose is the flower of flowers, so is this 'ouse the 'ouse of 'ouses." How we rend our hearts as we hurry back to the station by recalling the fact that Roman walls with a sightly promenade upon them still encompass this city ; that Roman coins and weapons dug from this soil are to be seen in the museum; that here are associa- tions with the Emperor Constantius who died here, and with his great son Constantine, who was here first hailed his successor; that ancient timbered houses are to be seen here, as old-timey as those of Chester; also a gorgeous archbishops' palace with gardens to delight our hearts. Farewell, dear old Eboracum, from whom our own Empire State and metropolis take their name; fare- well, city of historic worth in the tales of the Wars of the Roses ; we are traveling on schedule time, but we shall not forget, as we steam out of the big station, 109 EIGHT LANDS IN to look back for a last impressive view of your glo- rious minster. And now I must to my tester bed to try the sleeping qualities of splendor in a crowd. M. no EIGHT WEEKS XVI— THE SHAKESPEARE REGION. Leamington Railway Station, Saturday, July 10. "Is it the up train that you want, mum?" asks the official; and how proud I am to be aware that up always means toward London, and to be able to an- swer boldly, "Yes, the express that stops at Oxford." While waiting for it I take time to congratulate you and us on this opportunity of drawing a long breath of mere air without any historic associations. Leamington is a comparatively recent town, laid out beside some mineral springs that may be old — most springs are — but having no connection, so far as I can learn, with ancient deeds or men of high degree. Breathe while you can, for every breeze has been thick with heroes and heroines for the past twenty-four hours, and so will be again as soon as we roll into the university town. Leamington was put down on our itinerary as a good centre from which to visit the three famous places which brought us here — Stratford, the furthest south, the city of Shakespeare ; Warwick in the mid- dle, glorious in its ancient line of counts and dukes, in its castle that has never been ruined, and its old church where rests the dust of titled lords and ladies ; and Kenilworth, furthest north, famous for its im- mense ruins, the greatest in England, of the castle of Simon de Montfort, John of Gaunt, Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, and her courtier, Leicester. No, ill EIGHT LANDS IN indeed ! Our active brains, fresh from two cathedrals, could not waste their vital force over night by lodging in a modern watering place ; so we came by innumer- able changes of train — and always a shilling to the porter who transferred our bags — on into the dark, every new station-master making a study of our book- lets of tickets, shaking his head dubiously, assuring us that they were all right, that booking by another road might have been more expeditious, and that our next change would occur "in about ten minutes, ma'am." On again, into deeper darkness, until we reached a station that was neither Warwick nor any other place on our tickets, but where a kindly market woman in our carriage assured us we must dismount or be car- ried beyond our destination. "Oh, yes, my lady, the train do go to Warwick, to be sure it do ; but then ye must take the tram, my lady, either from here or from Leamington. Yes, so it do rain, my lady, very bad; but ye'll find the tram just 'round the corner, mum, and ye'll soon be there all right." And so we were, after sufficient time and patience, sufficient in- quiries and changes of luggage; and we found little Warwick so filled from tennis tournaments and the like that we were fain to take up with such crowded splendor as I described to you at my last entry. And now the three famous and contrasting places are like a lovely dream; how shall we ever retain impressions made so rapidly, and necessarily so fleeting? By im- pressing them again upon you, patient recipients of these pages. So slip in a new sensitive plate and await results. Warwick itself, a tangle of narrow streets set with slate and thatch roofed houses, lies in the midst of the greenest of English fields cut by the prettiest of lanes and hedgerows ; and through the midst of all this sweeps a grand, curving turnpike, bordered with limes 112 EIGHT WEEKS and oaks, down which a modern autobus pursues its noisy and perilous way in behalf of hasty travelers like ourselves. So burr, burr, and honk, honk we went, at peril of ourselves and all the wayside, through many a little village swinging into range, scudding by with its bake shop, its butcher shop, its small parish church. Is this the outskirts of Stratford? or this? No, fifty minutes first of this kaleidoscope, and then a wider pavement, larger shops, and branching streets, and here we are on Stratford's holy ground. This autobus was to have been to us a kind of personally conducted affair, but only one piece of information had we re- ceived in the roar of the past fifty minutes, and now we were set down upon the pavement with small cere- mony, to explore until the return trip. "Just around the corner, ma'am, you'll find the Shakespeare 'ouse, and ye can't possibly miss it, ma'am." Nor could we when we came to it, so like the pictures that have become a part of every student's mental furnishing; but older, far older than any photograph or lithograph ever portrays ; such ancient timbers, they seemed as though they might have been part of Noah's Ark — so bending down here and so curving in there, and filled in with plastered brick as old, the whole combina- tion of gables giving a kind of grandfatherly nod toward the street, as who should say, "Yes, we are here and always have been. We shall always stay, but you will not. Take a good look at us, you passing generations." The antiquity of the Shakespeare house seemed the typical thing from which every neighbor- ing mansion took its cue; for the Harvard House, of great interest to us who swear by Boston, and the old Town Hall ; the Guild Hall, too, in which are the schoolrooms where little William learned his tasks — all these seem like younger or sturdier brothers of the famous birth house. 113 EIGHT LANDS IN The Shakespeare- Manse* Inside, the house was still more impressive; such low rooms with the beams overhead, such humble door- ways, such tiny closets, such steep and narrow stairs. If prenatal influence means anything, where did Shake- speare get his wide horizons? But sacred it seems, too, like the little Jewish tabernacle in the wilderness and the small marble temples of the Greeks; and one does not need to have seen the names of visitors of every nation written on the low ceiling in order to feel the spell of this home of the world's poet. The little garden in the rear, planted by loving hands with innumerable trees and shrubs and flowers that adorn the Shakespearean dramas, is a thing to touch one's heart. So would we all choose to be remembered, for the lovely things that had been dear to us. A third of a mile away, on the banks of the Avon, stands Trinity Church, with greensward and trees and 114 EIGHT WEEKS old tombstones around, and the waters whispering by. This, too, seems holy ground. What heart of all the reading world has not beat higher and lived purer for the heart that lies silent here under the stone floor behind the altar rail? Here is the familiar warning against disturbing the poet's bones, here the familiar colored bust on the wall, here the graves of wife and children at the great man's side. Walk softly ! In a chapel at the left are the tombs of the Clop- tons, the family that for centuries have been benefac- tors of the city and are especially associated with a very old bridge across the Avon. The marble effigies point to a time of long ago ; but a very recent inscrip- tion on one of the walls shows that the line has come down to the present day. ?^^ %> Ann& Ha?"kawayb fire-side- 115 EIGHT LANDS IN A little bickering with a cabman just outside the churchyard gate — this to remind us that we are trav- elers as well as worshipers — and we roll off through pretty fields and roads to Shottery, where Shakes- peare won his bride. Here the charming cottage of Anne Hathaway is again a place of wonder. Under its thatched roof we find more elegance than in the Shakespeare house, larger rooms, tiled fireplaces set with huge dogs and hung round with copper pans and skillets, mantles adorned with old crockery, high- backed chairs and high-post bedsteads beautifully carved — a general air of homely sumptuousness. The garden, too, filled with old-fashioned flowers and fruits, is a delight ; and why must our thundering autobus leave so soon? A few photographs snatched in haste from the old man at the gate, and back to the Warwick arms to eat our dinner in haste and begin our explorations of castles. Now somebody must have known, when planning our itinerary, that it was one thing to devise and another to execute ; that nothing short of Garagantua's legs and Garagantua's eyes could accomplish two cas- tles in one afternoon ; one of them near at hand, in prime order, a museum of art and bric-a-brac ; the other five miles off, a massive ruin, every crumbling wall of which would beckon us to view it nearer. But here again eight proved to be twice as capable as four, and difference in taste solved a problem that the itinerary man had given up in despair. Part of us went to Warwick Castle, paid our two shillings apiece to see aristocracy in its halls ; waited a long time out- side, walked and stared and listened in a hustling crowd within, and were tired, tired at the end ; but we had seen the armour of heroes from Guy of Warwick and Warwick the King-maker to Oliver Cromwell, the portraits of royalty by Rubens and Van Dyck, tapes- 116 EIGHT WEEKS tried halls and garden balconies, Venetian mirrors, inlaid tables, the Warwick vase of renown, and much more beyond the pen of woman to chronicle ; so we said that we were well repaid, and that a living castle outranked a dead one any day. The rest of us climbed into a little one-horse carry- all and jaunted away through more of Fairyland green- ery to Kenilworth, the grandest pink sandstone ruin that ever rose from English turf. There we saw ban- queting halls that had rung with the jests of the Lan- castrians, ruined boudoirs of the court beauties of the Tudors, grounds that had been transformed into tur- neys and lakes to entertain Queen Elizabeth ; ovens where oxen had been roasted whole for mammoth feasts, kitchen shelves where Old Time has been feast- ing these centuries gone, and all around ivy tods; prickly hollies in green, white and red ; rose trees and rose vines ; a flock of soft-wooled sheep, and a velvet sod such as only a combination of English climate and English gardeners can produce. Said a friend of ours to a gardener on a gentleman's estate : "How do you manage to have such a perfect turf, and not a weed to be seen?" "Oh, ma'am, we weeds and we digs, and we digs and we weeds five hundred years." Of course, there was also a Caesar's Tower ; for in every feudal castle the biggest and oldest thing in the shape of a keep or donjon is reckoned back by tradi- tion to the times of the Romans, and no matter how definitely its date may be set for some century of the Middle Ages, it quietly holds by its old name of Cae- sar's Tower. Those of us who visited Kenilworth spent all of our return drive in lamenting for those who had chosen Warwick. What can your well-preserved, smartly dressed castle furnish to compare with the sunset lights and ivy pall on this castle in ruins? 117 EIGHT LANDS IN When we turned our backs at last on Warwick, and on this day of triple sightseeing, our driver took us to a pretty spot beside the mill and pointed us across the pond to the grounds that once belonged to Guy of Warwick. This Guy, whose armor we had seen in Warwick Castle, distinguished himself in legend by killing a perilous "dun cow" of this neighborhood, and later is reputed to have gone on a pilgrimage to Pales- tine, and on his return to have conceived of a new way to holiness — none other than to live the rest of his days as a hermit in a cell on his own estate, and never make himself known to his longing wife. Of course, just as he felt death approaching he discov- ered himself to her, and they both died happy and were buried side by side in the hermit cell ; all of which we could look away to under the spreading trees, but might not visit because the present owners were just then at home. But we admired the old mill, and the verses of the present miller poet ; and now we are resting limply and gratefully in the unhistoric air of Leamington. Adieu, and may you dream no dreams at all. M. 118 EIGHT WEEKS XVII— A MOTHER OF MEN. QxfOHD Un\ v£RSj T r At the King's Arms in Oxford. Sunday, July n. I remember saying one day to Mrs. D., after her first year in the Chicago parish : "Don't you find it a tremendous task to learn all those new names and faces?" "Oh, no," said she, with the same shining smile that she turns toward the birds and the hills, "I like to meet people." I hope you are all of the same mind when you come to Oxford for a Sunday. "But it is not term time," you say ; "the town is empty, and if it were not, we have no introductions." True, the town is empty of the students and professors of to- day ; dons and fellows, deans and proctors and mas- ters and rectors ; few caps and gowns are seen in the streets. But oh, the thousands who come up here from pulpits and bishoprics, from courts and councils, from inside the covers of books, from ships long ago gone down at sea, from foreign courts and congregations of philanthropy — a procession that is ever walking 119 EIGHT L'A'NDS IN these streets, looking in at these gardens, taking boat on this little river Isis ! I confess that I stood in awe of them from the first, and at the end of twenty- four hours' intercourse I feel not a whit more at ease. I cannot say that I am familiar even with their college homes, although the names of Merton and Magdalen, Radcliffe and Pembroke, Christ Church and All Souls are all the time tramping through my brain, I think we all feel that nothing short of settling down here to live could give us even a slight acquaintance with this place. With art and history we have been grap- pling ever since we landed ; but here we have to grap- ple with men — who they were, where they lived, what they accomplished in the scholarly air of Oxford, and what in the big world afterwards. At the same time we try to make acquaintance with these splendid piles of architecture, and we find our cathedral education failing us a little on college halls; for some of their builders were recklessly disregardful of our simple knowledge when they launched forth into the intri- cacies of these transitional styles. But thus much we can tell you, that everywhere you turn on these closely built streets, a college building is at the right and a college building at the left; that each one is a stately block with an entrance like a church door, and a great tower somewhere ; that through the portal door, when open, you look into lovely quadrangles, lawns with flowers and vines, and often through a second portal in the rear building to still another garden beyond; that into these gardens you may usually enter and wander there at your will beside the greenest lawns, the gayest borders, old walls overgrown with the most luxuriant ivy, and under trees whose leaves are heavy and shining like wax; perhaps you may be so fortunate as to stop under a huge cedar of Lebanon, planted by some returning crusader, or a purple 1 20 EIGHT WEEKS beech sweeping its branches down to the ground. How things do grow in England ! Grass seems to have no objection to the shade, and flowers blossom as though it were perpetual springtime. We came here for a Sunday to rest and be thankful, so I am not responsible for showing you much, or asking you to remember it. I will merely note down what you may already know, and what you are at per- fect liberty to skip if you don't know — that these col- leges, now some two dozen in number, were originally founded as homes where students might live, being entirely independent of the lecturers or of the courses of study that drew them here. That even now their constitution is more elastic than that of the American college, and that the controlling power of the Uni- versity as a whole is a council made up of governing heads and graduates ; that each college has its own title for its head — Master, Rector, Principal, President, Provost, as it may be; that the "Proctors" and "Bull- dogs" who look after the well behavior of the lads are chosen from all the colleges in turn ; that Tutors and Fellows are known as Dons, the latter being grad- uates who receive an honorary salary, and may or may not give tutorial work in return ; that govern- ing power above mentioned acts through a Chancellor of noble rank and a vice-chancellor of noble industry in granting degrees ; that the students room either in the colleges or in town, but dine together in great halls; and that they wear their gowns all the college year round, not only as an honor, but as a kind of voucher for their good intentions, carrying them about on their arms when a warm wave renders them uncomfortable. As for the names of the twenty-six colleges, the dates, the founders, the distinguishing features, and the great men who have graduated from each — I 121 EIGHT LANDS IN leave the task of mastering these to your mighty brains, and I assure you the records you will consult will introduce you to a line of princes from all climes of this world and from all centuries since the days of Alfred the Great. You may ask yourselves, too, how far these princely ranks are beholden to the watch- word which you see everywhere blazoned in the Uni- versity Escutcheon — "Dominus Illuminatio Mea" — The Lord my Light. We have so divided our forces to-day that among us we have attended many services, from the sim- plicity of a Congregational church to full ritual in the Cathedral — otherwise Christ Church Chapel. In the Congregational church the Calvinists of our party were favored with a most admirable sketch of the great Reformer whose four hundredth birthday comes about these days ; and a charming touch brought the past and the present together in a brief sermon to the children from Calvin's watchword, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" This was followed by "the children's hymn," in which every alternate verse was carried by childish voice alone. At vespers in New College the centuries were again made to go hand in hand. We had been told by the verger that we must be early if we wanted seats, New College music being so famous as to insure a crowd even in vacation ; and sure enough, through a drizzling rain umbrellas appeared from main street, side streets, and garden gate till the large porch was crowded, and at the turning of the entrance key all seats were filled. Then began that rhythm of sight and sound that was a fit accompaniment of a vesper service; for all the while that the inspired organist rolled forth the har- mony of voluntary, chants, responses, hymns of the church, there looked down on us from the east wall of the chapel rows and rows of marble saints, filling 122 EIGHT WEEKS the space from wainscoting to gable ; and we felt our- selves worshiping with hosts whose names we did not know, but into whose labors we hurrying travelers were privileged to enter. Long after the service had closed and most of the audience had passed out, the organist played on and on — softer, louder, the praises that are and that were, and prophecies of those that are to be. Light after light went out, till only one was left for him in his loft and one for us below ; and to his last strains we found ourselves repeating, "Dom- inus Illuminatio Mea," and singing in our hearts as we started homeward, "Praise Him in the great con- gregation ; praise Him among the people." Monday Noon. — I must not leave this university town without satisfying your curiosity in regard to the one point you all have in mind — the far-famed dining halls and kitchens. Of course, we had to skip most of them ; you have learned to expect that of us now ; but we went to see Magdalen (which we had to call Maudlin, though it sorely went against the good spellers) ; had considerable difficulty in distinguishing the vestibule, the chapel, and the dining hall, all were so venerable and lofty, but were convinced that we had found the right place by the heavy tables and benches on which brocaded and bewigged portraits looked down, and by seeing the verger or head waiter or curator of college plate opening up certain myste- rious panels in the wall to put away the college knives and forks. There was no opportunity to see British students dine ; but the kitchen was a glorious sight. About as ancient as Kenilworth Castle, it looked, its ovens and pastry tables and roasting spits the same ; its array of copper pots and pans, and cellar-like recesses, suggestive of a conservatism that proposes to cook as its ancestors cooked before it. My Lady Bright Eyes says, "No, there was a row of gas jets 123 EIGHT LANDS IN for the steaks, in place of the old-time coals, and some more gas burners in the dark corners," but as for an elevator or a rolling butler's tray to carry the food to the tables — dear me, what absurdity! Why shouldn't waiters carry the soup up those fifteen stone steps, as they did in the days of Wolsey? And if some of the waiters happen to be charity students, earning their way, so much the better for the devel- opment of their muscles and their morals. I've no doubt, however, that the college appetites are quite up to date; and so are ours, ready for lunch before we leave this hospitable inn and take the train up to London. Apropos to English inns, let me say that we find them living up to their reputation and most homelike. Although they have an air of conservatism like the college kitchens, your every want is quickly supplied, from a hot bath to a blazing fire on the hearth or an appetizing cup of afternoon tea; and so far the Euro- pean breakfast, that scant source of morning strength for which we have been fortifying ourselves, has not shown its face. Good Scotch porridge can still be had for the asking; marmalade and jam accom- pany the rolls and coffee, and eggs or fish are gener- ally added. Always the tables are beautiful with flowers most tastefully arranged. And if you will forgive me this commonplace conclusion for our col- lege town, I will make my last picture that of our happy eight at lunch at their round table in the King's Arms and the elegant waiter, as he passes from plate to plate, serving a spoonful of this, a spoon- ful of that, as though long practice with a student clientele had taught him the unwisdom of allowing guests to help themselves. We never were so tenderly treated before. 124 "EIGHT' WEEKS Farewell. While we are taking the afternoon train to London you are just creeping out of your beds. A good appetite for all your breakfasts. M. 125 EIGHT L'ANDS ~ I N> XVIII— THE WORLD'S METROPOLIS. London Dearly beloved: Do you realize that we are in the biggest thing on earth — the metropolis of this globe? Do you know that this city compares very favorably with Nineveh of old for size, and that if its street lights were drawn out in one straight line only a rod apart they could have lighted our passage clear across the Atlantic Ocean? And yet, as on the ocean itself, it is difficult to realize this immensity, and we feel no more "at sea" than we should if Ends- leigh Gardens were the whole affair, instead of being a dot in the big city map. We know that we, the city, are all a'roar for fifteen miles east and west, and half as far north and south ; at least, we are built up in brick and stone, and paved, and furnished with shops and hotels and cabs and policemen, and daily papers, and street venders, and — woe's the day ! — with thun- dering autobuses that go careering through the streets and are a convenience to those who ride, especially to those on the upper story in nice little rows of seats 126 EIGHT WEEKS with rubber lap robes for rain, but are a deafening terror to those who walk ! Yes, we are here, not so very far from that good starting point, Russell Square; the British Museum, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Parliament House, Westminster Abbey, sweep off with the great palaces and parks to our south and west; the Strand, Fleet Street, the Bank, St. Paul's, and all the busiest busi- ness streets to our south and east; the great River Thames and its bridges make the southern boundary of all these, and outside, to the north, east, south and west are streets and streets and streets which — give thanks — are not remarkable enough to claim a place in our memory. With a sense of coziness in our own pleasant board- ing house, no great rumbling on our homelike street, and pretty, green parks in sight at both ends of our block, we still have an overwhelmed feeling of big things to be done in a few days' time, and of a su- preme trial of our first great tenet; for skip nine- tenths we must, and how to select a one-tenth that shall be typical of the whole and not cause us to drop our heads in shame when our home friends ask us, "Did you visit this park and that picture gallery? You saw such and such palaces, of course? And which did you like better, St. Paul's or West- minster? And how many sittings of Parliament did you attend? And did you read Wordsworth's sonnet on Westminster Bridge? And where did you find the best shopping?" Fortunately, we are eight, and each of us has some pet sight to see, so we shall make sure of eight objects of which we can give a reasonable account. Our Star. Lady knows that she must visit Kew Gardens ; My Lady Persistent will see the Tower with her last drop of blood ; My Lady Bright Eyes has no use for the British Museum, having seen all 127 EIGHT LANDS IN she cares to of Rameses and his tribe in New York ; My Lady in Blue must call on that arch financier, Cook ; My Lady Practical has promised a friend to sail upon the River Thames ; the other three are blest with English friends whom they must visit, even if that implies omitting Windsor Castle. Therefore, we will entrust ourselves first to one of Thomas Cook's half-day tours of the city — no whole-day tours for us, if you please; and if anything is then left of London or of us, we will use our best judgment about what remains. I will tell you the results later. * * * Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday Evenings. This may seem to you, dear logical friends, a little mixed ; but so are we, and so are our diaries and our letters home. Nevertheless, at the end of every one of these days we have patted ourselves with so much approbation that we feel all ready to tell you how to do the big city, too. The plan of dividing and the plan of keeping together were both good. Under the conduct of one of Mr. Cook's well-informed and gen- tlemanly conductors, a whole omnibus load of us vis- ited in one morning the center of the old city, which extended from Temple Bar on the west to the Tower on the east; had a good look at the Temple precincts, with its stories about knights, and the red and white roses of Lancaster and York, the lawyers' quarters of modern days, and above all of Goldsmith and Lamb ; also at the beautiful Temple Church, with quaint ef- figies of crusaders lying on their graves beside the worshipers' seats within, "Their bones are dust, Their good swords rust; Their souls are with the saints, we trust." 128 EIGHT WEEKS We walked slowly through the National Gallery, which is the one great picture gallery of London, and felt our souls grow happy as our bodies grew tired over all those beauties from Italy, France and Spain, from the Netherlands and Germany, and espe- cially from England itself, all of us who had seen them before declaring them much finer than we re- membered them. We became reasonably familiar with beautiful Trafalgar Square, Nelson uplifted on his monument, ancl Landseer's crouching lions at its base — with the exterior of the splendid file of Par- liament buildings, like choice but mammoth bronzes they look beside the river — and of Westminster Abbey, so like its photographs that we were sure we had known it always. We drove along the great Victoria embankment, which lies as solid as native rock, hold- ing the river to its right curve; we set actual eyes upon places so familiar by name — Piccadilly, Pall Mall, St. James' Square, and still had left a feeble remnant of strength to wander through the British Museum. There came up a rousing little thunderstorm, to give us enforced leisure there; and while we gazed at the great quiet sphinxes and the Assyrian genii on their upright slabs, I tried to account to myself for their charm. Setting aside all the effects of education, it still remains a fact that some people are born ancient and some are born modern. They may have great tolerance for one another, but they will never look at the world from the same standpoint. One loves her for the records of ages that she stores up in her treas- ure chambers ; another, for the fresh and flowery gar- ment that she wraps about her. But every one of us has enough filial reverence to be impressed with those monuments that were choice to our ancestors, those fragments of their old homes that seem to set us down beside of them, and those rude beginnings of art to 129 EIGHT LANDS IN •which modern progress owes so much. Perhaps if any of you are born modern and still have a lurking shame of your lack in the opposite direction, it will help you if you give yourself a few stunts in history, till Egypt and Assyria become alive to you once more, and then deliberately send out your imagination to the past ages, till you begin to feel yourself a citizen of the world — not merely of this continent and this cen- tury. You would wish, on the whole, would you not, to feel that you did not live entirely on the surface of time and place? In general, you would rather be a tree than a butterfly? Well, such things as the British Museum do not come into your life every day ; make the most of them when they do. And more's the pity that in all our cities at home we are not beginning in a small way our British Museums. We must work for that when we go home — for the thing itself and for that deep, wide culture that will demand it. And now the thunderstorm is over and we have not half-way taken account of these wonderful battle- pieces from Sennacherib's palace, this Black Obelisk with the deeds of Shalmaneser II, the Moabite Stone and the Rosetta Stone — are we sure that we know the difference between them? — this head of Memnon who used to sing to the rising sun ; this Tomb of Hali- carnassus, once counted among the seven wonders of the world ; these rare Elgin Marbles from Athens, the admiration of to-day as well as of Greece in the years of her best art. We have not even glanced at Etruscan remains, Roman antiquities, and the scanty evidences of art from our own Anglo-Saxon progenitors; nor, alas ! have we set foot inside one of the greatest libraries of the world, where almost two million books stand ready to enlighten the darkness of the humble. It is interesting to trace the growth of such a library; first, some private collections of manuscripts 130 EIGHT WEEKS by one Mr. Cotton and others in the sixteenth cen- tury; then the library of books of one Sir Hans Sloane; next, a public lottery to raise funds and pur- chase these for the kingdom; after these the addition of the great collection of King George III, given by his son ; and, in most recent times, the steady growth at the rate of 10,000 odd books a year as gifts from foreign lands and as sample volumes of every publi- cation copyrighted in the kingdom. The ragged fragments that remained of us after this morning's work voted the Cook's tour a success, except for the horse power that conveyed us. It be- gins to be a melancholy fact that horses are of value only to the gentleman of leisure; for speed and strength our great cities demand what automobiles can give; and, alas for our anti-noise associations under these conditions ! In the days that followed this first drive some of us have lost our hearts to Kew Gardens, its terraces and groves, its water-lilies and palms ; others to the wind- ings of the Thames, with pretty summer cottages on the banks and college crews practicing in long shells on the water ; some of us have heard Big Ben roll out the hour from the clock tower of Parliament House, and Big Paul do the same from the heights of St. Paul's; we all have compared the Gothic splendor of Westminster Abbey, a little overcrowded with tombs and statues, with the Renaissance dome and piers of St. Paul's ; some have driven in real carriages in Hyde Park, where cabs and omnibuses may not go; others have explored the strongholds and dungeons of Lon- don Tower, smiled at the yeoman dress of the "beef- eater" guards, and gloated over the diamonds and emeralds of crown jewels ; some of us have even gone shopping, and some have been entertained in real English homes; but not one of us has looked on the r 3i EIGHT LANDS IN graves of Milton and Bunyan, or journeyed to Wind- sor Castle, or visited the Zoo. So we are inclined to be modest about our achievements, and to send word to you that much land remains to be possessed. We are tired enough to be ready for another Sabbath, and for that we have great expectations, as it is to be in the cradle of our modern Christianity, none other than old Canterbury. Yes, dear inquirers, we did read Wordsworth's son- net, written on Westminster Bridge, and it is so per- fect a picture in little that neither you nor I would be happy if I failed to write it down. Earth has not anything to show more fair! Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty. This city now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theaters and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky, All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more gloriously steep In his first splendor valley, rock or bill, Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep. The river glideth at his own sweet will; Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep And all that mighty heart is lying still. 132 EIGHT WEEKS XIX— PILGRIMS TO CANTERBURY. On Pilgrimage to Canterbury. Saturday, July 17. All you dear people who have patiently traveled with us from our landing in Liverpool crisscross of the beautiful island to this southeast corner, I wonder whether you are as sorry as we to begin to say fare- well. We find ourselves looking back over two weeks as though it were a good two months; summing up our great gains, counting our seven cathedrals, dif- ferentiating the smaller towns, painting in our mem- ories the beauties of the countryside, and saying to ourselves : "Oh ! I shall never forget ; oh ! I must not forget !" And all of these later days, when we have a moment to anticipate, we have been asking our- selves : "Is it right to rob London of a day for the sake of Canterbury? And shall we find the climax all that we desire?" Well, I will just keep you waiting on that interro- gation point while I lay out in order with you the historic points that we have been reviewing as we came along the railroad out of London by Cannon Street Station and down through County Kent. We have been sending our imaginations on a stren- uous journey, first to Celtic days when Britain seemed to stand alone, unconquered and unconquering, with a rude civilization all her own; next, to the Roman incursions under Julius Caesar, and the later Roman rule, which meant camps and highways, towers and 133 EIGHT LANDS IN walls of defense, theaters and baths, strong cities, heavy taxes — the civilization and the letters of the world capital; then to the coming of our own ances- tors after Roman evacuation — guests by invitation at first, but conquerors in the end; those bold Anglo- Saxons to whom we trace our best qualities of cour- age and persistence, of faithfulness to friend and to family; but who, in their rollicking enjoyment of tearing down good walls and making havoc of civili- zation did undeniably exercise a certain Fourth of July license that left much to be desired. — Poor, dear grandpapas, forgive us if we are severe! — and after this to the peaceful arrival of beloved St. Augustine and his monks, with the baptizing and church building that followed; and, last of all, to the landing of the Norman Conquerors, also ancestors of ours, in 1066. And why must our imaginations end their English tasks with such Herculean labor ? Because right here, in this southern county of Kent, was the landing place for friends and foes, the entrance gate from time immemorial ; and historic dilettantes like ourselves may help out their English dates by counting up the five great landings, four of which I have just men- tioned. Now, the first thing a Roman general did when he wished to annex a foreign country was to build a good road connecting it with Rome. Undoubtedly the great pathmaker, Julius Caesar, found a pretty good inland trail already extending from his landing place at Deal; and this his successors converted into the famous Watling Street, carried diagonally across the island from Dover in the southeast to Holyhead at the northwest corner of Wales. Through Canterbury it passed, and Rochester and London, and was the highway of the nation. This region, then, that we are 134 EIGHT WEEKS now traversing in our twentieth century express has echoed through the centuries to the tramp of armies, the rolling of chariots, the songs of pilgrims, the march of trade ; and all this must be sketched in as background to those historic pictures for which Can- terbury furnishes the stage. Of these, three stand supreme. First, St. Augustine, date 597 A. D. To the long- haired, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxons, admired by Pope Gregory in the slave-markets of Rome as "angels rather than Angles," this swarthy missionary of the South has been sent by the Holy Father, and has been welcomed by Christian Bertha, Frankish wife of the pagan King of Kent. For Christianity in Frankish Gaul preceded Christianity in Britain by about a hun- dred years. Augustine and his forty black-haired monks have landed in Thanet, have advanced to their first interview with royalty, clad in white, bearing a silver cross and a banner with the picture of our Lord, and chanting as they come, "Turn away from this city, O Lord, Thine anger and Thy wrath." Eth- elbert has bowed before a more powerful scepter than his of Kent, has been baptized in the little Church of St. Martin; has established these missionaries in his own palace, and given them lands for a church and a monastery, which are to become the glory of Canter- bury. Second, Thomas a Becket, date 1170 A. D., haughty prelate, Archbishop of all England, once a gay cour- tier, now a zealous defender of church against state, the state in this case being Henry II, King of Eng- land — is at his devotions in the glorious cathedral that has grown up on St. Augustine's foundations, when he is set upon by four knights, sent from his king, and foully murdered. Months of mourning and of papal interdict follow ; the cathedral shrines are 135 EIGHT LANDS IN draped in mourning; ministrations cease, the people hunger in vain for spiritual bread. After four years a shamefaced old king, brought low by civil broils and family feuds, comes to do penance at the grave of the murdered saint. In his train follow, year by year and century by century, repentant pilgrims from all England and from neighboring lands, until Canter- bury becomes known as the city of a holy shrine, and gold and silver are but the least of the treasures left by grateful recipients of favors here obtained. Third, the Canterbury Pilgrims ; and here the main features have already been provided by the visiting throngs of two centuries, when, toward the end of the thirteen hundreds, that jovial genius Geoffrey Chaucer takes his pen in hand and sketches for Eng- lish readers so realistic and captivating a picture of Friar and Prioress, knight and yeoman, merchant and shopwoman, cantering along Wattling Street in the lead of Mine Host of the Tabard Inn, telling beguiling tales in rhyme, and turning in, wide-eyed, at Mercery Lane to front the Cathedral gate — that this pen picture has ever since stood side by side with the great historic events of Canterbury. But quick to your railway windows ! The great tower of the Cathedral is in sight, and here is the pyramidal mound of Dane John, near the station. Close by is that high and mighty gas factory that was once the keep of a Norman castle, and goes by the name of Csesar's Tower. Guide books may be chary of dating English towers back to the great Julius and his successors, but the living guides who have eyes and tongues can always find Roman bricks in the foundations, as sop for the credulous like ourselves. In some respects Canterbury recalls Chester. Its old wall still remains in part, and makes a pretty prome- nade; but its streets are always taking a little bend. 1-7,6 EIGHT WEEKS not at all as though they had been the avenues of a camp, and houses of brick and cement often replace the timbered structures of the north. The River Staur, which passes in two channels through the western part, is not put to so much account as the River Dee, but, as in Chester, all the stray corners of the town are filled up with flowers, and the pretty park at one end, where rises the huge, unexplained mound, is a bit of beautiful greenery. And all this time I am loitering through Canterbury streets as though I were not a pilgrim to the greatest of England's shrines. Oh, detain me no longer with virtuous information, but turn into Mercery Lane, a tiny street lined with shops, and see right before you at its end that beautiful Christ Church Gate that admits you to the Cathedral precincts. If you can imagine marble or sandstone done into brocade and velvet, that is the way I think of Christ Church Gate. It is rich and soft, as though you could lay your hand on it with pleasure; full of pretty patterns of arches com- plete and arches begun, just as a brocaded velvet might be ; and so old ! Not exactly ragged or moth- eaten, but suggestive of passing centuries. It makes you catch your breath as you first see it filling the whole end of the street against the blue sky. Hurry by the shop windows, full of hosiery and ribbons and hats — even past the great array of photographs, and the irregular three-corners where stands Christopher Marlowe on his pedestal in the one-time Butter Mar- ket ; pass in at the gate, and now you know that you are not disappointed. A few more hours in London in place of this ? Rather, a few more days for Can- terbury. A green lawn is all around the cathedral, bounded by a part of the city wall on one side; there is plenty of ivy, some spreading trees, and this great architectural pile that took four hundred years to 137 EIGHT LANDS IN Ckrlst Ghu/r&kGate: hroiTU M^rcgrn Lane. attain to its present perfection. It is difficult to decide whether it is its beautiful proportions or its evident growth that give it the greater charm, Almost of the 138 EIGHT WEEKS dimensions of York, though narrower and with a loftier central tower, it is very unlike its rival. Where York impresses you by its symmetrical unity, Canter- bury is equally impressive by its variety, which is evi- dently not from the hand of the original architect, but from the many hands that have taken a share in its building. Two pairs of transepts cross the nave, and beyond the eastern of these project ancient chap- els, giving the impression of transepts number three. Flanked by these, the longest choir in England reaches out to a length of 180 feet, being extended to the east by Trinity Chapel, which, in its turn, is carried still further by a unique round apse known as the Corona. Canterbury from the. north- All this you can guess at from the outside, while you look up at the most perfect central tower you have ever seen, Gothic, square and lofty ; and at its two lower companions at the west, these all terminating in corner pinnacles that give one the feeling of looking at crowned heads. All the exterior, pointed windows, buttresses and flying buttresses show you the Gothic 139 EIGHT LANDS IN you have learned to know so well — all except the east- ern chapels of St. Andrew and St. Anselm, whose round arched windows and corniced frieze tell you at once that these belong to the Norman beginnings of the church. From the south side of the southwest tower a superb Gothic porch offers niches and open- work canopies for a score of marble saints, and under the watchful eye of all these worthies you lay aside your architectural criticisms and enter the perpetual twilight within. How lofty, how full of mystery it is ! How high the clustered columns soar above you ; how far the lofty arches of the nave stretch away to the east ! At the first transept, where the choir be- gins, the pavement rises by a bold flight of steps; again by more steps at the high altar; once more at the opening to Trinity Chapel ; and, last of all, as you enter the pillared circle known as Becket's Crown. All this you cannot see at once, because a screen cuts off part of your view before you enter the choir ; but above this screen you can discern the vaulting of the nave, dim and far away, traveling on toward the east; and at your feet you are always having new surprises in one flight of stone steps after another, which the impatient verger who shows you around will not give you time enough to comprehend. These transepts and chapels, these tombs and chantries, eloquent of archbishops and princes and kings — are you to carry these all away with you after this rapid survey? Or must you be contented with an arabesque, a song, a kaleidoscopic shadow? Here in Trinity Chapel are two noteworthy tombs : the first that of the Black Prince who lies in effigy under a simple canopy, his breastplate and gauntlets hung above him as he took them off after his last battle ; and every one wants a half hour at least to dream about the gallant young hero, his capture of the King of France ; his wedding 140 EIGHT WEEKS of his cousin, the Fair Maid of Kent ; his chantry, built as expiation for this breach of church law, his characteristic watchword, "God being my help, I must fight on as best I can." Opposite is that of Henry IV, the first Lancastrian, whose conscience was a little tender on the manner of his acquiring the crown, so that he longed to make all right by a pil- grimage to Jerusalem, but, instead, ended his days in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. He begged to be buried beside Canterbury's saint, and here he lies, close to the jeweled shrine that was, and to the pavement worn by pilgrims' feet. But as to lying next to the saint, King Henry VIII spoiled that. Deciding that a zealous churchman must have been a traitor, he legally summoned Archbishop Becket to appear for trial, and when the latter did not come forth from his grave of four hundred years, had his bones dug up and burned, and put the accumulated treasures of some millions in value into his own char- ity-like pocket. Yonder, in the Corona, stands the venerable chair of St. Augustine ; under the pavement is buried a zealot who rivals Becket — Cardinal Pole, the last Eng- lish archbishop of the Roman Catholic faith. And now hurry back through the north aisle out into the clois- ters, where Becket came from his palace to his death ; return from there to the north transept, now called the Martyrdom, where the murderers found him upon his knees praying God for the mercy refused him of men. The shadows are deepening. Grope your way through the dim nave, where rays of gold and crimson still stream in from the west window, and out at the south porch, to the companionship of the marble saints. "I am tired to death," groans the gowned dig- nitary who shuts the door behind you. Poor canon, or verger, or whatever he may be ; I suppose he has 141 EIGHT LANDS IN his trials with visitors arriving on the late train from London, just as we have our trials with him. There is still evening light enough to see St. Mar- tin's in the Fields, and to-morrow, on that blessed Sunday that always promises time for pleasant but neglected things, I will tell you all about it. M. 143 EIGHT WEEKS XX— THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. Sunday Evening. Yes, we secured two cabs, although it required much searching, the help of a policeman, and the final ef- ficient efforts of My Lady Bright Eyes ; and we drove out past the Augustine College, with its turreted por- tals — now again a training school for missionaries, as it was in its first days — to the ivy-grown Saxon Church of St. Martin's. It requires little argument to convince one that this building dates back to the days of Queen Bertha or, as the Venerable Bede as- serted, in that ecclesiastical history which was the only authority in Saxon times, to the days of Roman occu- pation. The simple, bare little church is crowded with chronicles of the past — a Roman window recently uncovered here, some Roman brick work in another place; in this corner the old font built up of many stones where Ethelbert and his warriors were bap- tized ; there the so-called Tomb of Queen Bertha, and the young verger in charge tells us all about it with a timid earnestness, as though he were just learning his lesson, but after a few years' practice would seem almost an eye-witness of the beloved past. A few moments among the old tombstones without where ivy and roses vie with each other in showing honor — then back into the little city where the microscopic streets are gay with Saturday evening promenaders all across the pavement — chatty girls in their best frocks, sol- diers in puffy cavalrymen's trousers clanking their 143 EIGHT LANDS IN sabers, tourists on bicycles, an auto-car carefully forc- ing a passage, and just around the corner, whenever you care to turn that way, the marble vision at the end of Mercery Lane. The gatekeeper was closing the precinct gate as we took our last look by moonlight mm and twilight combined ; but whether to keep us out or the members of the Cathedral School in, we could not guess. This morning early we slipped out before our break- fast to find the communion service, and see whether Christ Church still drew us as it did the pilgrims of 144 EIGHT WEEKS old. The quiet of the Sabbath morning seemed only to add power to the holy influences of the evening be- fore. The grass and ivy were bright with dew, the sun streamed golden into Becket's Crown. All the young lads of Christ Church School were gathered in their surplices at one side ; and as one throng of wor- shipers after another went up the chancel steps to take the bread and wine, it seemed as though the cen- turies were repeating themselves. These strong men and quiet ladies — are they not the Henrys and the Edwards, the Beckets and Langtons, the fair maids of Kent, or the holy maids of Kent of our time ? No- tice the young lads who tripped down the altar stairs as though life had taught them only dancing measures, which they wish to hallow in the house of the Lord ; and the old ecclesiastic who sits so near the side entrance, accompanied by his daughter. What a fine face, framed in scanty silver locks and a skull cap ! Does he alone not care to commune on this summer morning amidst the innumerable silent throngs that fill the vast cathedral spaces ? Every other person has knelt at the altar, and brought back from it his own individual blessing ; when, see ! Two of the minister- ing clergy bearing the bread and wine come quietly down the central aisle, turn to the north entrance, and stand reverently while the feeble priest joins in the sacramental feast. The young and the old, high churchmen and liberals, local leaders, and curious vis- itors from across seas, the earnest and the frivolous — they have all carried away from this morning sacra- ment a deeper conception of the meaning of the Church Catholic, and a fuller sense of the kinship of all worshipers. I cannot think of any service in any church of England that could mean more to you and me than this early communion in Canterbury. As we come out through the porch of the marble saints, Bell 145 EIGHT' LANDS IN Harry with his mellow tones is beginning to count the hours from his central tower, just as he has done for saints and sinners these four hundred years. "Kneel, kneel, kneel," he calls to us. The. Norman Sta_trca.se. Later in the day we walked around the beautiful pile — I cannot tell you of what, partly church, partly ruins, partly ancient cloisters, partly modern deanery, partly the King's School, where every stranger goes to see the lovely Norman staircase. Everywhere gray stone and ivy, towers and cloisters and portals, set in English green of grass and forest trees. We are ready now to embark for France, knowing that there can be nothing better for our farewell mem- ory. From Chester to Canterbury our motherland has been all that heart could desire ; and we think that Shakespeare showed his usual sound sense when he put into the mouth of an English king this choice de- scription of his beloved island : 146 r EI'GHT WEEKS "This fortress, built by Nature for herself, Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." "THIS ENGLAND." Monday Morning. Before the English Channel washes a single im- pression from my mind I must mention to you a few that have been growing upon us during our fortnight on English soil. First, the finished manner of speech of the women, especially the young women. We heard it first in the bookkeeper at our hotel, rich, ringing, clear and fine, as though speech were a pleasure instead of a necessity. Where did they get it? It belongs, as you see, not to the highest ranks alone, or to the highly cultivated. Has some princess set the fashion? or the heroines of the theatre? or the teach- ers of elocution? I am sure it was not noticeable a score of years ago. There is just a little lack of indi- viduality about it — a trifle of the sense of talking up to a standard ; but such a standard ! I could do no less than covet it for some of our slovenly talkers at home. I am sure one of these English barmaids would be a great addition to some of our eastern women's colleges. What do I mean, you indignantly ask. Well, come and see, or come and hear. Every word is spoken well, every tone is clear, and utterance is, as I have before said, "con amore." Among the men there is nothing equal to it, no corresponding richness of voice; but a certain courtesy in the uniform cir- 147 EIGHT LANDS IN cumflex accent of their thank you, that is the oppo- site of carelessness, and a clear way of saying yes, as though they were not ashamed of it. When I heard an American D. D. answer "yep" to the hotel clerk to-day, I wanted to hide my face. Next, those flowers that I have already mentioned. Even in London they followed us; rows and rows of window boxes to gladden barren streets ; only that they had lost the taste and variety of the north. Red geraniums toward the windowpanes, and our Ameri- can daisies nodding to the street are a pretty combi- nation, but may be carried too far in a city of a few million windows. Third, a general habit of being well informed about one's own locality. I began to wonder how many cabmen could be found in a certain little city I know in America who could drive a company around for an hour, giving correct local and historical informa- tion about public buildings, residences and parks, as two cab drivers did for our eight in Edinburgh. Each carriage load was sure that it had the pleasanter and better informed man. This comes partly from the fact that an Englishman is brought up to a trade and expects to keep to it. With our American facility in taking up new trades, we often fail of excellence in any one of them. A guide who showed us about Ken- ilworth — quite a young man — said : "I 'ave made the study of this castle my business for years ; and al- though I'd not say that I know hevery thing about it, I 'ardly think there is any matter of himportance that I would leave out." And it seemed to us that he lived up to his professions. Last, the birds. Who would have thought that a London sojourn would favor us with performances by the lark, the robin and the nightingale? Well, this is the way it stands. An afternoon visit to Purley, a 148 EIGHT WEEKS little way down in Surrey, to greet old friends in their pretty country home, and see how they had turned two steep town lots into a bower of terraces and a velvet tennis court, gave us a twilight walk by fields and woods with larks warbling unseen high in the air, and one consenting robin ringing out a few notes for our benefit. And the nightingale ? You may think this a little facetious, but, when returning from a subway station amid the rattle of traffic, I heard a single clear voice, without effort and without fear, filling all the empty space with melody — a solitary woman at a street corner sanctifying the hurly-burly with song— I said to myself, "A London nightingale," and never since I entered the kingdom had I so longed to dispose of a little British money in the way of a fee; but I was too far away. The next day, on our own street, a solitary woman again, looking up at some quiet residences, was closing her song as I looked out. Clear, uplifted, rising with its theme, it slowly sounded forth Hal-le-lu-yah ! Glory in the highest ! "London nightingales," say I. Farewell to you, and farewell to old England. M. 149 \ PART III— FRANCE. XXI— ACROSS 1 m CHANNEL. Weather ltidlca-tuoti5» — Sinooth Monday, July 19, At the Hotel de France et d'Angleterre, Amiens. Dear friends: Nous void. All still alive, after the perils of the English Channel, and established in a typical French hotel of the Provinces. I dare say it would have been an interesting sight for an outsider to observe our eight attitudes toward this morning's journey. Some of us were careful about overeating at breakfast; others fortified themselves by a good, square meal. Some of us observed the winds, some the barometer. One speculated upon the passage ; another made preparations for spending her time in the steamer's cabin ; a third thought open air the best panacea for seasickness ; a fourth declared that one hour and a quarter could not possibly last long, and a fifth preferred to ignore mal de mer altogether and, 153 EIGHT LANDS IN according to one of our mottoes before recorded, be prepared for the best. Arrived on board, there was as much variety, for while we eagerly scanned the chalk cliffs of Dover, and thought of the well painted experiences of Gloucester in King Lear, some of us had secured seats where fresh air almost blew us from our chairs ; others found a sheltered nook in the sun ; some ate a hearty lunch, others almost none ; and our Lady in Green kept her eyes and thoughts on the baggage. And what was the result? The ill-reputed Channel, as far as eye could see, was as quiet as the placid waters of the St. Lawrence. My Lady of the Veil found her appetite suddenly returned when safely on the railway, and clamored for her neglected share of the lunch. But is it not surprising that this little strip of ocean, which the French call the Sleeve, this little blue strait only twenty miles in width, across which the two countries can view one another's hills on any fair day, should sunder nations so different, so often at war, of customs and characters unlike, and of tongues unin- telligible to one another? No sooner do we touch French soil than everything upon the wharf is heard to be chattering French — still worse, declines to un- derstand English, as though we had come from a land a thousand miles away. The customs officials cannot even put their noses into our suit-cases but in French, and My Lady of the Guide Book begins to feel her- self of immense importance. All along our railroad journey our eyes are to the windows, as though we were not dead asleep with our breath of ocean air, and we soon see that we have come to a landscape wholly different from that we have left behind. It would seem as though the northern coast of France could not be very unlike the southern coast of England ; but, whether it be soil, or prevailing J 54 EIGHT WEEKS winds, or cultivation — we are in new surroundings. No more heavy, waxen leaves bending the trees down with their weight ; but delicate sprays of foliage lifted high on slender, swaying trunks, and recalling all the pictures we have ever seen by French artists. The green of the grass shows a similar difference, but is gay with scarlet poppies, blue corn-flowers, and other blossoms that we do not know. The fields are often wholly undivided, but oftener marked by a row of trees all around the border, giving delightful chances of shade to man and beast, without shutting off an appreciable amount of sun. Sometimes a road runs between these adjoining fields, which stretch out in straight lines from the railroad, and furnishes an in- stantaneous vista as it swings past. Even the forest trees have the same maiden-like slenderness, as though they were waiting for an artist of Barbizon. The vil- lages show roofs of red tile or grey slate, thatches being rare. All the places we whiz through on this express look prosperous, and we are glad in the larger towns to pass roomy playgrounds, well equipped and well patronized. Arrived in Amiens, we are to stay only long enough to see our first French cathedral and revive our memories of Peter the Hermit and his preaching of the First Crusade. Our hotel, which we chose because we loved Eng- land and hoped to love France, was at once a delight to us ; for, instead of presenting a proper front door with steps, as in England or America, it opens a wide portal where omnibuses, carts, and motor cars pass through to the paved court within; and across this court, with its balconies, flowers, and running water, we are privileged to trip back and forth between the dining rooms and the halls that lead to the chambers. The rooms are large and lofty, as though the place might have been a palace, and the bedsteads are piled 155 EIGHT LANDS IN with mattresses. Somewhere a German trait has crept in, for several of our party are at this moment stowed away under down comforters, and others under gen- uine feather beds, even though this is July. On our dining table the flowers at once delighted us with new blossoms and happy combinations ; but when we looked too close we found them of the genus that is independent of fresh water — in fact of silk. Now isn't that a French touch, to reach the home of arti- ficial flowers so soon ? We have been out to take our first view of the cathe- dral, and again we are happy. This city of some 90,000 inhabitants is just as narrow of street and old in style in its centre as though its outskirts were not roomy with encircling boulevards and straight ave- nues, botanic gardens and parks. All European cities have this great advantage over those in the new world, that they have an opportunity to tear down their old walls and lay out boulevards in their place. Paris set the fashion when she enlarged her borders in the days of Louis XIV; and almost every French city has fol- lowed, or will soon follow, her lead ; only, unlike Paris, they are not building a new wall as a successor to the old. For centuries strength of defense was the first essential for a city ; and within the wall streets must be narrow and gardens few ; but the great public buildings, cathedral, city hall, palais de justice, as the courthouses are called in France, and many private palaces were made large and beautiful, so that when the nineteenth century came and cities had learned to live in peace with one another, there was a medieval centre worthy of preservation, around which a city built for comfort and natural beauty could unfold a bowery frame. Through cramped thoroughfares, then, past heavy walls with doors and windows framed palatially, or equally heavy business blocks with stuffy 156 EIGHT WEEKS little shops, we wind about, turn a few corners, and lo ! again we are in Fairyland of the deepest dye— of the most surprising transformations. For just a stone's throw away, across a proper little paved square, fronted with fine but modern buildings put up to do honor to their great neighbor, rises a thing of majesty 157 EIGHT LANDS IN and beauty, as though Canterbury's portico of saints had lifted up its head and grown into a whole house of God. Gray with age and glorious with sculpture, it lifts up towers of unlike designs on either side of its fagade, flanking a splendid rose window. Before the sunset light forsakes us, let us look a little more closely at this fagade. What marvels are these three vast portals, dedicated respectively to St. Firmin, the bishop martyr of Amiens, to our Lord, and to the Blessed Virgin ! In the tympanum of the central arch we see the Last Judgment — a good study, when you can get hold of a photograph to examine its hundred and fifty figures ; below the saints and apostles in relief, a colossal statue of Christ treading upon a lion and a dragon while his hand uplifted in blessing has endeared this figure to the city under the name of "The Beautiful God of Amiens." This statue is on the pillar that divides the portal in two, and around the receding vault are the Wise and Foolish Virgins. The other portals are of a similar arrange- ment, but representing scenes and saints appropriate to their leading motives. Along the base of them all is a pretty paneling in which, as you look nearer, you find that the centres are choice bas reliefs representing virtues and vices, trades, and family life. Above these three portals runs a gallery in which are ranged the forty-two kings of Israel. Still above this is the rose window thirty-five feet in diameter — that means larger than the drawing-room floor of any of you who read this; and then another short gallery connecting the towers. These are of unequal height and different style of openwork decoration — one with lancet win- dows of the thirteenth century, when the cathedral began to be; the other more ornate, of two hundred years later. A slender spire which the French call an arrow, soars up from the intersection to the giddy 158 EIGHT WEEKS height of 310 feet. This last is of wood covered with lead ; everything else is in gray stone — two beautiful portals to the south, in the tower and in the transept — the latter again having a rose with tracery, called the Wheel of Fortune, and another portal to the north which we cannot so easily study, because of the ad- joining buildings that in medieval economy of space, shut it out. To the east of the cathedral stands in bronze Peter the Hermit. His work was shaking all Europe to its foundations a hundred years before this ancient build- ing was begun. We are touching old days and far- reaching movements ; let us go back to our hotel and give our interests another widening stretch, while we dream under the feather beds. Will the temple also be beautiful within? Yes, it was more than satisfying, with its six score Gothic columns leaping up six score feet to the vaulted roof, and its aisles and chapels continuing all the way around the choir in what is known in French archi- tecture as a chevet; and for those who can take time to see it, the choir screen, with painted and gilded reliefs, and the choir stalls with hundreds of Bible scenes carved in wood, and thousands of figures intro- duced, are such marvels that one does not wonder at Baedeker's double stars. We are beginning to have considerable respect for these stars, and when we get back to our homes, and to that leisure that always beckons like the foot of the rainbow to its pot of gold, we'll take a solid week for Ruskin's "Bible of Amiens." Amiens and Rheims are rival cathedrals in their beauty and in their associations. We cannot see the latter on this journey, but it is only by laying main force upon my pen that I can spare you a comparison between the two. EIGHT LANDS IN We are to stop over a train at Beauvais to see French cathedral number two ; and by way of putting a distinct line of demarkation between these cathe- drals, just rhyme a little with me about Amiens' greatest saint: PETER OF AMIENS. What ho! good folk, for the Holy Land, The Holy City, the holy strand, To drive afar the infidel band From the grave of Christ the Lord ! What ho! good folk, for Jerusalem, For Nazareth, for Bethlehem, Till Japhet dwell in the tents of Shem By the grave of Christ the Lord ! It is the Monk of Amiens, He cometh from afar; He rideth on a lowly ass, But he bringeth words of war. He bringeth words from the Holy See, From Urban, Pope of Rome; A blessing on all that follow the cross, A curse on laggards at home. Peter of Amiens, whither away Along the dusty street, With cockle-shell and crucifix, And worshipers at your feet? 160 EIGHT WEEKS Oh, I am journeying far and far, Afar over land and sea To Canaan's shore, as once before, Where the holy sepulchres be. For erst I dwelt in Amiens town, And wife and child had I; Till Christ me left of all bereft, That I to him might fly. Howbeit, first in worldly wars I strove to drown my grief; But from sorrow and sin no voice within Would give my soul relief. And next I learned from holy monks To watch and fast and pray; My flesh I scourged, my sins I purged Through weary night and day. But even thus I found no peace, Nor yet in holy Rome; For ever a cry fell from the sky, "Flee from the wrath to come!" So last of all to Jerusalem For grace of pilgrimage; But alas ! For peace and sin's surcease I found the Seljuk's rage. And never in all the Flemish wars, Where Teuton strove with Frank, Had I harried my soul with deeds so foul That to the heavens stank. 161 EIGHT LANDS IX Thereat I vowed a solemn vow To God and His Holiness, That Walish land and Frankish land Should learn of our Lord's distress, Till they rouse themselves for a holy war, The war of wars for me, To bleed for Him who bled for us Long since on Calvary. So again my goal is Jerusalem, Jerusalem, my bride; And they be kith and kin to me Who will journey at my side, Until at last, on Olive's brow, We plant the conquering cross; Then rate we pains as golden gains, And earthly joy as dross. Behold, good folk ! For Bethlehem's star The Paynim's crescent glows afar And Turkish hordes the entrance bar To the grave of Christ the Lord. Now God Himself doth you invite To arm you for the holy fight, Set up your banners in His might, And battle for Christ the Lord! His head is bare, and bare his feet, His girdle a hempen rope; From Tiber to Seine his clarion voice Proclaimeth wrath and hope. 162 EIGHT WEEKS O flee away to the City of God, With heads adown and feet unshod, And mark with blood the path He trod To the grave of Christ the Lord ! For why, poor folk, should you tarry here While God in judgment draweth near To make your scarlet sins appear At the coming of Christ the Lord? Down steps the knight from his ivied tower, The prince steps down from his throne; And ladies clad in silken gowns Steal out from halls of stone. And mothers bring their weanling babes, And fathers lead their sons; Before the feet of the patient ass A crowd of children runs ; And cripple on crutch, and beggar in rags, And halt and lame and blind, And sinner and saint without complaint Leave land and love behind; Till towns are emptied of their folk And every trade is dead — The road aswarm with jostling crowds, The Hermit at their head. Awake, dull folk, the trumpets bray ! Gird up your loins and haste away To meet the judge on judgment day By the grave of Christ the Lord ! 163 EIGHT LANDS IN What ho, good folk, for sins forgiven, What ho, for peace and sinners shriven ! What ho, for the certain gate to Heaven By the grave of Christ the Lord ! Far, far away in "gray on gray" Peter the Hermit rides to-day, But down the line of the centuries nine His voice is calling clear and fine : What ho, good folk, for the Holy Land, The Holy City, the holy strand, To rout and flout the infidel band At the grave of Christ our Lord ! 164 EIGHT WEEKS XXII— BEAUVAIS. Tuesday, July 20. And here is Paris beginning to loom up on our horizon — not actually, but in our mind's eyes — our big- gest proposition yet; for though it is no larger than London, it has to be done in French, and so, as you may say, by us in a body; while in England's capital we were each one a law unto herself. But before we reach it you will stop over one train at Beauvais, will you not? Do you realize what a perfect network of cathedral towns you are passing through in reaching Paris? This is a regular tramping ground of old Gothic build- ers, and when one thinks of the shortness of time and the scarcity of money, and then reads over such names as Soissons and Laon, Rouen, Beauvais and Amiens, Caen and Evreux, and their compeers, he is near despair. However, any one cathedral helps you the better to understand the next, either from actual sight or from photograph. But aside from architecture, what is the use of these cathedrals, any way? Too large to worship in with any degree of convenience; too large to heat in winter; a great pile of architecture and sculpture with the seal of Christianity put on them — and prec- ious little Christianity in the results. Imagine the same money invested in a dozen comfortable churches, a hospital, an orphan asylum, and a few 165 EIGHT LANDS IN schools; wouldn't that be much more to the glory of the Creator and in the spirit of the Man of Galilee? Ah, yes ; but churches exist for the glory of God in two ways : they represent Him as present in our midst as truly as they give us places for worship. Was it nothing to us to see the little spires point heavenward from the New Brunswick fishing hamlets ? And would you have just a little spire from a great city? Doesn't it make your heart leap up to see the House of God dwarf all the houses of the town, and to know that its beauty excels that of the Chamber of Commerce and the courts of law ! The beauty of holiness, you say, should dwell with- in us; and a score of decent little churches, with neat carpets on their floors and cushions on their cleanly seats, and fresh, warm air to breathe, would give a far better encouragement for the growth of Christian vir- tues than these cold vaults, with all their gorgeous windows. Now are you so sure of that? All people don't get their inspirations in the same way as yours. To come to church at the call of the bell, dressed all in Sunday clothes, and give a choice hour to praise and prayer and sermon, may be our best means of grace; but think of the thousands who come into these cathedrals in their every-day aprons, with their market baskets on their arms, and drop down on these pavements to tell the Christ or the Virgin of their wants. Does it mean nothing to them that the church is all glorious within, that its pillars are set with saints and its win- dows with holy tales? that a little light is burning on the altar as a welcome to them in the great darkness? a little light that means to them "My Lord is sacri- ficed for me." You don't much think that the greatness and ex- pense means anything to these simple people who wor- 166 EIGHT WEEKS ship in these simple ways. You say that the little churches are just as much frequented, provided they have enough of tawdry ornament and a lot of cheap saints to appeal to the ignorant craving for images. Ah, but the cathedral is the church of the whole diocese; it must measure itself to fit the needs of all ranks, and to give inspirations to all souls ; it is the mother church, and must be spacious enough to show hospitality to all the children. It grows from gener- ation to generation, and carries traditions down from century to century. Perhaps it may be our good for- tune on some feast day to see a few thousand people gather without crowding in one of these vast temples, hear the great organ and an orchestra beside roll the praises out upon the air, as I once did at Rheims; watch the long processions go round and round among the pillars, and get a little idea of what it means to worship "in the great congregation." Do you believe that Greeks and Romans and Jews were more of hypo- crites and less of God worshipers because they made their temples of the best they had, and fashioned them according to their highest standards? And just sup- posing that we had a glorious cathedral in our town, with sculpture and painting that threw our private possessions into the shade, don't you believe that the pride we should have in it would be a refiner to our character and an inspiration to those good works of mercy for which you have put in a plea? Thus My Lady Persistent and I have been talking these things over just a few miles away from giddy Paris; and although we cannot answer all the ques- tions that we ask ourselves, we feel that those very questions may set us on the way toward the truth. But now you must hear about Beauvais, that giant that miscalculated his powers, and having tried to outdo all his fellows, has been on his penitent knees 167 EIGHT LANDS IN for three or four centuries since. The cathedral is a huge cripple, as you would see from the car window — a choir and transepts with neither nave nor towers, but such a mountain of buttresses and windows that you are sure you want to stop over and see it. Cabs are scarce in Beauvais, and having let the city bus escape while deciding what disposal to make of bag- gage, we walk a good half mile and interview unnum- bered citizens, drivers of private carriages, and livery owners, before we secure a conveyance that will man- age to carry three. We take it by the hour and keep it running between the station and the cathedral, with side trips out into the boulevards ; for one likes, beside seeing the one object of a visit, to carry away some little idea of the city; and this one is quite attractive in its contrast between its streets of eight-foot width and its central square, large, open, with dignified medieval buildings all around and fountain and statues in the middle. The pedestrians wondered how they were ever to climb the hill on which the cathedral 168 EIGHT WEEKS stood; but arrived at its foot, there was no hill to climb ; the great building itself had done all the climb- ing. And therein lay its weakness. Begun in the earliest days of the Gothic, when architects were ex- pecting miracles of these pointed arches, traceried windows and flying buttresses to support roofs of stone — its plan called for the loftiest roof in existence and the slenderest supports. But twice this bold roof fell in, the buttresses had to be increased in number, the glorious portal and rose window of the south transept must take the place of the intended west facade; even the slender spire that shot up from the intersection for 450 feet at last crashed down for lack of a west nave to buttress it, and so the giant has been obliged to tarry ever since in the midst of his mad career, patiently looking down on the little old Romanesque church at his foot, smug and content, as who should say, "Oh, no, I am not proud ; only faithful," and realizing that it stands exactly where his great nave was to have risen. How do they think of one another — the splendid cripple, holding his head high in disgrace, and the little elder brother, with memories of Pepin and Charlemagne? Now come inside, and you do not wonder if this fallen prince is proud. Did you ever lift your head to such heights and to such magnificence? Back and forth you wander, trying to take the vastness in ; look- ing now at the glory of the windows, now at the tap- estries hung along the west wall ; now walking through the aisles and around the ambulatory, now right under the highest arch of the roof. Will it choose this particular moment to fall once more, and include us in its great catastrophe? My Lady in Green insists on having us each take a special prome- nade along the north aisle, where the comparatively low arching shuts off the upper part of a slender win- 169 EIGHT LANDS IN dow in that unhappy west wall. As you approach it you see more and more of the window, higher and higher ; one section of the tracery above another ; your head lifts, your neck aches ; and when at last the top comes in sight your stunt is finished and my Lady hopes that you realize to what a height you are look- ing. In the meantime My Lady Practical, who wishes to miss no good thing ; My Lady Persistent, who bears her out in such ambitions, and one or two others have allowed a certain custodian to think that they would like to see the marvelous clock, a rival of the clock of Strasburg — this clock with half a hundred faces and four score stories to tell — this clock of 90,000 pieces — as though we were not looking at 90,000 pieces when- ever we give a glance at this interior! With such tales of magic they are beguiled behind a great wooden partition, most inappropriate in these artistic sur- roundings, are relieved of several francs and a half- hour of time, while the delighted verger puts his piece of mechanism through its paces and uses his most charming French on uncomprehending ears. Photographs, of course, of the cathedral and of Norman peasants with kindly, seamed faces at work in caps and blouses in the doors of their country cot- tages — these we buy in haste between the stationward trips of our one cab ; a last look at the pretty parks that have been laid out as entrances to the town — for these European cities have an idea that a place should turn its best face toward the railway station, instead of its slums and back doors — and we are in our re- served compartment, tired and happy; hungry, too, and wondering what good things Paris has in store for us. And now we are passing railroad tracks innumer- able, walls many, so that we seem to have entered the 170 EIGHT WEEKS city a dozen times. Paris is actually near at hand ; farewell until I can tell you more about it. Take warning from Beauvais ; throw away ambi- tion ; don't get nervous prostration by insisting that your this year's work shall outdo all its predecessors before you take your summer holiday. I know some of your Beauvaisian tendencies in that direction. Farewell, and fare slowly. M. 171 EIGHT LANDS IN XXIII— PARIS. Mes chers amis: I have said that Paris is a big proposition. To do anything satisfactorily with it in less than a week you need to know beforehand all that you will know in the end ; and then you will be able to spend all your time in getting to the scheduled places, and all your brains in taking in the scheduled works of art. If any of you who are hoping to visit the city next year are not already cyclopedias of French history, I would suggest that you get a few of the salient and most picturesque points arranged as pegs in your mind in such order that you can hang further acquisitions of knowledge neatly and easily upon them, and I give you a little table here that may be useful, but would better be skipped by those of you 172 EIGHT WEEKS who know it already, and by those who don't know it at all. It is only good for freshening up faded bits of knowledge, and for preventing that sense of confusion that comes from trying to put a new fact with an old one that has escaped you : Ancient Gaul, conquered by Julius Caesar, 54-51 B. C. Held by Rome till the Battle of Soissons by Clo- vis, 486 A. D. St. Denis (Dyonisius), Chris- tian martyr, 270. Franks, from across the Rhine, became permanent rulers. Merovingian Kings. Clovis, baptized 496 A. D. by St. Remi (Remigius), using the Ste. Am- poule, holy vase, brought by an angel from Heaven. Ste. Genevieve, patron saint during these times, 422-522. Carolingians (752-987). Pepin, Charlemagne — ; called by his German subjects Karl der Grosse. Capetians (987-1328.) Hugh Capet made Paris his capital. Notre Dame begun 1 1 63. Philip Augustus, 1 180-1223. Third Crusade with Richard I of England. The "Second Founder of Paris," includes in one wall La Cite on the island, La Ville, north bank, and L'Universite, south bank. Louis IX — St. Louis, 1226-1270. Sorbonne founded, Ste. Chapelle built. House of Valois, 1328-1589. Hundred Years' War with England, 1339- 1453. Joan of Arc relieves Orleans, 1429; crowns Charles VII at Rheims ; burned by the Eng- lish at Rouen, 143 1. 173 EIGHT LANDS IN Francis I, a third remarkable ruler with Henry VIII, England, and Charles V, Germany ; begins the Louvre ; makes a fortress of Fontainebleau. Catherine de Medici, with her son, Charles IX. Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1572; Conde, Caligny; Huguenots. House of Bourbon, 1 589-1 793. Henry of Navarre, and his white plume ; Edict of Nantes, 1598; Marie de Medici ; Richelieu. Louis XIV, le grand monarch. Lays out the first boulevards. Louis XVI and queen, Marie Antoinette, die on the guillotine at the hands of the revolu- tionists. First republic, 1793- 1804. First empire, Napoleon, 1804-1814. Restoration of kings, 1814-1848. Second republic, 1848-1852. Second empire, Louis Napoleon, 1852- 1870. Third republic, following Franco-Prussian war, 1870. Now for topography. Conduct the River Seine, a little narrower than the Thames at London, from east to west in a big northerly curve through the southern part of the heart-shaped, walled city ; on its north bank place the Louvre; west of that the splendid combi- nation of avenue and park known as the Champs Elysees, leading up to the Arc de Triomphe, and farther north the finest boulevards and residence streets. In the river put the island, "La Cite," on which stands Notre Dame and the Ste. Chapelle. South of the river place the Latin Quarter, the Lux- embourg Palace and Gardens — a grand pleasure ground for old and young; the Sorbonne, the Pantheon, the Hotel des Invalides (Napoleon's EIGHT WEEKS tomb), and not far off the Eiffel Tower. Out- side the city, at the west, place the finest park — the Bois de Boulogne ; at the east the Bois de Vincennes ; north, some miles away, St. Denis with its cathedral, the burial place of kings ; to the southwest Versailles, palace and gardens, forced into existence at the ex- pense of millions on an arid plain by Louis XIV, one of the great palaces of Europe ; to the southeast Fon- tainebleau in a lovely region of hills and valleys, rocks and forests, a chateau, a fortress, a palace of gradual growth. Add to these the cemeteries of Pere LaChaise and others, the Jardin des Plantes, which is botanical gar- den and zoo combined ; the sewers, where you may take a pleasant underground sail through well flushed canals ; the catacombs, where the bones of the poor are stowed away after a few years' rest in the earth ; forty museums besides the Louvre and the Luxem- bourg; the tapestry manufactures of les Gobelins, the porcelain factory at Sevres, and a few other trifles to the number of about ten thousand. The methods of handling this problem are various and simple. My Lady Bright Eyes has chosen the sim- plest ; she has taken a fine cold and gone to bed. Our Lady of the Star has hitched her chariot to the Louvre, than which one could not do better; for come what may in changing seasons and attractions many, there stand the marble gods and gods of granite, row on row, and pillared hall on hall ; there hang the visions of the world's painters in their gold frames along miles of palace walls ; there are the tapestries and brocades and laces, the carved and inlaid woods, the ivories and porcelains, the embossed gold and fretted silver of generations of cunning artificers, all ready to rejoice your hearts and enlighten your minds. My Lady of the Veil and some few others decide to vi- 175 EIGHT LANDS IN brate between shows and shops; for besides the ten thousand things mentioned above, there is a trifle of ten thousand shops ! The rest of us have adopted what might be called a process of renunciation ; every day we shall cut off a dozen or two essentials that cannot be done, and get in a hurried look at two or three that are achievable, ending up, probably, in a shop, or possibly, to our great content, in the Opera House. This plain and easy course being decided upon, we next consider our means of locomotion. The two- story trams, which were long the delight of sight- seers here, now thunder back and forth across the streets, propelled by some automobile power which renders them perfectly safe, perfectly frightful to the passenger, who lurches this way and that, and so noisy that communication on them is at the peril of your vocal cords. The cab and cabmen remain ubiq- uitous, and are less despotic now that they have rivals in automobiles ; they are generally accommodating and courteous, and if not always the soul of honesty, still are vastly improved by that little system of self-reg- istering prices by which the traveler watches a dial mark the francs as the time and distance fly by. But a cab, when you are bound from one side of Paris to another, looks like a slow thing in these days. For the longest distances the subway or "tube" is the thing; but even the tube has many stops to make, many changes of carriage, many steps to climb, cor- ridors to race through, and elevators to take in this process of changing; add to which the fact that the stations are not always right at hand, but are always reached by a long plunge of stairs down into the bow- els of the earth, and you will see that it requires a person of brains and brawn to travel on the "sou- terrain." Now what remains after these three and the 176 EIGHT WEEKS old, horse-drawn omnibus, which is both slow and noisy, is the autocab, which is a terror to pedestrians, but a comfort to the sightseer. It is almost as noisy as the autotram ; but it is as absolutely at your disposal as a cab, registers its distances and prices right before your eyes, and has only this drawback — that it keeps you always weighing in your mind so much stop against so much money, one extra corner against one extra franc, until you feel like an automatic register yourself. After all which consideration I think we will have our porter whistle for two of these con- venient conveyances, finish all important intercom- TTTaja of- YcLhJA munications before we start, have our bronchial tubes insured, and set forth on a half-day's sightseeing. Having been well put on your feet, or put into your auto, so to speak, in regard to history, topography and notable sights, you will be enabled by two or 177 EIGHT LANDS IN three tours like to-day's to play that you have spent a month in Paris, n'est-ce pas? (isn't that so?) That's a little phrase that the French use when they expect you to say yes, but think you may possibly say no. The traveler's first day seldom begins in the morn- ing; there are so many plans to decide upon, besides the weariness of yesterday's journey to recover from ; but there is enough of the twelve hours left to-day for a good bit of sightseeing. We will begin at the Louvre (i) as the real centre of the north side. See how it lies along the river for almost half a mile, stretching its two arms to the west ; how it has grown in three centuries from the east court of Francis I through countless wings and pavilions added by the Bourbons and Napoleon; also how it gives us a splendid study of architecture, from the dignified classic style of the east court to the high-water mark of French Renaissance in the man- sard roofs, ornate chimneys, and groups of sculpture of the west wings. The Palace of the Tuileries used to connect these western extremities till the Com- munists of 1 871 blew up this detested home and opened to the nation the lovely gardens before re- served for kings. We continue to the west, through the Champs Elysees to the unrivaled Arc de Triomphe (2), erected by Napoleon, from which place handsome residence streets diverge in all directions, giving the site the name of the Place d'fitoile — place of the star; then to the north and east so as to pass through the principal boulevards — broad streets with rows of trees down the centre — stopping on the way for a quick glance at the Opera House (3), one of the largest and hand- somest in Europe, and at the Madeleine (4), a huge Greek temple without, a Renaissance church within ; then further east to the Place de la Republique (5), 178 EIGHT WEEKS where a lofty bronze statue of the Republic in per- son, with her attendant genii of Liberty, Equality, Fra- ternity, furnishes the focal point for a good civic centre; south to the Place de la Bastille (6), where the July Column performs a like service on the spot where the old prison was torn down during the Revo- lution ; a little way to the west to the beautiful Hotel de Ville (7), and here we are near the river, opposite the island and Notre Dame (8), having completed a tour of the central part of the North Side. Do you notice how these last three points emphasize that rise of the common people that has come by fearful par- oxysms, but has come to stay? The July Column rejoices over the downfall of Bourbon tyranny in 1789 and the second struggle against it in the July Revolution of 1830, which put the Orleanist "citizen king" upon the throne. The Place de la Republique belongs to the rise of the third republic in 1870, and so, in a way, does the Hotel de Ville, which had always been a rallying point for the popular cause, but fell at the hands of the Communists of '71, to be re-erected when the true Republicans recovered power. Notice, also, what these boulevards and open grounds have done for this part of Paris ; the wilder- ness of narrow streets where discontent used to brew, they have opened up to the air and light, have given space for markets and street fairs, and for daily play- grounds for little children. The fact strikes us most forcibly, coming from the pretty, locked gardens in London squares, that every park in Paris is free to every citizen. Liberte, figalite, Fraternite — the motto seen on every public building — is not an empty boast. Do you realize what it means that all these forty mu- seums I have counted up are thrown open to the public for love? — to us the visiting public, as well as to the residents? How many francs does that save a 179 EIGHT LANDS IN party of eight in one short visit? In what other city of Europe shall we receive such hospitality? One more fact while we are touring these boule- vards. Although the original ones follow in general the curve of the old walls, this is a curve made up of many straight lines. At every bend a new name is given ; as far as one name runs the vista is con- tinuous ; and all the newer boulevards are long and straight. This means that there are really no winding streets in Paris except the old boulevard on the South Side, St. Germain, and that this city early attained what other cities are just striving after, a wonderful system of civic centres with converging vistas. Except for our beautiful Washington, laid out by a French- man with a lot of good Parisian points in mind, where can you find anything like it? Here is a pleasant experience of long ago on the upper story of a tram. Having asked some information of a courteous gen- tleman at my side, I was expressing my thanks and my appreciation of Paris, when I met this response : "Yes, Paris is the most beautiful city I know but one, and that one is Washington." And after all this com- pliment you know that I cannot refrain from asking you and us, Why are not we of the small cities far- sighted like our illustrious chief ? Why do we not call in the expert, so available in these days, to plan our thoroughfares, our squares, our breathing places, be- fore our central points are occupied with buildings too expensive to be sacrificed? Why not take the privi- lege of the adolescent, instead of hurrying ourselves into a state of ugly maturity ? In short, here is Paris, and here is Washington, but where are we? After which exhortation we will sign our chauffeur to go on across the Pont Notre Dame to the Island of la Cite, the original Paris. At our left is the huge Hotel Dieu, the most famous 1 80 EIGHT WEEKS of the twenty hospitals of the city, because it replaces the original Hotel Dieu of the seventh century, sup- posed to have been the oldest hospital in Europe. At our right is the flower market, where we at once feel inclined to give up all further sightseeing and devote ourselves to these most fresh and fragrant wares of most attractive saleswomen. Who can put flowers together like a French flower girl ? Wind the pots so neatly with paper of just the right color; set every plant in the surroundings that will show it at its best ; wrap the cut flowers so daintily that not a leaf will be crushed; and, finally, inveigle you out of the pence you had saved for your morning jam, to buy a nose- gay for your breakfast table ? Fortunately our chauf- feur is not easily arrested, and we are beyond peril and ready to alight for a short visit to Notre Dame. We know its dignified front, sculptured portals, rose window and towers and gallery from the photographs so common at home; but we are not prepared for the sense of largeness and warmth that greet us as we enter our first cathedral with double aisles, its vast spaces flooded with the light from three rose windows. By a good chance the great organ is filling the air with melody, I should think from all its 6,000 pipes; and though we tarry but a moment, remembering our chauffeur at the door, we are carrying away a new and lasting impression. Notre Dame dates from 1 163, being one of the earliest churches of the French Gothic. The round pillars show us that, for they are a reminder of the Romanesque. How did those first architects achieve such a success? And to think that in one of the city's paroxysms between the beheading of her king and of her queen, she came near to pulling down this, her joy and pride ! That was in the au- tumn of 1793, and before the year was over she had insulted it hardly less by converting it into a Temple 181 EIGHT LANDS IN Hotte (J) OU/H& of Reason, Liberty being enthroned in place of the Virgin, and a "torch of truth" flaming before Reason, exalted for worship in a Greek temple in the choir ! Then, for eight years, the church sat desolate, her portals closed, her sunny aisles unused, and awaited her fate. Napoleon restored her to her sacred uses in 182 EIGHT WEEKS time to crown himself emperor at her altar. In 1871 she was again in peril from the Communists. What a memory such a church must have ! At the west end of the island we visit the Palais de Justice, which has been growing- into its present immensity from the days of Roman governors and Frankish kings. It, too, has thrilling memories, among them those of Queen Marie Antoinette, who was a prisoner in its dungeons near the Seine — the part called the conciergerie — and of her executioner, Robe- spierre, who a little later shared her fate. But from the tragedies which we would gladly for- get we turn to the ancient royal chapel built by St. Louis in the thirteenth century to hold the relics he had bought from the king of Jerusalem. It is a small church, more like the choir of a cathedral — but such a choir ! Window after window towering up to the roof, like those in the Chapter House at York, all ablaze with color, and held by such narrow spaces of buttressed walls as to make this seem a church of glass. In our days such a building is not impossible. One admires, and adds, "Steel framework, of course." But in the stone age of architecture — Oh, beautiful age, never to be outdone ! — it was little less than a miracle. We visit both stories — for there was a lower church for palace "help" and an upper church for crowned heads — and find the lower much simpler, but beautiful in proportions, and adorned with the lilies of France all over its colored and gilded walls. The lilies, as we learn, have been so long a favorite emblem in France that one wishes they might still have a place in the flag of the Republic. The first general standard for the nation seems to have been the oriflamme — or golden flame — adopted by Philip I in 1060. It was a scarlet jagged pennant hung from a golden staff, adopted from the martyred Saint 183 EIGHT LANDS IN Denis, and, except when carried in battle, was kept hanging over the altar of the church of his name. This banner was lost at the battle of Agincourt, 1415. It was followed by a white banner sprinkled over with the golden lilies or fleur de lis of the House of Valois. The Bourbons reduced the lilies to three in number, and represented them on a ground of blue or of red. The Republic swept away all lilies, but kept the three colors in three upright stripes. Napoleon found that Charlemange had once used the honey bee as a sym- bol of his industry, and desiring to emulate that great ruler in all things, adopted it as his coat of arms. The present Republic has, of course, gone back to the tri-color. From this Sainte Chapelle we pass to what was once the palace, now the halls of the judges and law- yers of the supreme court. They flit about in black gowns that trail on state occasions, but are now neatly looped up with pins, intent on briefs and judgments. They rule now where velvet trains and clanking armor once held sway. But good King Louis used also to sit under an oak to judge his people's cause; and I like to think of him looking down on the ably ad- ministered courts of his beloved France. Now you know that our brains will not bear any more city sights and memory nudges on this our first day ; so let us take a restful little steamer down the Seine and look up at its thirty bridges as we pass underneath. Are they not a battalion to be proud of? No two alike, but every one calculating exactly the distance from shore to shore and the necessary bracing of shoulders to bear the day's burden. And see what a graceful whole results in each case from the right combination of arches and girders of steel, so as to give an impression of lightness as well as strength. Occasionally statuary adds a crowning touch, as when 184 EIGHT WEEKS Henry IV rides on horseback at the highest point of Pont Neuf, or where handsome groups guard the approaches to Pont Alexander III. But mostly it is the bridge itself that gives the sense of beauty and the great variety of excellences revealed to us as each new bridge comes sailing up over our heads. Patient, beautiful creatures, year in and year out. You have a pretty word to say to us fellow-bearers about carry- ing the day's burden well and gladly, and you say it in much plainer speech than some of your compatriots who have tried to make us understand their parlez- vous to-day. Good night, and choose your dreams between rose windows and steel bridges ; but dream not of the auto- bus, nor even of the necessary autocab. Lovingly yours, M. 185 EIGHT LANDS IN XXIV— PARIS. Paris, Thursday, July 22. We are holding grand councils of war in regard to the palace which we shall attack, for a palace we surely must capture in France, considering that in England we merely took an hour's look at Hampton Court. We range up our eight in two lines and make them give in turn the strongest arguments for Versailles and for Fontainebleau. My Lady of the Guide Book tries to be an impartial advocate for both sides. Then we resolve ourselves into a jury of eight and sit upon the evidence. After this mixed battle and court, we revert to other themes, and the next day begin the discussion all over again. The evidence, or influence, or heavy artillery stood this morning as follows : Versailles lies nearer Paris, but Fontainebleau will give us a lovely trip up the Seine. Versailles is a triumph of art over nature — and here follows an ac- count of the millions which Louis XIV sank in this "abyss of expenses," and of the 36,000 men and 8,000 horses employed at one time upon the terraces and drives — but Fontainebleau, on the other hand, is set in a region of magnificent timber and rocky gorges, its forest the forest in France, and is immortalized by Corot, Rousseau, Millet, and the rest of the Bar- bison school. Versailles is said to be so lovely that the sight of it is like Paradise to the Peri, and in itself is worth a journey across the sea. Fontaine- bleau is of "extent and magnificence almost un- 186 EIGHT WEEKS equalled." Versailles has been the favorite royal abode ever since Louis XIV; but Fontainebleau has been a favorite since the Louis of half that number, and has been especially distinguished by the residence of Francis I and of Napoleon Bonaparte. Versailles saw Louis XVI set upon by the revolutionists of 1789, and forced to follow their lead to his Tuileries home in town ; Fontainebleau saw two great divorces — Louis XIV divorcing France from religious liberty in sign- ing the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and Na- poleon signing the divorce of Josephine. But in Ver- sailles, you must remember, the German states elected William I head of the new empire ; and in Fontaine- bleau Napoleon reviewed his troops when he escaped like a caged eagle from Elba. In fact, the two pal- aces held their own pretty well thus far, and gave us opportunity to air all the bits of knowledge we had set out with, besides those we were always accumu- lating by the way. But when it came to Versailles' double-starred galleries of battle scenes, to the hall of the mirrors, to the two Trianons, one built for Mme. de Maintenon and one for Marie Antoinette; when, over all the other marvels the great fountains and the little fountains threw their silver sheen — the charms of Fontainebleau began to slip soberly back into the shadow, and it was generally felt that if, for any un- foreseen reason, those fountains should decide to play during this present week instead of on the first Sun- day of the month (and at a cost, remember, of 10,000 francs), there would no longer be any doubt which palace we would visit. At this point we decide to seize the fleeting moment and let the palace wait. So, with those same accom- modating chauffeurs, we take the south shore to-day, and see how much of our list we can mark off. Starting from La Cite, where we broke off yester- 187 EIGHT LANDS IN day, we turn directly south through the boulevard St. Michel, and find ourselves in the midst of scholarly Paris. It is a shock to an English-speaking traveler to discover that so prominent a boulevard is not known by name to the Parisians ; many an American has but- tonholed policemen in vain when in search of St. Michel's ; but ask for a certain San Mishell, and you'll find it without the least difficulty, and the Archangel himself, dragon and all, fronting you over a fountain place as you enter from the bridge. See what an atmosphere of learning we are plung- ing into. A little way down the river — as little ways go with autos — we should find the renowned Institute of France (9), whose five faculties of the sages keep the language and letters, the logic and ethics of the nation up to the standard. A little beyond this is the School of Fine Arts (10) ; but close at hand at our right is the School of Medicine (11), and its clin- iques, and at our left the huge Sorbonne (12). This last was founded by Sorbonne, the confessor of St. Louis, as a hostelry for poor students of theology, but during these seven hundred years has widened its scope until now it embraces three departments of the University of Paris — those of theology, literature and science — and is installed in a splendid pile of build- ings occupying several blocks, and gathering about it the College de France, law schools, normal schools, technical schools and preparatory schools. You understand now why this part of Paris is called the Latin Quarter, and why its residences, lodgings and restaurants put cheapness and comfort before style. Here is your place for renting microscopic flats, where a pretty rug, a few engravings from a second-hand shop, a couch with pillows, some rush- bottomed chairs and one large one of willow, a table and a bit of drapery will make you think you are the 188 EIGHT WEEKS King of Yvetot, or one of his courtiers. Add a tiny tea set, and you can have all your friends from the nearby artists' quarter for afternoon guests. But we are in our auto. "Let us return to our sheep," say the French. Just back of the Sorbonne, but facing an avenue that runs to the boulevard, is the Pantheon (14), first a church in memory of beloved Ste. Genevieve and built above her tomb ; then made by the revolutionists a pantheon, or temple, to all the gods — that is, the heroes of the nation ; and after that alternately church or temple, as the changing government has decreed. It is an impressive Renaissance Greek cross with lofty dome and a porch of Corinthian columns, splendid within through its wall paintings, in which Ste. Gene- vieve and Ste. Joan of Arc vie with each other as heroines, and through its vaults with marble tombs of the good and the great. How to draw a line between these two when it comes to a decision between church and temple, and how much honor to allow the really great on the part of the really good — this is the prob- lem that has knocked this Westminster of Paris back and forth between church and state. Woe is us if there should some day be such difficulty of judgment in the courts on high ! In this region, too, but a little nearer the Seine, lies the Hotel de Cluny (13), where we shall want to stay a week. During our first day's tour we thought Paris phenomenal in the number of its hotels, but now, with the mature experience of two days, we understand that that term hotel applies to any elegant building, as does also the word "palais." This hotel, or museum, of Cluny was first the residence of the few Roman emperors who used to sojourn here, Constantius and Julian especially, and of the earliest Frankish kings, but in the Middle Ages was handed over in a ruined 189 EIGHT LANDS IN state to the Monks of Cluny, who into its old arches, halls and thermae built a convent. The revolutionists turned this over to the state, which later made it a museum for the historic bric-a-brac of centuries. Just imagine every possible setting, from an ivy-grown castle court to a convent chapel, and every historic and artistic object of interest from broken capitals to Cluny laces ; stained glass, wood carvings and brass work ; altar pieces and chimney pieces ; crosiers and hunting horns; gold plate and gold crowns; swords set with jewels and chess-boards with men of crystal; crosses in copper and silver and enamel; ivory-bound gospels and illuminated missals ; and everywhere tapestries, old chests and carved tables — how can one grasp it, or carry it away ? Just as well to dismiss that chauffeur out of hand and stay here till lunch time. Do you know what a charming thing a lunch at a Paris restaurant may be? Now I don't mean at a high-toned thing of marble and mirrors, where you see yourself in your hundred worst traveling lights, and linger laboriously through a table d'hote; I mean a neat but cheap lunch place, where you set out to see how good a meal you can get for a quarter. It may be an "fitablissement Duval," with its black- frocked, white-capped maids, where you pay separately for every item, from napkins to bread; or it may be at a "fixed price" eating room, where for your quarter or a little more you have your choice of three out of five courses. At either place it is better for you to be two, for then you order mutton for one and salad for one, cheese for one and fruit for one, and have enough for both of you. And such salads ! Be sure not to omit the salad. Such crisp lettuce and chicory and cress ; and when you get one of those things that is a mixture of half a dozen greens served in a good 190 EIGHT WEEKS French dressing, you don't need much additional rel- ish. But what a fearful appetite one accumulates while deciding which is the very best hour for lunch, and which the nearest restaurant ! French breakfasts of coffee and rolls do hint at an early lunch ; but French dinners at half-past seven make a late lunch imper- ative ; and this daily problem of seven days in the week suggests to tourists the desirability of falling into German ways and having five meals a day. The air is full of pretty rumors about English afternoon tea and French after-dinner coffee ; but hotel proprietors can generally forget those possibilities most blandly. Refreshed by lunch, we take an hour in the Luxem- bourg (15), gallery of modern art, where we are im- pressed by a lot of ability, rather too much nudity, and a French sensationalism in some of the sculpture that seems less in the most modern works. Then we rest our eyes and limbs in the Luxembourg Gardens. What a model of playgrounds for old and young ! Trees overhead, harmless gravel underfoot, flowers and shrubs and fountains and statues at intervals, plenty of benches, lots of little children digging in the ground, hauling carts and coddling dollies while their mothers and nurses knit; boys and men playing ball, a merry-go-round here, a Punch and Judy show there, and room enough for everybody. This, you know, is right in the heart of the thickly settled Latin Quar- ter, and is the old palace grounds of Marie de Medici, whom Rubens exploits in his gorgeous, florid style in a great room in the Louvre. See all the pretty queens of France standing in a circle about this bit of garden. I'm sorry that time is blackening their marble ; I trust it does not blacken their fame as well. Another auto to get us to Napoleon's tomb (16) before closing hour. Twice already we have found the iron gate calmly locked in our faces. No, here 191 EIGHT LANDS IN we are at last before the gilded dome and entering this unique marble tomb — white, white on all sides except for the glow of gold that falls over the altar in the rear from stained glass windows. We stand at the circular marble balustrade and look down into the open crypt where, guarded by statues of victory and by veteran flags, stands the colossal sarcophagus of shining red granite, that has been gazed upon, I sup- pose, by more people, and with more conflicting emo- tions than any other tomb in the western world. Men used to look at it with plaudits or with curses. Now they quietly express an admiration of the man's abil- ities, but not of the man himself. Will it be a climax, then, or the opposite if from Bonaparte we turn to Mr. Eiffel and his tower? (17), for here it is, in plain sight and challenging us to a climb. Indeed, a structure touching close to a thou- sand feet must be in sight from every part of the city. From its pictures you would suppose that you could never look at it with the least admiration, it is so evi- dently constructed on the straddling plan of bracing itself for the worst. But when you find yourself looking out for it as you do for the North Star, ad- justing your whereabouts from it, comparing the great towers of the city with it in height, you see your re- spect for it is increasing. When you have once been to the summit, as we are going this afternoon, you cease to speak slightingly of it ; and when, some dewy morning, looking away through the city streets for blue distances, you espy it flung up into the sky like a spider's web, but straight and steadfast as the stone tower of St. Jacques, you conclude that it has elements of beauty in it, and that you will give it a little place in your heart. A big place, you may think, when you learn that those four legs of iron stretch out over a surface of two and a half acres. We are going to the 192 EIGHT WEEKS top of the highest tower on earth — 984 feet, to be ac- curate. The Metropolitan building in New York stands next at 700 feet, then Washington Monu- ment, 555 feet ; after these the Mole of Turin, Cologne Cathedral, and the rest. I can remember when the Great Pyramid carried off the palm ; but now behold us ancients left behind ! Venerable Cheops is at least the eighth in the race at present. Never mind, friend Cheops, a sound understanding counts for much in this world, and in that you'll not find a rival. We take a little sliding car up one of these slanting legs. It is arranged, like all funicular carriages, to have level seats, even if it does run on a steep up- grade; and by a pleasant ride we find ourselves in a few minutes at the first platform, which is as large as a small hotel and has shops, photograph galleries and the like scattered around it. Here we are at a level with church towers and can look down into the courts of all the houses. At the next platform we are in a large, glass-covered hall, and as we peep down from it we think Paris a great plain of house roofs and trees, with hills around ; we also have a lovely view of that most sinuous of rivers, the Seine, as it winds into the city and out again. Next we are invited into a hall that will hold some forty people, and find that it has begun to ascend. There are glass walls all around us, through which we see new hills rising on the hori- zon, and a barometer at one side in which the index finger is noticeably dropping. We begin to wonder whether those four legs stand firm, and remember with pleasure the thirty or forty feet of cement in which each one is sunk, and give thanks that they straddle. Here is another great room coming down beside us, and another forty people who want to change places with us ; so we play "stage coach" through some sliding doors, the other forty go on 193 EIGHT LANDS IN down, and we continue to rise. That index finger is dropping faster than we ever expected to see it ; new horizons are in sight; this can be equalled by nothing but a twentieth century balloon. And now we have arrived, we step out into a broad corridor enclosed with glass, which is really a huge room almost sixty feet square, the elevator we have just stepped out of being its core. Along the frame above the great win- dows are outlines of the horizons seen beneath, and, blessed be Paris ! the names of every hill and village and steeple top. For miles and miles we look over the entourage of the city with such interest we quite forget to think of elevation, and hardly need the coun- ter irritant of some delicious wafflettes hot from a charcoal furnace, to keep our senses calm. After fif- teen minutes enjoyment we take the return elevator down, join the minority of the timid who have waited for us in the park under the legs of our colossus, and for all the rest of the day we try not to be proud, and not to tell every person we meet, with our very first breath, that we have just come down from the Eiffel Tower. But our endeavors are vain ; we are proud, and we do tell every one we meet, and make the story as long as their patience will allow. This last I have done with you. But as for telling you with my first breath — no, indeed, beloved. I kept the best for the last. So adieu for to-night, and dream of widening horizons. M. 194 EIGHT WEEKS XXV— PARIS. Paris, Friday Noon, July 23. Dearly beloved: Have I told you that we are lodging in an old convent? This is our first experience of what I suppose we shall find not uncommon on this continent, the natural result of the seculariza- tion of such a lot of church property. It must be a strange experience to be suddenly shifted from state support to no support at all outside one's own parish ; but at least the church buildings continue in use. As the state seized them, it must keep them in repair. The church refuses to hire them. The state knows that no one would suffer more than itself from a clos- ing of houses of worship ; therefore it leaves the doors open in a compulsory truce, and the church goes in and out in silent protest. Convents lend themselves pretty well to secular uses ; the former chapel, at one side of ours, has been turned into a law school; a similar structure at the other side is rented to a lodge ; the central part is hotel, with the pretty cloisters as garden annex to the dining hall. I dare say they had to throw two cells together in making the present com- fortable bedrooms, and also put in an "ascenseur ;" but it is all very pretty and convenient, and we hope that the former monks have found work and homes to their liking. Great protests are made by the liberal party in Catholic countries against an army of useless ecclesiastics and friars, so long supported by the 195 EIGHT LANDS IN state ; and it certainly does seem to us, who have never had such an element in our society, that the days of monastic usefulness are mostly gone by. But the question forces itself upon us when we meet soldiers in squads about the streets, not in one city but in many — what about the support of this army? Is it earning its livelihood by any useful thing it is doing? That is a question beyond non-experts like myself; but it sets us all to thinking. One can't help having impressions, even after a sojourn of only three days ; and to me it seems that, from the standpoint of a city of delights, Paris misses her sovereigns. So long as there was a cultured, lux- urious ruler resident in the capital, he planned boule- vards and parks for the ostensible good of all, but according to his own tastes and desires, and taxed the people to pay for them. The city was, in its best parts, an expression of the aesthetic judgment of well- informed minds. Palace grounds and city parks must be so fresh and lovely that the queen and her ladies will forget the poverty of the faubourgs and not trou- ble their soft hearts with the complaints of the popu- lace. Now France is a republic, the people have a word to say as to how much money shall go into new avenues and the watering of the streets. If they decide that education and business demand more of the city's income, and certain pleasure places less, so it must be. Worse than this — I speak from the stand- point of the pleasure seeker — the whale of France is a republic, and the provinces demand a reasonable share in the general welfare. Paris may no longer be a residence for the delight of the few, and she gives us no impression of a pleasure city. Business is rush- ing night and day; the noise of careering autobuses and trams is equalled only by the innumerable auto- mobiles that carry on private traffic or vie with the 196 EIGHT WEEKS cabmen in hurrying the busy world from one scene of activity to another. Shops seem to us more bent on disposing of second-rate wares than on setting a standard for the mercantile world. The city seems intent on getting a living or on making fortunes, and largely oblivious of its statues and arches, its towers and bridges, its avenues of trees, set with admiring pride by the powers of fifty years ago. It irks us to have to dodge the noisy crowd as one would do in New York, and to see clouds of dust blow past the fountains and obelisk of the Place de la Concorde. We feel that we miss a certain elegant atmosphere that royalty carries in its train, and that Paris is wres- tling with the same problems in her somewhat faded splendor that we are facing in our undeveloped youth. But when we step inside the Louvre everything is as it should be. There stands the Venus de Milo, queening it at the end of her corridor of marbles just as she does in my dreams, when I find myself in Paris and have time only to rush in and take one look. There is pretty Diana and her stag, still looking out for Endymion ; there the Borghese athlete, giving the tremendous thrust that has not yet tired his muscles of stone ; there stands the Winged Victory of Samoth- race upon her ship's prow, the breeze still blow- ing her marble draperies to left and right. Who cares where her missing head has gone ? Those wings will carry her all right to whatever vessel she cares to favor with her auspicious presence. And upstairs there are all those galleries of paintings, through which My Lady in Green has promised to conduct us. This is really our first opportunity to study gal- leries of art ; you remember how we only took them on the fly in London ; so stand prepared to be caught by a lecture or two before you leave. 197 EIGHT LANDS IN My next general impression is of the people — that they give one no sense of taking life lightly, as the traditional Frenchman does — first a passion and then a smile ; but of being bent on practical business, push- ing it further than the comfortable thrift that has long been theirs. Also, they seem to have lost a good deal of the pretty, polite ways that used to make them a pattern to the nations. Perhaps it is only that the rest of the world has grown more courteous ; perhaps we feel the influence of the busy hotel region of the North Side instead of the more cozy Latin Quarter; but for some reason we do not meet the affable greet- ings, the appearance of real interest in our welfare, that used to accompany the "bon jour, madame," "au revoir, monsieur" of high and low a couple of dec- ades ago. Third, the dumb creatures. It has been customary to say that Paris is abusive of its animals. An indig- nant lover of horses once said to us, after a few weeks' sojourn here : "If I were to stay in this place long I'd either start a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or else I'd go in for money and set up a whip factory." Some of our party have come with this idea so firmly fixed in their minds that they decline to ride in cabs ; but I confess that I have looked in vain for a really ribby horse or a case of unkind driving. I think the auto has at least made it obligatory to have only well-conditioned horses. These general observations follow upon a morning of necessary and wearisome shopping, but I don't know that I can give you any new points, even upon this. Apartment stores are much the same in all cities; only that here the "traveler," or whatever they call the little book that goes with you from counter to counter, has to be settled up in a basement counting room that is breathing air from the times of the kings; roS EIGHT WEEKS and we hope that that accounts for the endless time required in coming to an understanding. We don't like to lay it to stupidity, not being sure on which of the two parties concerned the accusation would re- bound; but My Lady in Blue can tell a thrilling tale of the councils held over her simple traveler's cheque — the kind that "is cashed in all the hotels and larger stores of Europe," before it was finally accepted as money; and the rest of our eight will always re- member how neat our several purchases looked, com- ing down, each in its pasteboard box, to this counting room ; how we fell into consternation as we realized that every string had to be cut, every contents com- pared with its written slip and recorded ; and into stupid despair before those articles were flopped to- gether into their final half-dozen boxes and com- mitted to the care of the delivery department. How- ever, we tried to remember our French manners with "bon jour, monsieur," or "bon jour, mademoiselle" to all the salesmen we accosted, and "au revoir" on leav- ing. Certainly it is a reasonable bit of courtesy, and I hope we shall continue it when we get home. After lunch we expect to be as good as new, for French meals are certainly well cooked and well served ; and when any of our party falls to wishing for a plain boiled potato at her own fireside, we know that it is the fault of too much variety and not of poor cooking. The afternoon is put down for the picture galleries of the Louvre. Most of us have already strolled through them, as one might through a diamond mine or the Bank of England, with no one to tell us which way to look or what acres of canvas to skip. There used to be a certain Salon Carre which contained so many of the greatest gems that an amateur could count himself reasonably well informed if he had 199 EIGHT LANDS IN become familiar with it. The Salon Carre is still there, and still a thing of beauty ; but many of its best pieces have been taken away to be put with their fel- lows by the same artist. The whole gallery is now well classified for study; but that means that in each school one must take the mediocre with the best and, as likely as not, find oneself exclaiming over some single pretty bit that the critics condemn, and that perhaps we should condemn in the long run. So we have been clamoring to My Lady in Green to give us the results of her longer study — as pointers, you un- derstand; we are quite too independent to make any promises of acquiescence in her judgment, and we have received her merciful promise that if any of us drop off or drop out, instead of testing her tenets by the examples on the walls, she will lay it to the morn- ing's shopping and not to the Leonardos and Raphaels and herself. We have a general understanding that when any one of us begins to expound wisdom the rest may listen or not to the number of five or six; but at seven we draw the line. One listener may cer- tainly be demanded by any lecturer on earth. Later. — We found a velvet covered bench in an almost deserted room of the gallery, and there My Lady delivered sound speech which I am sure you will wish to share with us. So I have obtained it from her in her own handwriting, and here it is : "What is the first thing we should see in a painting? Not its subject, nor its drawing, good or bad, but its color. You shake your heads, but you are wrong. We are so used to getting our ideas of art second hand, third hand, one-hundredth hand, through en- gravings, wood cuts, photogravures, that we moderns, especially we Americans, have to shake ourselves and 200 EIGHT WEEKS cuff ourselves out of our school-room and family- Bible idea that the only use of a picture is to tell a story. Few of us — more's the pity — have our artistic sense so cultivated that a painting gives us pleasure as a sunset does, simply from its color. Train your- self, then, to see, to feel the color. Are the tints har- monious? Do they reinforce one another? Do they make one consistent whole ? Notice the scale of color ; it may be low and subdued, or high and flaring. Each is good in its way, and to be prized. Some of you have just come from the Rubens Room with the em- phatic announcement that you are never going there again; but you are wrong, and if you keep up the study of painting for a number of weeks in a number of galleries, you will gradually find yourselves ready to step over to the majority and give Rubens his mede of praise for color, however much you dislike his treatment of his subjects. The old painters help us immensely in this part of our study. How they have striven to make their reds red, and their blues pure blue ! And when they have succeeded, how we love them, despite their faulty drawing! For drawing is certainly the second requisite of your picture — to rep- resent objects in their correct shapes and their proper perspective — as they appear to the eye. A German critic advises every one to take a few lessons in drawing, because only after you have attempted to draw — let us say the human hand — yourself, can you appreciate the perfect drawing of the thousands of hands in these thousands of pictures. In the Cimabue and Giotto Hall you can trace the toilsome process through which bare drawing reached the perfection which made the great pictures possible. "And with the drawing comes the modeling — the rounding of limbs and figure. We have all seen rude portraits where the features were correct and the 201 EIGHT LANDS IN likeness unmistakable, but the whole face lay fiat on the canvas. What cunning work of light and shade to bring this face into bold relief and make it stand out from its background ! "Next, to group the figures so that they shall form one well-balanced composition, where each one helps the other, and the 'line' of the whole is rich and pleas- ing. Leonardo, with his perfect drawing and sculp- ture-like modeling, never attained to grace and rich- ness of 'line.' "But he could give an atmosphere — which I should put next — where little breezes quiver through the foliage and cool breaths come from the low dis- tances. In Paul Veronese's big canvas of the Salon Carre, what an atmosphere, from the landscape in the distance to the little puff of orris-root which you are sure you smell as the waiters brush past the gorgeous women at the feast! "To these add texture and mobility; and when you can see and feel all this, then let your picture tell its story; and if it is a great picture it will be a great story, dramatically told, with a past, a present, and a future. Look at Raphael's St. Michael and the Dragon. The present moment — and how the monster is crushed and flattened to the ground before the foot or the spear of the radiant archangel has even touched him ! But isn't all the past of this ugly dragon in your mind, and the future of a blessed world deliv- ered from his tyranny? Aren't you glad? There is the personal appeal. Don't you wish you could do the like? — the personal impulse. "Is all this too much to look for in any one picture ? Little by little one comes to know the great artists by sight, and we love them for what they give us, excus- ing deficiencies in one direction, and looking for excel- lencies in another. No one would damn Fra Angelico 202 RIGHT WEEKS because he could not draw — nor even Rubens because he could. Let us be humble, and in this great gallery let us look for color, drawing, modeling, composition, line, atmosphere, texture, mobility, the dramatic story, the personal appeal, the personal impulse. "My Lady of the Veil suggests that we have omitted entirely the use and pleasure of the historical study of painting, as we can carry it on in these care- fully arranged galleries. Well, history is her element — her native breath, and inasfar as our ignorance permits, we envy her the 'content' which she puts into Thirteenth Century, Quatrocento, Renaissance. To most of us our historical periods divide themselves into Old, Very Old, Not So Old, Modern. If we ever attain to greater precision we shall be glad and thankful." And after this we scattered at our will among the great masters, sat in judgment a la St. Louis, and proudly and happily agreed that we had had a great feast of good things. Will you end the day with us in a rapid trip to Notre Dame and a climb to its outer gallery? We find that the study given to Amiens and Beau- vais helps us here. We flatter ourselves that we can handle a great facade — what arrogance ! — somewhat to our own satisfaction ; and the satisfaction of one per- son is a thing not to be despised. We say to our- selves, "three portals and three stories, besides the towers, and the great rose in the middle" ; that helps us to reconstruct it in our memories and divides it into convenient sections for study in detail. You know some people can turn off work just by entering the parts in a list and marking them off when accom- plished. Try it some day with a mass of stuff that looks invincible. In the same way, when the happy 203 EIGHT LAXDS IN day comes in which I have time, 1 shall just divide this facade into nine or eleven parts and study them one by one, with the hope of some day knowing the great gray face as I know the face of a friend. But now the sun is getting low, and, gathering up our last remaining muscle, we go up, up these winding stairs to the balcony between the towers. Our Star Lady has gone away up to the summit to see the r£X Trc\n tlitCiallcrij et Afotve-D'avne- whole city at her feet, the Seine winding afar toward distant hills, and, best of all, shining beneath those thirty bridges we have recently passed under. But we'll stay here, if you please, near the big bells, and commune with the dumb creatures that have been looking down from here for all these centuries. Who put them here and why? Some are gargoyles, and carry off waste water through their gasping, gagging throats; but others are beasts, or birds, or a cross 204 EIGHT WEEKS between the two, of such genus as the eye of man has never seen ; and here they have perched at the will of some humorous architect, just to prevent holy church from cutting itself loose from human mirth. One of them scans the horizon for the next change in government, or the next good news from a dis- tant colony. Another meditates grimly over the fallen empires of the past. Here are two that have their lean arms braced to hurl themselves down upon some unsuspecting offenders below; here is one who munches the same sweet stone fruits that were put into his patient jaws five centuries ago; and beside EIGHT LANDS IN him his brother is yawning in absolute ennui. This good-natured fellow — we'll call him an eagle — is wait- ing to carry some other blessed eight a-touring through Europe; and this last — why, he is just that Adirondack guide that figures in one of the stories wherewith My Lady of the Veil beguiles our railway journeys when endurance of heat and coal smoke reach a limit : "And what do you do up here in the woods when you're all snowed in in winter?" "Well, some days I set and think, and some days I just set." Now, just as you turn from the beasts to interview the photograph man at the top of the stairs, take another look back across the roof and over all the pinnacles that crown its buttresses. Do you see things of heaven as well as of earth? Behold this angel with folded wings — yonder saint with harp in hand ; and here a whole procession of faithful men and women, artisans, sages, friars, and nuns going up, up the pillars that are a part of the pinnacle of this tower; all these as living stones wrought into the one great temple, and the setting sun turning them into gold. We'll think over this golden lesson as we go to bed. The "grand bourdon," or big bumbler of Notre Dame, has waited for us to leave before sounding forth his big speech. I hope we shall hear his voice among the noises of the street, as we heard the Big Ben and the Big Paul in London and Bell Harry in Canterbury. It must be a great thing to feel that one's words carry the weight of sixteen tons. Good-night, with a sound of bells. M. 206 EIGHT WEEKS XXVI— LAST DAY IN PARIS. JiXoAtoAlactMAB- del The last week-day in this city, and still much land remains to be possessed. Fortunately we are eight, and what we cannot do as a unit we may accomplish in quarter sections. My Lady Practical knows that she wants to see the Gobelins that have been manufac- turing tapestries since the days of Louis XIV., and I think My Lady Bright Eyes should go with her, to be sure that no good points are left unseen. Even as far back as Francis I. this industry was a specialty of the city; but after the brothers Gobelin erected their dyeing, weaving and furnishing establishment, it be- came the leading manufactory of these costly fabrics, which were reserved for state uses and for gifts to monarchs. The soft effect of atmosphere given by the texture, as it is to a certain extent by some twills of canvas ; the permanent color of well-dyed wools, and the freedom from the peril of varnishes, have always made tapestries a favorite kind of decoration. The ease of changing them from one place to another, and their adaptability to large surfaces with no need 207 EIGHT LANDS IN of cumbersome frames, also gives them great value; and when one begins to make a study of the gentle- men and ladies who walk about in woolly attire, the trees that spread their woolly leaves, and the moun- tains that lie in woolly glooms of shade, one becomes fascinated with these successes. They are like velvet rather than wool, and at a little distance, as in the row of gorgeous portraits in the Gallery of Apollo the most elegant gallery of the Louvre, they so perfectly represent the best of paintings as to make one doubt one's own eyes and the authority of the guidebook. So My Lady Practical is urged to visit the Gobelins, with her valuable notebook in hand, and see the men and women at work at their hand looms, their patterns stretched behind them, the bit for the day traced in black crayon on the threads of the warp — little mir- rors in their hands to examine their finished work, as its wrong side is toward them, and before them bas- kets of bobbins selected from the thousands and thou- sands of hues and shades at their disposal. A good eye, good judgment and artistic sense are required, but originality would be disastrous, as the most ac- curate cartoons from celebrated paintings are the pat- terns. If our ladies display some wooden bobbins about five inches long and wound with a variety of colors, we shall know that they have found the right place and have paid an acceptable fee. My Lady in Blue and My Lady Persistent cannot leave Paris without driving in the "Bois," where pleas- ure and fashion throng on sunny afternoons. Horses are their choice, and they have a mingled vision of elegant turnouts, brooks and lakes, prancing steeds and grand cascades, chic costumes, velvet green- swards, Swiss chalets, and perhaps a steeple chase. Their hearts are, however, divided between this and the Jardin des Plantes, where they could glut their 208 EIGHT WEEKS botanic appetites and at the same time hear lions roar and serpents hiss, monkeys chatter and paraquets scream, all to the most delightful surroundings. Per- haps they can accomplish both if a threatening rain holds off; who knows? My Lady of the Veil is in two minds between shops and St. Denis ; but having years ago visited this beau- tiful cathedral, with its Romanesque fagade, a few miles north of the city, having explored its marble tombs and bronze effigies with their thrilling vicissi- tudes under changing governments — now in honor under the kings, now thrown out with their scattered bones by revolutionists — I presume she will decide to consider the less agitating theme of laces, gloves and blouse waists. My Lady of the Star knows that she must have another half day in the Louvre, and there she is right. Why, we have not even glanced at the statues of the Renaissance — Michael Angelo's slaves, Cellini's nymph, and all the starred bronzes ; nor have we so much as set foot in those rarest of all rooms, where the "immortal guard" of Darius are set up in terra-cotta figures thirteen feet high all along the wall, just as they stood in the gigantic throne room of Artaxerxes to add splendor to the palace of the oriental despots. We must none of us by any chance fail to see these giants, and the bases and capitals of the actual pillars that upheld the palace roof. Our imaginations, now under virtuous process of devel- opment, will receive a grand impulse thereby. I think I will attach my chariot to the same star to-day; the galleries of statuary call me urgently, and I wonder why. Partly, perhaps, because of their cool quietness after the more vociferous appeals of the picture gal- leries. The singleness of color and simplicity of theme rests one's eyes ; there are not so many ele- ments to take into account as My Lady in Green 209 EIGHT LANDS IN found in her blazing canvases. Partly, too, because one can walk all around them and view them as they are without straining neck and eyes and trying to guess at half-told stories in the shadows. But the essential elements of the charm of sculpture lie deeper and are subtler than this. The first and most obvious seems to me the turning of stone into flesh and into the garments to adorn it. Here is granite, sandstone, marble, fit to face the storms of centuries, and yet for us it is soft as a child's cheek, tense as an athlete's muscles, waving in the wind, drooping in heavy folds, revealing a human form through a gossamer veil, moving on swift feet, soaring on heavenly wings. Doesn't the wonder of it alone pay you for an hour's observation? And close akin to this, but still more valuable, is the putting of character into stone. Every one of these statues is a person. To de- stroy one of them would seem a kind of murder. For ages this athlete has roused the passersby to a better use of their physical powers; the Venus has said to all good women, "Be strong, be beautiful, and forget yourself in some good deed that comes to your hand" ; the victory even now, headless and armless, speaks courage and hope and joy. All of nature, to be sure, is beautiful under the sculptor's hands — the olive wreath, the climbing ivy, lions and eagles and fabulous creatures without names ; but a gallery en- tirely of these would scarcely bring thousands across a continent to see them. It is when they are adjuncts to the human element, or else have really human char- acteristics, as in the lions of Thorwaldsen and Barye and Landseer, that they become great works of art. Of course, our sculptured men and women and gods give us a dramatic element besides, as do the people in pictures; you can read their past and guess their future, and they often give you, besides, a glimpse 210 EIGHT WEEKS into the artist's own soul, or into the soul of his time and nation. What a revelation of the peoples of the past is made for us in their statuary! And what a record we are handing down to our followers ! At least I thought so when I began that sentence; but, running over in my mind the modern sculpture in the Luxembourg, I bethink me that dress is represented in it mostly by its absence, so that only the dressing of our hair can carry any information down to pos- terity. But don't you think they will guess from the marbles that are prized enough to survive, whether we have had ideals above the sensuous ; whether, as a type, we have kept up the standard of the divine- human ; and whether, perhaps, we have added some new ideas about the brotherhood of man, the hope of an endless life? I think they certainly will, and I am glad, by comparing ancient and modern sculpture, to persuade myself of the fact. After which homily those of you who like statuary will, I hope, like it none the less ; and those who don't will have listened patiently and will now leave us sit- ting before our Venus, and Apollo, or Diana, and great god Tiber, our sportive fauns and queenly cary- atids, and will go to the big store across the way to buy gloves. There is a charming bit of ambiguity in a woman's speech when she says, I have spent the morning at the Louvre; for she may be thinking of the "Musee" and she may be thinking of the "Ma- gazin." And what do you suppose we have finally done about the palaces, Versailles and Fontainebleau ? Do you know a pretty French ballad about an old man who, at the end of his life, was still singing the refrain of his youth, "I never have seen Carcassonne" ? And did you ever read Wordsworth's wise and lovely poem of ''Yarrow Unvisited"? Well, a good many people 211 EIGHT LANDS IN take Sunday for Versailles ; but we were all Puritan- bred, and still find Sabbath rest a divine ordinance; and Monday we leave for Brussels. Perhaps both pal- aces will have to put up without seeing us this time. Just look over your map of the city now, and see if you don't think we have done pretty well by it, and have a right to say good-night tired and happy. M. Sunday, July 25. We looked over last evening the Sunday resources of this place. Setting aside Versailles, which we had already declined, there was next Notre Dame and the Madeleine, in the latter of which the finest church music of the city is usually to be heard ; and when the Church of Rome lifts up her voice, be it with trained choir and organ or with the responses of the people in vesper-song, it is music worthy of the courts of the Lord's house. How a vested choir of monks and canons can furnish a matchless soprano among their leading parts, is to us listeners a mystery. But, watching as their swaying robes brush by us, I have been able to discover no woman hidden among their surplices. Besides the Madeleine there are at- tractions for us in a dozen English places of worship — Church of England, Church of Scotland, Wesleyan and Baptist, American Chapel and American Episco- pal Church; and in every one we shall notice a bit of courtesy that accompanies foreign travel; for the English clergymen will add to their prayers for the royal family petitions for the presidents of France and of the United States ; the pastor of the American Chapel will reciprocate, and all these English-speaking and English-praying churches will pray for one an- other and for the country where they are being enter- tained. We begin to think over our churches at home 212 EIGHT WEEKS and wonder whether we remember foreign rulers in our prayers, and especially the rulers whose subjects are dwelling among us. But with all these calls to the Lord's House, a few of us have a Sunday engagement made in our own minds long ago, to visit an old friend of ours and inspect some work of a high order that he is carrying on in Paris. Among the arts that flourish here he has selected one that handles a different material from any art we have so far seen, and with a different product in view. He asks us to give the afternoon to his latest achievement, and it turns out to be a kind of altar-piece — a thing in three parts, such as we have learned to look for in old picture galleries, taken away from its original site in the church. But this one of our friend is to be viewed in fresh color in its own chosen niche, and right where it has grown under the skillful hand of the artist. The central scene is laid in a tiny evangelical church, with neither arches nor frescoes, crucifix or pictured saint. Through an open window you see a glimpse of Paris streets that are reputable but plain. A con- gregation of quiet working people sit on wooden benches and listen to a pastor in gown and bands. They look at him as though they trusted him; as though he had been a father to them and had taught them to know the All-Father. He is not an old man, but he bears heavy creases on his brow that mock at the smile on his lips. A young girl sits at the little organ; all the congregation join in the hymns — now in quavering trills like an air of an opera, now in unison passages like a German choral. Once some trustful French words burst forth in a tune that sings to us "ceaseless course" and "eternal state." I have told you that this is a unique kind of art, and you see that it appeals to the ear as well as to the eye. 213 EIGHT LAN DS~~IN Wing Number One : The long dining room in a homely parsonage, a few pictures on the walls ; com- fort all around and no splendor. A narrow table oc- cupies the entire length, spread with a white cloth, and set with plates and knives. At each place is a thick slice cut from a French loaf, down the middle are pots of jam; at the head of the table is the pastor's wife with the helpmeet-face, her big teapot in hand, her piles of cups and saucers before her. All around are happy young people, seated close on long benches. They have flocked in at the pastor's weekly invitation, after the morning service. They drink and chat, they smile and break bread. Mothers with babies help at the serving and stand ready to join the hostess in the clearing away at the end. The pastor is pleased to have a few visiting strangers at his board, and is not at all ashamed of the pretty array he can show them. Wing Number Two: The pastor's study overhead. An upright piano, where the daughter of the house presides. All the young people of the dining room seated around. A brief business meeting has just been disposed of; the pastor still holds in his hand pencil and paper, with records of dates and commit- tees for an approaching festival, but all have dropped upon their knees, facing toward the centre, not, as our Swedenborgian friends advise in a beautiful symbol- ism of God the centre of all, but for the social gain of being easily heard by one another. And then sounds forth the music of this part — prayer after prayer in quiet voices of young men and maidens, brief and simple, and ever and anon a sweet verse of a hymn sung while still on bended knees. The trav- elers from afar, growing rich on the art treasures of nations and the beauties of nature spread out for them by kings, compare their overflowing cup with the sim- ple draughts of these Paris poor, and add their pray- 214 EIGHT WEEKS ers in a strange tongue for the upbuilding of this court of Zion. I have showed you this altar piece partly because it was unique, and seemed to us a great success ; partly because I know that you rejoice, as we do, whenever you find in this rushing, business-driven Paris, an upward glance, an uplifted voice. In spite of secularization and socialism and agnosticism, there's a song of praise here and there in the air, and it does us good to hear it, in cathedral, or chapel, or pastor's home. One of our bards has dropped into verse in regard to this land. Here is her product : PARIS. The centuries came down to view This far-famed empress of old and new; They found her fair; will they find her true? Her castled hills are grand to see, Her forests and fountains, Arcady, Her cities are merry with industry. Tuileries glorious, Bastilles grim, She builds and she breaks at her sovereign whim; Blood in her goblet, but wine at the brim. Her golden lilies wilt on the ground; She has trampled her honey bees round and round, Will she fling off her tricolor, burdensome found) But, oh, she's a princess! and ah, she is fairi A sobbing child in shining hair; And, lot she is counting her beads in prayer. Kind centuries, who stand to view This wayward empress of old and new, Pray, pray with her! God grant her true! 215 PART IV— BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. XXVII— BRUSSELS POINT. Dear friends all: I notice by our itinerary that between two Sundays we are to visit two countries and, sup- posedly, become somewhat familiar with their scenery, their cities, their people and their art. This being the case, I propose that our great omission in- clude this time all useful facts of history and statistics. It would be rather interesting to own a list of those facts, just so that we might look at it defiantly and say : "You have I spurned and discarded. Trouble me not with vain reproaches !" In fact, the more I think of it the more I pine to make out such a brief little list, beginning : "The term Netherlands is often used in history to include both Belgium and Holland. Flanders and Flemish are the old name and adjective belonging to the former of these countries. For a long time Holland was a republic, electing its stad- 219 EIGHT LAN DS IN holder, or governor ; but now both countries are mon- archies," etc., etc., down to the little heir apparent to the Dutch throne. But I lay a hand upon myself as heavy as the gauntlet of the Prince of Orange, and restrain my rash desires. When we get home, how- ever, we'll thresh this glorious historic ground all over again with Motley, de Amicis, and a lot of others to help us; and we'll not stop there, but go on to all the attractive literature of these countries, especially the old poet guilds of Holland with the flowery names, and the poetess Tesselschade of the many lovers — and the rest. But at present we know only that Bel- gium comes first and Holland second ; that Belgium is above sea level and Holland below ; that Belgium is Catholic and speaks French — Holland Protestant and speaks Dutch ; and that Belgium is ruled by a king, while Holland rejoices in the "little queen" Wil- helmina. Our heartstrings are badly torn when one and another ask us, "What cities do you visit? Of course, you will see the cathedrals of Ghent and Tournai ; you'll stop at Louvain for that wonderful old Hotel de Ville ; you'll hear the chimes of Bruges ; you'll go out to Waterloo, and walk over the battlefield?" No, no, no! We are going to Brussels to buy some lace; and when we come back from Holland we may stop over a train at Antwerp to see the seven-aisled cathe- dral and Rubens' Descent from the Cross. You see, we have learned that great are the joys of anticipa- tion. If fruition comes, it is fourfold as valuable from having been familiar beforehand; and if by any un- toward event it fails, we have only to tack on a big piece of imagination to the data already in our minds, and we are all prepared to write down in our diaries a full account of our visit. By next year you'll find us traveling on paper with the greatest exhilaration. 220 EIGHT WEEKS Our departure from Paris was animated enough to suit the most Gallic of tastes. After arranging for early breakfast, plenty of time to reach the train, two autocabs to be called for our conveyance, we found that the porter and we had two entirely different words to describe those useful vehicles — that two one- horse cabs were waiting our disposal; that on this particular morning of all the year autos were in such special demand that only one could be whistled to our front door ; that the laundress had failed to bring the missing pieces of linen ; that time was flying, and that we, too, must fly. That is not a dignified conclusion of our visit, thus to be bundled out of the city; but bundled and hustled we were, and none too soon. We had decided that we would have our suit-cases put into the baggage van, as we had sometimes done in England; but we had not foreseen the fact that all baggage P u t into French vans must be weighed and registered ; that one distracted man must do the reg- istering for a thousand odd travelers ; that there is a great deal more baggage to convey than porters to convey it; that French trains are long and usually start on time, and that one "personal conductor" can- not at the same time secure a porter who does not exist, register baggage in a five minutes that has just gone by, and open up eight books of circular tickets to admit eight anxious women to the platform. We made that train, I cannot tell how. We secured our compartment. We had those ten pieces of bag- gage stowed away over our heads as usual, and we were all in our places and in our right minds when that train moved out of the station. But our leave- taking was of a piece with that of several crowned heads I have read of in French history — without great ceremony of farewell. However, we are safely in Brussels ; we have bought 221 EIGHT LANDS IN our little pieces of lace, with as much consideration and comparison on our part, and as much courtesy on the part of the salesmen and saleswomen as though our purchases were to make them rich ; we have seen the little bobbins that dangle from the lace cushions fly deftly to and fro in the hands of the weavers ; we have learned that point lace is really made with a point, that is, a needle; and we have given their daily amusement to the little women in the dark room who work at their pillows and points with the special pur- pose of beguiling visitors into becoming purchasers. We have admired the bridal veil made for Princess So-and-so by so many score of weavers in so many months or days — or was it the pattern for the veil? That will do just as well ; and, altogether, we feel as though we had been in the thick of the fight, and might now have thrills when we remember the cus- tom-house officers at home. There was a cathedral somewhere near the lace places ; but it happened to be closed just when we were there, and Ave were quite too impecunious after our trade to give a franc for admission. And there was a picture gallery ancient, and a picture gallery modern, neither of which we went near. But the "Gran' Place" where the old guild-houses of the Middle Ages stand shoulder to shoulder all the way around, beautiful in carving and color and gilt, broken into by such splendid edifices as the Hotel de Ville and the Maison du Roi, these, our conductor declared, we should see, whether we would and could or not, and we are glad she laid it to our hearts. Also, we took a trolley ride through boulevards and parks and palace grounds — for Brus- sels, you remember, is called the little Paris — and passed the splendid modern Palais de Justice, which makes one's heart glad like the Capitol at Washington ; and last of all, three of us drove after dark all around 222 EIGHT WEEKS the city, which is at present gay with a kind of annual Kirmess ; and those three declare that the twinkling lights and fireworks of that Kirmess surpassed all the other attractions of this cosy city. Do you know how I happen to be writing to you at four o'clock of the morning? I suppose you may thank the Kirmess for that. We all went to bed like ordinary Christians at ordinary times ; but like the veriest pagans the people of this city square have been keeping holiday while we tried to sleep. Just as many noises, it seemed to us, and of just the same kind as by day — electric lights blazing from restaurants ; music playing, cabs and trains rolling by; talking, singing, laughing — all as though it was we, perhaps, who had made the mistake and gone to bed in the daytime. My Lady Practical has done nothing all night but go back and forth from her bed to her window and laugh at the general jollity; and now that the big dogs of Bel- gium are beginning to appear, drawing the milk carts for the morning delivery, she can't take her eyes from the faithful creatures and their kind masters, with whom they exchange many a caress between times. I, too, have come to the window to look, and hence am finishing my letter to you. My next will be from Amsterdam. You who have dogs, just tell them about these industrious fellows in Brussels and give them an extra pat because they, too, would have been just as trustworthy if it had been asked of them. Do you think us irreverent to write in our Bible text-book to-day, "They rest not day or night" ! We hope the words that follow are also true of these good- natured people who complacently turn night into day. Good morning, and do a little sleeping for me. M, 223 EIGHT LANDS IN XXVIII— THE LAND OF THE DUTCH. A-m$le.rd&-7iu Dear people: After our night of gaiety at Brussels you will not be surprised to know that we had a pretty sleepy journey to the land of the Dutch. I am sure that it must have been interesting all of the way, with the green fields of so much made land, the long canals and bordering dykes cutting the level land- scape into sections, trees in rows against the sky, windmills holding their big arms in fantastic gestures waiting for a breeze ; cosy homes scattered in the fields or gathered in villages, and everywhere kitchen gardens and flower gardens which made My Lady Practical quite wild with the desire to empty her suit- 224 EIGHT WEEKS case of half its necessary articles and fill it up with bulbs. But in spite of this pretty picture that my pen ought to call up in your minds, we looked with weary eyes, and have not a very distinct impression of what we saw. You know that much of the country has been turned from lakes and marshes into "polders," a kind of gigantic sunken gardens or sunken farm lands, which are most valuable. To drain uphill instead of down has so long been an achievement of the Dutch that they almost think of it as Nature's method. In the case of these great polders, a lake or swamp is drained of its upper waters by means of pumps dis- charging into an encircling canal ; then another canal is constructed further down, just above the remaining lake, and into it this lower water is pumped, and from it into canal number one. If even then a lowest lake is left, a third canal is made and the process again repeated. You would suppose these farm-land bowls and their concentric canals would be easily studied from the railway ; but, partly, the bowls are large and of irregular shape, and, partly the original windmill pumps have been replaced by steam machines, so that you cannot see those giant creatures at their interest- ing work as you could have done some years ago. Still, close observation will convince you that much of the land you pass lies lower than the railroad, and that its beautiful fertility is due to that system of encircling waters that makes irrigation always available. Do you get a general idea of the way in which this land holds its own against the sea, and also against the delta of the Rhine and Meuse that makes it a great fresh-water Venice? First, the biggest dikes shut out the sea; and they are made tremendously strong and thick, overgrown with long-rooted grasses and other plants, and at the mouths of rivers doubly 225 EIGHT LANDS IN faced with stone embankments. Next, the middling- sized dikes, but they also pretty big and strong and stone-faced, shut the rivers into their channels ; and at high tide they must be mighty enough to hold the up-piled, set-back waters while the double or triple seagates are shut, until low tide allows the current again to flow outward. Last, the little dikes shut in the smaller channels in the same way; and all these, with their enclosed canals, serve as means of com- munication and as boundaries. You might think that you would tire of their geometric primness ; but put a row of trees upon them, a lot of boats trailing along their waters by man power or steam power, a farm- house and windmill here and there, and everywhere the black and white Holland cows on the greenest of pastures — and you'll have a landscape for a Van de Velde or a Potter, be the sky blue or gray. We passed through half a dozen cities, too, that we'll tell you about on our return ; for this is, I think, the only point in our whole summer's journey in which we go over the same road twice. At this writing we have had a day and a half in Amsterdam, and are just beginning to find out its resources. Imagine a series of parallel canals, called Grachten, wound in a semi-circle with its base at the north on the harbor called Het Y — pronounce it / — every canal forming the middle of a tree-shaded street with business or residence blocks — and you have the general plan of the city. One of these canals seems to replace an old wall, being of a fine zigzag pattern. Up and down the centre of this half circle runs the broad avenue known as the Dam, having been a canal itself until of recent years ; and on it are situated houses of the ancient aristocracy, with steep gables to the street and an air of veterans leaning on each other for support. The canals are only a few feet deep, 226 EIGHT WEEKS and act as sewers as well as highways, being washed out by a current of salt water let in from the North Sea Canal. Between the canal-lined streets, and cross- ing them, are all the other plain streets that go to make up a city of half a million. Little parks are put in here and there, named from favorite artists and stadholders — we are on the Rembrandtsplein ; larger parks and zoological and botanical gardens are to be found in the suburbs ; and exactly at the southern ex- tremity of the semi-circle is the great Ryksmuseum (Royal Museum) of brick and stone, where we are spending much of our time. Half a dozen other col- lections of arts fine and industrial, each a treasure in its way, call loudly to us, but must receive the cold shoulder. We are just steeping ourselves so far as possible in the Dutch — Dutch art, Dutch language, Dutch people and customs. It is a delight to catch sight of the shining gold head-dresses of the women, a kind of half-helmet, covered with long-tabbed lace caps, and ending at the temples in coils of gold wire like tight-twisted ramshorns. This favorite headgear is not always accompanied by the short, full skirt of the peasant, but is oftener found with a modern dress and surmounted by a modern hat or bonnet. It is a pleasure to listen to the queer mixture of English and German sounds that make up the Dutch language — just far enough off from each of these to seem like a travesty used in sport — and no less a pleasure to study out street signs and advertisements. Here is a warn- ing to passengers riding on the second story of a tram that runs under an avenue of trees : Let op de langs de trambaan staande Boomen. (Look out for the trees standing along the tramway.) We like to watch the thrifty maids scouring their doorsteps, and to peep at the little slanting mirrors in upper story windows by which Holland dames may 227 EIGHT LANDS IN watch the life of the street without taking part in it. Also, we like Dutch cooking. The Edam cheeses, fresh and soft from their spotless factories in little country towns, appear in slices on our breakfast table and with our desserts ; and some genuine simple po- tatoes, unspoiled by stews or fries, delight our hearts ; otherwise the cuisine is much like that we have left. Guests are expected to patronize the hotel wines — O shades of the W. C. T. U. ! — or else pay extra for meals ! But our gentlemanly head waiter explained that this stipulation on the menu, to the interpretation of which we had been applying our ingenuity in vain, applies to the restaurant, and not to guests in the house. By geen gebruik maken van consumptie wordt het diner mit 15 cts verhoogd. (By no use making of consumptions this dinner by 15c is height- ened.) "You know you in England and America call what you eat your consumings; but with us our con- sumings are our drink." The poor man is driven almost wild by inconsiderate tourist parties who cannot understand that when a city is crowded for a pro- vincial congress, guests who come unannounced must put up with three in a room; and he finds much con- solation in some words of appreciation that we have let drop. Our sympathies are more and more drawn out for the ordinary hotel waiter. The maids have enough hard work, but the waiters have still longer hours, no outdoor recreation, no Sundays, and few vacations. No wonder they look anemic. The only surprising thing is that they are so uniformly polite, and even accommodating. And do you begin to think that you will never see the Ryksmuseum? Here it is at last, and admission free, as should be the case in every great collection; for what an education such an institution is to the people of the land, as well as to travelers ! When will 228 EIGHT WEEKS the time come for our own cities, the little as well as the big, to found their permanent collections of historic and artistic value? Over here, every little place has its museum, which educates its people in the records of its past and makes them proud of its achievements. It is only because we, the favored eight, have the plum-cake of all the big cities to choose from, that we pay little attention to these smaller treats. Here is what we find in the Ryksmuseum, conveniently arranged for study, with every article distinctly labelel : ( I ) A large military and naval collection, well housed in a glass-covered court, and containing among other things models of ships, dock- yards and locks; (2) A suite of ten rooms, illus- trating in their construction, decoration, and in what they contain, the development of church architecture during a thousand years, beginning with the times of Charlemagne; (3) A suite of twice as many rooms devoted to the progress of industrial art in Holland, from carved chimney pieces and tapestries to silver plate and cut glass; (4) A collection of porcelains and lacquer from home and abroad; (5) Cabinets of engraving, halls of modern painting; (6) Another glass-covered court filled with plaster casts of Dutch carvings from churches, and (7) A whole three- storied library. All these before we have climbed the stairs to the great picture gallery for which we have come, or gone down into the basement for the collec- tion of Holland costumes. This last is something ab- solutely unique. Rooms and rooms are lined with glass cases in which stand men, women and children in wax, dressed in the provincial costumes of the past centuries, and of the present, too; for many of these have not changed — they have merely been dropped for the dress of the cities. This clothing is all real dress that has been worn by somebody, and represents every 229 EIGHT LANDS IN rank and condition, from the farmer in his ploughing suit to the princess dressed as a bride. Such bonnets, such lace caps, such a variety of helmets, such bodices and chemisettes, such aprons and kerchiefs, such shoes and gloves and mits, such petticoats, long and short, full and scant ; such colors, gay and sober, such natural attitudes, such marked physiognomies in these hun- dreds of silent people ! It is almost uncanny. And now from the absolutely realistic we go up the broad stairs to the second story to see what Holland's great painters have done. We enter a broad hall called the Gallery of Honor, from which alcoves open on either side, and in these we catch glimpses between the velvet portieres of a grand display of masterpieces ; but right ahead of us, at the end of the gallery, glows the masterpiece of them all, Rembrandt's Night Watch, cunningly lighted by some electric coil so as to be always at its best, and drawing the eye of every person who returns to the gallery from studying the works in the alcoves. It's a great thing to walk through such a gallery of honor, artists in honor on every side, and the honored master of them all at the end, to whose work your eye instantly turns to bask anew in its light and make new explorations in its shadows. You remember the theme, do you not? A company of archers issuing from their dark hall into the light of day, ready for some excursion or ad- venture. In the hands of some artists it would have been nothing but a group of portraits. Under Rem- brandt's master brush it has become one of the great pictures of the world. Besides the Gallery of Honor and its alcoves there are two long series of rooms, about forty in all, where we do not find any strict classification like that in Paris. Some rooms are arranged by centuries, some by subjects, some by collections presented by indi- 230 EIGHT WEEKS viduals, so that to a real student the mixture is exas- perating. For us, traveling rapidly, it is perhaps just as well to come unexpectedly upon a Rembrandt until we learn to know his strong lights and speaking shad- ows ; or upon a Ruysdael with his woods, a Jan Steen with his jolly roisterers, an Everdingen with his pines ; but for real study this arrangement, or lack of it, is annoying. Our own object is, not to become familiar with all these Dutchmen, but to get sufficiently in touch with their particular genius to appreciate its good points and distinguish it from the genius of other nationali- ties. At once we observe that we are in a collection of portrait groups. Even where we say at first, "Land- scape, Sea view, Still-life, Tavern scenes," we notice that these are copies of different phases of the coun- try's life, not ideal groups of sacred or historical char- acters, nor ideal landscapes. The Dutch have always liked to see themselves, I might add, as others see them, for they are not afraid of that kind of a view. They think that, on the whole, they are worthy to be looked at, and they don't mind giving the world a permanent record of themselves. I don't suppose that, as a nation, they ever sat down and formulated this statement, still less handed it to your humble critic ; but so the matter strikes us as we look around. When art was here at its best in the seventeenth cen- tury, under Rembrandt, Van der Heist, Frans Hals, the guilds and corporations were leading powers in state and society, and every guild wanted a portrait group of its members, every charitable corporation a group of its regents. Whether these set the fashion, or only expressed a taste already inherent in the race, sure it is that Teniers and Terburg and Jan Steen did for family and village life what the others were doing for public associations. Accuracy of portraiture, 231 EIGHT LANDS IN carefulness in detail, and good coloring are to be found in all their works ; but when a picture adds to this richness of line, depths in light and shadow, centralization of interest and movement, then you have something great that you are never tired of looking at. And see how the artists worked toward this result! Here is a group that is just a collection of excellent portraits, with all the heads in a row; another with much better grouping, but still no cen- tral point to fix your attention ; another in which the study of the flesh is so perfect, and the character, too — for each hand expresses in little what the face gives more fully — that you cannot look at the whole for the interest of every part. But when you come to Rem- brandt, there you have the whole thing — the perfect portraiture, the perfect flesh, the noble line, the grand color, the strength of action, and the unity of all about some central point of interest. Look at this simple group of the five syndics of the clothmakers — every one a man of worth, but all alike in waving hair, black hats, black gowns and broad collars. How is one to make a picture of them that shall be other than a gloomy mass of black? And there is their at- tendant or factotum besides, somebody's son-in-law, perhaps, or possible future syndic, that must add his blackness to the bunch. Well, at least his hat will be off — so much black gone — and the treasurer can bring his money in a leather bag, and Mynheer So- and-So shall turn the leaves of the big account book; yes, the carved wainscoting will not be a bad back- ground, toning up very well from those chestnut locks; and two of the syndics are fortunately turning gray. But see ! Just as the artist decides upon the final pose a ray of sunlight streams upon the red rug that he has thrown over the table ; it touches the plush sofa in the background, it lights the cultured faces, 232 EIGHT WEEKS and throws shadows on their shining linen, and at the same moment, who is that that opens the door and makes mine host spring to his feet, while every one of the six, arrested in the work in hand, fixes his interested eyes upon the same point? Rembrandt understood such things; the sunlight always came just right for him, for, naturally, when it came wrong he let it go by. Oh, this divine artistic sense of the right moment, and the fitness of things ! A study of such a picture sets one to praying the pentecost prayer for a "right judgment in all things." We eight have been in the habit of marking some of our days with red letters, and saying, "This has been a high day." Now to-day, Thursday, it rained, poured ; and we took lunch at the museum — so much of it as we were able to secure after long patience; the first thoroughly poor lunch that has been set be- fore us. But we have come home to write in our diaries, "Another high day." And while I put it down the sun is breaking forth, the clouds are scat- tering ; we shall eat our dinner in haste, take electric tram to Het Y, pay our passage on a little river steamer and sail to the northwest to quaint Zaandam, where two hundred years ago young Peter the Great came to study shipbuilding for the good of his people. Rembrandt van Ryn and Peter the Great in one day! And should not that be a red-letter day? Farewell, M. 233 EIGHT LANDS IN XXIX— THE LAND OF THE DUTCH. Amsterdam, Thursday, July 29. Dear friends, Mijnheer, Mevrouw, Mejuffrouw: I would be glad to put these epithets in the plural, but linguistic ability fails me. I add this pretty bit that I find in our s:uide-book : Wij lev en vrij, wij leven blij, Op Neirlands dierben groud, (We live free, we live blithe On Netherlands dear ground), And those ijs are a cross between a and i — about like aye, aye, sir. What a strange thing is language ! how it sunders, how it binds ! how it seems to change the whole char- acter of a nation, although, in fact, only expressing it ; and what an unaccountable thing, that people living next door to one another should utter feelings almost identical in sounds so diverse ! Nature does nothing like it in her fauna and flora. The genera of one land pass gradually into those of another. But in language the change is as sudden as the political line on the map. This is a strong assertion of the individuality 234 EIGHT WEEKS of human races ; a something that Nature cannot mother. All of which signifies that the Dutch steeping process I mentioned yesterday is quite agreeable, and that we shall be sorry to say good-by to the land of dikes to-morrow, sorry to leave so much of this city wholly unexplored, sorry to miss the silvery bells that have chimed the hours for us from some neighboring belfry with a merry tune like the Bluebells of Scot- land. We had our steamer excursion last evening by the light of the sinking sun, with just time at Zaandam to rush across a bridge and down some crooked streets in the leadership of an English-speaking lad, to the hut of Peter the Great. This is now enclosed in a fine modern building owned by the Czar of Russia; and as the Czar does not propose to bother himself with evening visitors, we found it shut. We had also just time to hurry part of our company back to the steamboat and to see the other part, with amazed eyes, standing on the further side of a drawbridge which swung saucily up in their faces. So then we had more time and could reconstruct for ourselves the facts that Czar Peter came to Amsterdam incognito to study shipbuilding and paper-making ; that he tried his hand at the practical work here in Zaandam for a whole week, but being found out in his disguise, was so beset by crowds that he was fain to take refuge again in the city. His week's sojourn, however, made Zaandam famous, and has brought crowds to visit it ever since. My Lady in Blue declared that the re- puted little cottages in all colors of the rainbow were not in evidence, and she was with difficulty convinced that freshly painted dwellings could belong to past centuries, even when their steep gables and oriel win- dows nodded in affirmation. Dear little Zaandam houses ! If they are allowed to run down, we exclaim, 235 EIGHT LANDS IN "Where is Dutch thrift?" And if they are kept in paint and repair, we ask, "Where are your ancient domiciles ?" Steamer number two left too soon to al- low us to go in search of the quaint; so we bought Dutch ginger-bread in cards to console ourselves on the boat; and while all the twilight reds and yellows of heaven floated over our heads, and a group of little Dutch maids on the deck sang ballads for the joy of their hearts — not even putting forth their hands for a stuyver — we talked over the other little towns we should visit, did the fates permit — Broek, with its spotless stables ; Monnikendam, with its twentieth cen- tury tram putting on airs to its seventeenth century cottages ; Edam, where they make the cheeses, and Marken, matchless Marken out in the Zuider Zee, where the fisher folk and the windmills have been so long marveled at that they have learned to make trade of their quaintness and stand posing for photographs and for dubbeltjes on every corner. Now you may use your imaginations as we did ; for such darling lit- tle houses do exist in pink and blue and yellow, each in its tiny garden of grass and flowers, with shell- work and rockeries, figureheads of ships and pagan gods, to prove to you that the owners had sailed the high seas. And the tiny, paved streets on which they front, and the great windmills that grind their grain, combine to make a picture that would tempt any of us to throw up traveling and become artists. But I am lingering still in the light of last evening, while all of to-day is waiting for me. It was, of course, doubtful economy to take train away off through Harlem and Leyden to the Hague and back, instead of putting in that city on our return journey; but once in a while our corporate body says, "No ; here I am well housed, and here I will stay. I will pay more precious money rather than pack those 236 EIGHT WEEKS suit-cases for one night's sojourn." So we made a day's excursion to The Hague, and found the country- side full of delights we had not noticed when we first came by; all the growing things so attractive, the wooden shoes so numerous — how can those nimble boys play ball in them? — windmill sails being spread out upon their frames ready for business ; loaded boats creeping through the canals, each by the pushing power of one man with a pole against his shoulder walking from stem to stern ; and, as we passed the cities, glimpses of church towers and city halls that made us realize a little their national and civic sig- nificance. The Hague is a lovely city, without any unusual feature to exhaust one's exclamation points. Broad and straight streets, much shade, many canals, a lot of little parks within, and the larger Bosch jes with- out, pleasant palace grounds right in the centre — what more could one desire to enjoy without weari- ness. There are just three things that one must see — • the Binnenhof, the Picture Gallery, and Schevenin- gen. So we made our way by tram to the square called "het Plein," and looked around first at the Binnenhof, a kind of quadrangle of stately civic buildings that have looked down on all the most im- portant events of this place. The Hall of the Knights in the centre has been keeping guard here since the Middle Ages, and a few years ago was honored by being the meeting place of the International Peace Conference. It has seen much that was not peace, in its day, and especially two tragedies, when the state put to death its own loyal citizens; one was under Prince Maurice, son of the great William, when the Grand Pensionary, Oldenbarneveldt, here went to the scaffold, an old man, and falsely accused of treason ; the other, fifty years later, when the two brothers 237 EIGHT LANDS IN DeWitt were actually torn in pieces just outside its precincts. The splendid energy of Holland in defend- ing herself from oppression, and in advancing com- merce, manufactures, navigation, and literature in the midst of the struggle, inclines us to think only good of the little nation ; and one hates to read of internal feuds, of political prisoners and torture chambers. In Dutch history the one magic name of William the Silent, or William, Prince of Orange, will carry one a long way, just as the two words "Gilbert" and "London" are said to have brought Thomas a Becket's young mother all the way from Palestine to England. But that is a rather hazardous way of traveling. We manage pretty well by remembering that dukes, counts and ruling bishops belong to the centuries between the great Charlemagne and the other great Charles, the Emperor Charles V., who protected the land in all its industries ; that under his bad son, Philip II., evil times came upon it, especially from the cruel governor, the Duke of Alva ; and that now began a struggle for lib- erty in which the Belgian states joined for thirty years only, but the Dutch states kept right on until reorgan- ized at the Peace of Westphalia as an independent republic. During this struggle of eighty years the great William was the leader until his assassination ; after him his sons and various stadholders and grand pensioners, but always at the choice of the people. And ever since, except for a few years when Napoleon set up republics or kingdoms at his own will, this sturdy little country has ruled itself, for better or worse, but usually for better. Since 1815 it has been a hereditary monarchy. That Peace of Westphalia, 1648, is a name and date worth remembering, for it closed the Thirty Years' War, which we are constantly running up against in the continental history, and was a general clearing- 238 EIGHT WEEKS house for old national scores ; and it is quite a help to poor memories to be reminded of the German joke that calls the thirtieth anniversary of a marriage "The Peace of Westphalia." Here we are, then, standing on one foot, as Horace says, while we see the history of this nation filing before us in clogs, on skates, in canal boats, in ships of the high seas, and we all this time in the Binnenhof, and hoping the little queen will drive by with the heiress apparent. The old building that forms the quadrangle known by this name now houses the two chambers of Parliament, and just a little east of it, fronting on het Plein, is the second thing we are to see, the choice Picture Gallery in the Mauritzhuis. To all its galaxy of stars poor we can give but one hour. But at least we take a good look at Rembrandt's School of Anatomy, and have a little discussion among ourselves whether a scene in a dissecting room can by any right be made the subject of a work of art; and we stand as long as ever we can before his Presenta- tion in the Temple. Was ever such joy and reverence combined as here, where Simeon holds the Christ- child in his arms and cries, "Now, Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace?" We also stand amazed before the bigness of Paul Potter's Bull, and the minuteness of a lot of little people who keep house or join in frolics or watch the sick in those choice inte- riors beloved of Steen and Metsu and their ilk. And now away by tram through a wealthy resi- dence quarter, all-flowering shrubs, vines, terraces and groves to Scheveningen, the bathing place par excel- lence of all this western coast. What huge hotels upspringing from the sand ! How appalling this amount of modern-day elegance ! Music and toilets, garden restaurants, carriages and auto-cars ! We are in a veritable Atlantic City. But never mind the 239 EIGHT LANDS IN gayeties in which our tourist attire has no concern. Keep right on to the big sea-wall, below which stretches out the real beach ; and what is this unique sight that takes you captive? A grand color scheme of blue and white and yellow ; blue sky with blue waves below it ; a broad dash of cream-white sand ; and all over it, in streaks, in splashes, in mass, the yellow of the shore chairs. To this you may add white canvases of bath houses, groups of children in white and colors, and a sprinkling of Dutch costumes, where bath-house matrons are rinsing and hanging out their towels and suits. We looked in vain for incoming fishing-smacks and for the fishwives of broad hats and wooden shoes, crowned with their dripping fish baskets. Fashion and frolic have crowded them away from sight, but the scene that is left in their place is simply beautiful, and the air in which it is set, an elixir. So what do we mind if we have two hours of railroading back to Am- sterdam and a longer journey to-morrow morning? This is a good closing for our Holland picture gallery — another high day. Breezes from the sea for you all, and farewell. M. 240 EIGHT WEEKS XXX— FROM ANTWERP TO AIX. En Route to Aix la Chapelle. Friday, July 30th. Dear friends: We thought we had left beloved Holland be- hind us, but a wedge of its territory pushes in between Belgium and Germany, and gives me the opportunity of beginning a letter once more from this goodly land. I am sorry that I have to report so slight an ac- quaintance with Belgium, for that is a good land, too ; but we have seen with our eyes only Brussels, where, as you know, we bought lace and were favored with night scenes in continuous performance, and to-day Antwerp, of which I will tell you soon. We are glad that Belgium and Holland have sometimes shared for- tunes, for that makes our historic burden the lighter; and we find it not difficult to remember that in the great struggle for independence in the sixteenth cen- tury Belgium got tired of the contest, went back to her masters of Spain, and was after that passed on to Austria and France, and that, on the downfall of Napoleon, at that other national clearing-house, the Congress of Vienna of 1815, she and Holland were again yoked together for a time as the Kingdom of the United Nethei lands. Do you remember two little churches in a certain New England village that are every now and then on the verge of uniting, but never 241 EIGHT LANDS IN bring it about ? Their doctrines and their practice are much alike, and every motive of expediency would lead to their union ; but that Scotch Presbyterians should renounce their traditions or New England Congrega- tionalists their freedom — who could expect that? Well, here stand these two admirable and thrifty lit- tle countries side by side ; kindred, too, in the outset ; and they have gone the length twice of uniting; but with what results? After fifteen years of cooperative housekeeping, to please the Congress of Vienna, Bel- gium just could not endure the Dutch half of the fam- ily any longer, and in 1830 got up an out-and-out revolution ; while Holland, except for the shock to her wounded pride, was thoroughly glad to have her uncomfortable cousin cook at her own kitchen fire. And ever since they have been better friends for not trying to be anything nearer. One of the two nations speaks Dutch, a Teutonic language; the other long ago adopted a romance lan- guage, French. One is Protestant, the other Catholic ; one affects whatever is solid, quiet, law-abiding; the other loves to shine, to make a noise, to be exhilarated. Both are peoples of talent, and in art are rivals. Bel- gium boasts of the Van Eycks, Hans Memling, Quen- tin Matsys, the three Breughels — (how lovely of them to choose such specialties that men may call them "Peasant Breughel," "Velvet Breughel," and "Hell- fire Breughel"!) — Rubens and Van Dyck. Holland sets over against these Rembrandt, Van der Heist, Frans Hals, Jan Steen. The Flemish painters have given us a predominance of sacred pictures, crucifixes, altar pieces. Even Rubens, with all his flesh and frippery, does his best works in the themes of the Crucifixion and of the Last Judgment. But the Dutch, as I have said before, are essentially the portrayers of the life of their own time. 242 EIGHT WEEKS In literature, Holland is far ahead; for Belgium had come under the rule of foreigners before the edu- cational power of printing was felt, and had assumed their speech and literature for her educated classes. The old Flemish language, closely allied to the Dutch, is still used in many country places and taught in the schools ; but it has created no classics. With these contrasts in our mind, we had not been averse to finding Brussels a lively place, and in Antwerp we were quite uncertain how we were to be impressed ; for we knew that under Charles V. she had vied with Venice and Genoa in wealth and commerce, and that at this day her harbor is one of the finest and busiest in Europe ; also that her art treasures are great, and that any one of her museums would demand a half day for a reasonable visit. Therefore we, having an hour and a half for the whole interview, had decided to give this to the seven-aisled cathedral and to any further impressions that might steal upon us between the station and the Cathedral Square. Now our be- ginning of these impressions was fine; for while we were crowding face against face at our railway win- dows to catch a glimpse of the cathedral spire — that spire that Emperor Charles V. had compared to Mech- lin lace, and Emperor Napoleon had declared worthy to be kept under glass — we became aware that we were entering Antwerp in phenomenal style. High up abreast the balconies of elegant residences we were sliding smoothly along between balustrades of marble. What did this splendor mean ? That a great city, hav- ing brought her railway into the heart of her resi- dence section, had decided to make the necessary cause- way a thing of marble grandeur, like the arches and aqueducts of ancient Rome. Poets and painters of our century are glorifying the might of machinery, the rhythm of manufactures, and here are architects who 243 EIGHT LANDS IN have laid hold of these giants of labor and told them that they must give beauty as well as strength. And next, as we were all prepared for further im- pressions, Nature, considering that we had only an hour and a half for all Antwerp, mercifully sent a downpouring rain. That gave a possible explanation, don't you see, of our rushing in and out of this home of art as though it were an abode of the plague. You remember that we were bent on reaching Cologne for Sunday ; also that we saw a whole city yesterday, which usually means a certain numbness to new sights. And yet, for very shame before the cab- men, I was glad that it rained. "Yes, drive directly to the cathedral, and after that through a few of the best streets and the Gran' Place. No, we can't go to any museums to-day ; you see the rain." And leaving it to be implied that we might drop in again on almost any pleasant day, we are off for Notre Dame. Now no lingering, if you please, for outside impres- sions, but line up with other visiting carriages in the lee of the nave, then up with umbrellas and hurry into the interior. Here it is in all its greatness, the wide, wide, open stretch of floor and pillars and vaults — a cathedral to be taken in slowly and studied from many different points of view ; and here are we, reach- ing out wildly for definite impressions, and conscien- tiously trying to grasp the scope of Rubens' two great paintings, the Descent from the Cross and the Eleva- tion, which stand on permanent exhibition in the two transepts. No doubt that Rubens here puts his splen- did use of color and his masterly drawing to good account, and rises to his highest level of grandeur. Those of us who have known him only through his glorification of Marie de Medici in the Louvre are glad to be able to see him in these nobler works. Outside the church we take a hasty look at the iron 244 EIGHT WEEKS well-curb and canopy of Quentin Matsys of four hun- dred years ago, tell over to ourselves how love trans- formed a blacksmith to an artist, and then drive past the triangular park that, with greenery and lake, makes a unique centre of the city, and so back to our station with the marble approaches. You may be in- clined to ask whether such a survey of a city pays for the effort of stopping. I think it does. Such flash- light views are certainly not desirable, and are not often to be admitted even into a rapid tour like ours; but if we put nothing more inside our diaries than this : "Seven-aisled cathedral, Rubens' masterpieces, Quentin Matsys' iron well curb, triangular park," we have thereby taken hold of a great city, and we shall be more likely to add little by little to our acquisition than to lose it entirely. Rubens and Quentin Matsys are already old friends to some of us who did not know them by name when we left home. And as for the docks and museums left all unseen, what care we? For are we not on the way to Aix la Chapelle, to com- mune with ancient Charlemagne, first and greatest of northern emperors? Now, if you had been twice on the verge of this same consummation at gaps of fifteen and twenty years, and had been first shut off from it by the sud- den closing of one of the doors of fate, and a second time by the unannounced departure of the train you were waiting to take, what would you do about it? Give up Charlemagne and his cathedral? Just take him on faith from history books and German Marchen and pretty French tales? Or would you say, "Three times and out," and before ever you left America stip- ulate with your round-trip agent and your beloved eight that, come what might, and connect what might, and skip what might, you were to see Aix and worship in the church of the emperor ! 245 EIGHT LANDS IN Well, here it is at last, and My Lady of the Guide Book is dissolved in a great smile at finding herself again, after many years, on German soil. And how does she recognize so quickly the atmosphere of the Fatherland? By the thrilling of the German blood in her veins when it comes to its own again? Oh, no; but just by the plain use of her senses. She hears the twanging of the vibrant consonants and the welling up of big-mouthed vowels, where you hear only the guttural r and ch ; and she sees every building of the station and every uniformed official adorned and la- beled with a most superior quality of red tape. You discredit her observations, and find only the Prussian colors of black and white in occasional evidence. But wait a moment. What is that ticket puncher at the gate grumbling about? "No names signed at the bot- tom of those eight ticket-books?" "But there is the name distinctly given at the top." "No, no; here it must be, on this line at the bottom." "But this is the way they were given to me in London, without any name at all, and I afterwards wrote it in for my own convenience, as you see." "No, madame, you do not understand me ; these are not good unless the name is written on each, so, at the bottom." "But just this way I have used them in France and Belgium and Holland." "Madame, you do not understand me ; Prussia is more exact than other countries ; you must write all your names there, at the bottom ; do you see?" My Lady thanks the official for his kind solic- itude, gives an implied promise that the names shall be duly written at the bottom, and we are passed through the gate. And now, what prevents us from taking that welcome road labeled Ausgang, which we are beginning to recognize under its varied forms of exit, sortie, uitgang, and the rest? Oh, there is a custom-house to be visited, and no longer are the 246 EIGHT WEEKS eight innocent suit-cases to be passed over with a glance. Into the examining room with them all, and you ladies follow with your keys. But one of our number is white with an all-day headache, and a car- riage she must have, and have it quickly. "Her suit- case is not locked, examine it as you choose, only let My Lady pass, and one of us to go with her." You would have thought us all palpable diamond smug- glers from the difficulty we had in getting My Lady of the Veil to her cab. Never in all her life had she run the gauntlet of so many suspicious looks. The examination was not severe, but thoroughly in order ; and we all began to recognize that excellent red tape is a part of the paternalism under which we had come to sojourn for a time. For the arrival, you see, is now of the past ; we have had our supper in the good inn at the sign of the elephant ; we have taken cognizance of the foam- ing beer and the ubiquitous cigar ; also of the German wurst and schwarzbrod at neighboring tables, and we must betake us at once to our high-piled beds, to be ready for the brief morning hours in long-expected Aix. Good-night, with greetings from a thousand years ago, and good wishes for all your own postponed ambitions. M. 247 PART V— THE RHINE. XXXI— THE CITY OF CHARLEMAGNE. From Aix to Cologne. Saturday, July 31st. Dear friends: This heading is brief and simple; but what a mighty content in its four words ! There is a pretty story about the great emperor ; how his eastern wife, Frastrada — one of a series of wives — owned a jewel that was a love charm; how, after her death, it came into the hands of a high chamberlain, and by him was dropped into a deep pool at Aix; and how from that time on no attractions of love or war could long detain great Charlemagne from the vicinity of this, his loved abode. Be it the eastern jewel or the mineral springs, the charms of nature or the advantage of a central location, this little Roman city became the favorite residence of the great ruler. Here he built his palace, and close beside it his min- 251 EIGHT LANDS IN ster, modeling the latter after the octagonal church of San Vitale in Ravenna. During Charlemagne's early days three great pow- ers had been contending for the lordship of Italy — the Pope in Rome, the eastern empire, which still tried to rule the peninsula through "Exarchs" established in Ravenna, and the Lombards, who had claimed to be masters for two hundred years, had a nominal king in Pavia, and a score or two of almost independent dukes scattered through the north and south. The Pope had his pillared basilicas on every hand — beauti- ful churches, originating in the law courts of the Ro- mans ; the Exarchs had more basilicas and octagonal baptisteries, built in part by Theodoric and his Os- trogoths, and adorned with glorious mosaics which are still the wonder of our day; the Lombards were not far behind in the cathedrals with which they had dotted the country. All these structures young Charle- magne became familiar with during the wars carried on by his father, Pepin and himself, against the Lom- bards ; and when he had crowned himself King of Italy with the Iron Crown of Lombardy he began to think of transplanting Italian elegance to the more barbarous north, where he had chosen his home, and where he was surrounding himself with ecclesiastical sees on every side. It was the matchless octagonal Church of San Vitale at Ravenna that he took as his model. His minster was well under way when he went down to the Pope as King of the Franks and of Italy, and returned as Emperor of Rome; in it he set up his marble throne which later became a coronation chair; here he worshiped on Sabbaths and feast days; here he gave thanks after cruel massacres of the heathen ; and here he chose to be buried. A colossus in history, this Charlemagne, with his giant powers, his giant wisdom, his sunlight and shadow of char- 252 EIGHT WEEKS acter. Aren't you sorry, as we were, never to have been in Aix? Early this morning there was a great bell that began to ring, and one of us cried to another : "Do you hear it? Do you hear it? The bell from Charle- magne's minster calling us to prayer ! Oh, make haste, make haste, for I hear the great organ even now, lead- ing the morning worship." Perhaps you have already divined that it is against the principles of the eight to begin the day at an early hour — that the traveler's candle must not be burned at both ends, and that in general it is the morning end that is more under his control ; so we and our circular tickets long ago agreed to make few early starts ; and herein we found that the most approved express trains were usually in our favor. But to hear Charlemagne's bells calling us to prayer ! and down the stairs we dropped, pushing in our hatpins as we went, to learn from the porter that our supposed organ was a morn- ing concert in the garden of the neighboring Kursaal ! A concert before 8 a. m., to lighten the rising of gouty patients and slothful travelers ! Truly, here was a new evidence of paternalism. But no concert could furnish that deep-toned bell, and toward it we pushed our way, past market stands loaded with fruits, mar- ket women in aprons and kerchiefs, alive to the needs of early housewives ; cabbages, salads and white- stalked chard ; chickens dangling by their feet, squeal- ing pigs in bags ; pots of pinks and mignonette ; great bunches of marigolds; butter and cheese served on grape leaves ; gathering crowds from three converg- ing streets, chattering, bargaining, chaffing as though the minster shadow did not fall across their way, nor any whisper of the ages tell them to speak low. But oh, give thanks with the worshipers therein, for the transept doors are open, a tinkling bell of morning 253 EIGHT LANDS IN mass comes to our ears, candles are burning on the altar, a little congregation of the devout are following on their knees the ministrations of the priests, and under the lofty dome, among the pillared arches of price we, too, may kneel and lift up our hearts. The church is far more beautiful and imposing than we had dared to hope. An octagon of about fifty feet in diameter soars to a dome of twice that altitude ; supporting this dome are eight massive piers of veined marble connected by a double row of pillared, round- topped arches that reveal behind them the shadowy depths of the two-storied ambulatory. This is the original church of Charlemagne ; in it hangs the gilded candelabrum presented by his great successor, Frederick Barbarossa, after three hundred years ; and in the gallery stands the marble coronation throne. On the east this octagon opens into a beautiful Gothic choir, all windows, like the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In any other place one's attention would be engrossed by this architectural success. The lancets are as slen- der as the Five Sisters that we admired in York ; but these are thirteen in number, and rise to the height of eighty-seven feec, in place of fifty. It is a swan- like beauty that is before us ; but who remembers the swan when Jove's eagle comes by? And it is the octagon of the marbles and the arches that fills our hearts. A mosaic of Christ and the saints draws our eyes to the dome, a modern copy of the work of Charlemagne's time, this, too, transferring to the far north the glory of the southern capital ; for Ravenna had long taken the place of Rome as residence city for the rulers of the peninsula, and Charlemagne had determined to make Aix la Chapelle a second Ra- venna, a free city of the empire, a seat of royalty. For ten years after the completion of his church he wor- shiped within its walls ; then on his death was buried, 254 EIGHT WEEKS seated in imperial robes, in one of its chapels. Em- peror after emperor received the crown of Germany in this place, and occasionally one of them looked into the tomb. Otto III. found the monarch still sitting in state, after two hundred years ; Frederick Barbarossa, a century and a half later, laid the crumbling bones in a sculptured sarcophagus ; and Frederick III., after another three hundred years, transferred them to a shrine of gold and silver. Here they are still pre- served in the treasury, along with the emperor's ivory hunting horn and the still more precious relics of the Virgin and the Christ that are displayed for the vener- ation of the faithful once in seven years. We have reached the lands where relics have a meaning hardly understood by us. The first impulse of the western traveler is to discredit their genuineness, and his next, to belittle their value. But is it not a part of our European education to consider a little their influence on the civilizations with which we are in touch? Suppose a belief in their miracle-working to be a thing of the past, and their efficiency in saving a soul from torment to be equally disbelieved — what shall we say of their effect as links with the past, the very thing which we students of history are striving after? To how many thousands, nay, millions, have not relics made real a great event, a far-away saint, in a way to effect the whole tenor of their lives? Does not Charlemagne mean the more to us for our sitting here in his minster? And what if we had time to see that wonderful hunting horn that he blew in battle in the grim old days ? But we can stay no longer in this sanctuary of ab- sorbing interest. We scan with regretted haste the bronze west doors of Charlemagne's own ordering; note the variety of architecture introduced by the gradual addition of chapel after chapel and the erec- 255 EIGHT LANDS IN tion of the western spire ; view the outside of the Rathaus (city hall), a fascinating medieval building with Gothic spires, arcades and windowed roofs, built on the site of Charlemagne's palace, and partly from its choice material; drink from the Elisenbrunnen in a colonnaded modern spring house a draught as hot and sulphurous as when the Romans first discovered these restoring waters ; buy photographs and models to help our weakly memories; and, as a counter-irri- tant to historic pressure, give flying and longing glances at shop windows lovely with jewels and blouses and lace. Now you who have time and libraries, please read a plump history of Charles the Great in our behalf ; I am sure you'll be glad of the gain on your own ac- count. Look up the legends that have grown up about him, his wives, his courtiers, his sins and penances, his campaign in the Pyrenees, with all that befell his Paladius, especially young Roland and his horse and sword — whereof you may even go so far as the old French chanson called by his name ; find out why we say, "I'll give a Roland for your Oliver" ; then con- tinue with a brief sketch of those German emperors who must needs wear the silver crown of Germany, the iron crown of Lombardy and the golden crown set upon their heads by the Pope before they could claim their full titles ; call up before you the thirty coronation ceremonies that have filled this minster with throngs sceptered and robed, and the streets with processions and music ; add a list of the imperial diets, ecclesiastical councils, and political congresses that have flung out their regalia in the Kaisersaal and council hall of the Rathaus ; and finish — if you have a little brain and patience left — with the international treaties that have here set the world at peace after notable wars. 256 EIGHT WEEKS Thank you, sincerely ; and if you can transfer the results of your study to our own toppling skulls, thank you many times more. We are nearing Cologne, but our thoughts have been so full of that which we have left that we have hardly marked any possible changes in the landscape and country sights, and leave you to find them out from other sources, if you desire. Do you realize that Charlemagne was entered in the Romish calendar as a saint some eight hundred years ago ? I fear his greatness overshadows his saintliness, for we seldom hear him spoken of by his saintly title. Nevertheless, we find ourselves repeating in the roar of this noisy train that glorious thanksgiving of our own day: For all the saints who from their labors rest, Who Thee by faith before the world confessed, Thy name, O Jesu, be forever blest ! Allelujah ! Thou wast their rock, their fortress and their might; Thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight; Thou, in the darkness drear, the one true light. Allelujah ! Gratefully and gladly yours, M. Evening. Although I have closed one letter to you this very day, I am taking up my pen anew ; a genuine grip, this, on Time's old forelock, as you will see. We are sitting by our hotel windows within sight and sound of the great cathedral, its pinnacles flash- ing white, and snowlike in the city's electric lights 257 EIGHT LANDS IN Gopher KAROLVS against the black of a city sky, and one of its great bells tolling out stories of the centuries. We know that when Sabbath day comes we shall have little time or thought except for the great sanctuary, so we are all writing up letters and diaries, and I am taking this hour for an important errand to you. I wish to intro- duce you, every one, to an old and dear friend whom I hope to have much with us during the few days to come. I have known him after a fashion since I was a child — my earliest acquaintance being by hearsay, and continuing later by the help of books and pictures and the letters of mutual friends, until it grew into a 258 EIGHT WEEKS kind of wondering worship. Later, when I met him face to face, I found that the half of all his excellences had not been told ; and I have an idea that now again I shall be taken captive by unremembered charms and by depths of character into which I had never fully entered. Is it a trifle of a damper on my enthusiasm that among all his admirers he has probably never heard of me or realized that we are verily great friends ? Well, I hardly think so. We shall see. Of rivers many there are many and varied kinds; and when I tell over a little geographical list of those that all the world knows — the Thames, the Seine, the Tiber, the Nile, the Euphrates, the Ganges, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi — every name is as good as the opening of a book ; it sets one's thoughts awander- ing to lands and people diverse, to histories entranc- ing, to pictures that have no end ; and if I should ask you which one you liked the best, there would be a year of answers and of reasons why. For a river has a definite personality. It is not like a country, which is always changing its boundaries ; or a mountain, which can be said to have no exact limit between itself and the plain ; or a city, which to-day is of brick and to-morrow of marble, to-day rises in beauty and to- morrow lies in ruins. A river is an individual as an island is, but more alive, for it is ever moving, speak- ing, and conveying news from one land to another. It is never for two consecutive minutes of its existence made up of the same constituent parts — a thousand little rills flowing in from above and a thousand waves passing out into the ocean; and yet it is always that same blessed old river, that world traveler, that bearer of wealthy burdens, that teller of darling tales. I have a feeling that the Ganges is the most wonderful of them all, journeying down from the snows on the Roof of the World through cities of the Grand Mogul and 259 EIGHT LANDS IN temple-studded ghats to the hot waters of the Indian Ocean. But some of you will cry out for the Nile, and will also ask me why, in the name of common sense, I am wandering a whole page away from my coveted introduction. Why, just because I cannot see it right to present you to my friend, the River Rhine, before setting him first in the circle of his peers and letting you see how nobly he lifts up his head among them. Is he not the clearest and homiest of them all, this old friend of everybody ? Who more blithe than he in his Alpine cradle and his blue playground of the Lake of Constance? Who more bold than he when he takes his one riotous plunge down the malachite falls at Schaffhausen ? Who more faithful to take up his life journey, slowly, gallantly, unwearyingly through five hundred miles of vineyards and castles, cities and har- bors till he reaches the lowland of Holland, and bends his proud neck to dikes and bridges — divides his mighty current into a thousand imprisoned canals, accepts the yoke of man's control as absolutely as ever conquered nation yielded to Rome, and passes out into the great deep through gates of man's devising and at the times appointed to suit man's needs. So now you are properly introduced just as I pre- pare to lay my pen aside. You may make a nearer acquaintance with Father Rhine at any moment by a walk of a block or two from our hotel ; and of all his noble cities and cathedrals you may take account when we make our anticipated journey of Monday. We eight have also begun to be old friends with this grandest of German cathedrals; but of that I cannot begin to tell you at this near approach of bedtime ; so now good night, with dreams that move smoothly to the sound of quiet waters and of a mellow, tolling bell. As always, M. 260 EIGHT WEEKS XXXII— KOLN. Beloved: You may with us begin, not only the week, but the month, in the courts of the Lord's house. According to our original determination, we have been resting to-day; merely dropping in to a few churches and taking a walk for pleasure. But, alas ! churches are many in Cologne, and architecturally fascinating. Also, our strolls must needs be up and down the city streets ; shops are open the latter part of the day, and my Lady of the Star, who never turns her Sunday chariot to other than ecclesiastical attractions when at home, is able to tell us, at the end of these twelve hours, in just which street and arcades we may find the daintiest embroideries ! Alas and alas ! Of these churches there are two great types — the Romanesque, which in Germany held its own a century later than in France, and the Gothic. Of the latter this cathedral is the great exponent, and with it we un- chronologically began our acquaintance as soon as we reached the city yesterday afternoon. 261 EIGHT LANDS IN Grandly it dominates the whole of Cologne, lifting its huge but shapely mass above everything around it. Like the lode-star, it draws your eye from every point in the great plain ; nearer it becomes an unending study of towers and pinnacles, buttresses of cyclopic mass, and traceries of flowery work in stone ; close at hand it delights and overwhelms with its abounding statuary of four centuries ago, and its superb bronze doors of recent decades. All the time you feel as though you were studying a mountain — a carved precipice — so vast it rises beside you ; and when you set out to walk around it, if by daylight you seem to pass all the shops and sights of the central city in your journey; if by night, in darkness or in moonlight, you have a feeling that you are alone with a great work of nature, and yet, somehow, a treasure-house of man. The two west towers rise in ornately solid squares for some two hundred feet — that is higher than most church stee- ples ; then as octagons of windows, buttresses, and gargoyles, more ornate, for another hundred ; and finally in two openwork spires, a miracle for birds and storms and sun to caress, up, up into the five hundreds. This mass of masonry, cut from the gray rock of the frowning Drachenfels on the Rhine, began to rise to its present splendor in 1248, just at the opening of the Gothic period in Germany. A lot of pretty stories gather about its christening; especially those of the archbishop who wearied his brain again and again for a design outstripping that of all other builders — held midnight conferences on the subject with a mysterious visitor on the shores of the Rhine ; was upbraided by him at every new production as having merely varied some plan already in use; and finally was obliged to accept the Devil's design on the Devil's terms to achieve the uniqueness for which he was striving. Equally interesting, and more historic, as you may 262 EIGHT WEEKS guess, are the accounts of the slow progress of the building; the cornerstone laid, the choir rising in its glory and set with windows of price which remain till today — so much completed at the end of seventy-five years ; then the beginning of the nave ; roofed over at half its proposed height for immediate use, and of the south tower, carried high enough to receive a chime of bells — this in the next hundred odd years ; after that a long lull, while the Reformation, the Thirty Years' War, and the conquests of the French gave a setback to ecclesiastical endeavor — two hundred years, at least, of standstill and neglect, even of robbery, abuse and threatened destruction; and all these years those gold and ruby windows sifting in the light, those bells call- ing to prayer, in this great work that had not yet attained its end. At last a revival of enthusiasm, a cooperation of church and state and people; gifts, grants, lotteries — anything to help this beloved cripple to his feet ; and, behold, in 1880, six hundred years from the solemn laying of the corner-stone, a jubilee of all Germany, shouting to the "top stone of the cor- ner," "Grace unto it !" Almost all the sovereigns of Europe came together to see the completion of what Archbishop Conrad of Hochstaden had begun, and to extol the excellence of the plans of Meister Ger- hard, which had commanded the approval of all suc- ceeding builders. When one considers how many mas- ter minds in various departments have contributed to the perfection of this seemingly perfect work — kings and emperors, archbishops and cardinals, architects, sculptors and painters, and how from two entirely opposite sources of strength — the excellence of one masterful plan, and the momentum of a million sep- arate but cooperating wills, the result has been reached, — one is disposed never to despair of a good end to be attained. Glorious Cologne — the work of 263 EIGHT LANDS IN generations, the love of a nation, the crude, bold Drachenfels transformed into a temple of God, the will of man and the worship of man uniting here in "the beauty of holiness." Having time to begin our study with a walk about Zion, we can hardly make up our minds to enter for fear of a disillusion. I am giving you, too, this pre- liminary, outside view just as we took it yesterday afternoon. You notice that this peer of York — for each may be considered the king of Gothic cathedrals in its own land — differs materially from it in its whole external form. York is preeminent in its central, square tower, Cologne in its two west spires; York reaches out to immense length, Cologne attains an im- mense height ; York is surrounded with conspicuous annexes of chapter-house, vestry, treasury and the like, with nearby grounds of the deanery and the library; Cologne has hardly a pent-house attachment outside -v^-CSa?- Cxrtotv at€-- 264 EIGHT WEEKS its main body, but stands simple and alone in the jostling of the city's thoroughfares. I think it is safe to enter now. You will meet no disappointment. The nave and double aisles, unbroken by chapels or choir screen, and suffused with color from windows great and small, windows high and low, give you a feeling of grand and restful satisfaction. You cannot fathom or compass this greatness, and you rest in it as we do in the infinite. It is Saturday afternoon when we have this first look. We anticipate with delight our day and a half here in contrast with our hour and a half at York, and promise ourselves a series of quiet visits. Mean- while, this is our opportunity to see the galleries and towers; and now arises the usual diversity of attitude among us eight — a really diverting diver- sity. Number one thinks she shall climb that tower ; she is our senior member, and must set us a good example. Number two usually finds her energies rise with the difficulties of the task, and gladly seconds her leader. Number three — that is My Lady of the Star — remembers with such delight her view from Notre Dame that she will not miss of a similar oppor- tunity. Number four is a Laodicean, neither hot nor cold ; she neither promises nor declines. Number five — that is My Lady in Green — is ready to be in the van- guard when baggage is concerned, and to be in the thick of the fight in any necessary crowd ; but as for going up a winding stair, darkness above, the depth below, and air nowhere — that she will not do for any view this side of the Heavenly Gates. By wheedling, cajoling, compelling, she is in some way inserted be- tween two of the procession, started on the upward, winding way, and with terror in her face and male- dictions in her heart, brought safely out into the first station — a kind of treasury, an open breathing place 265 EIGHT LANDS IN between stairs. Numbers six and seven are fortu- nately driving about the boulevards and seeing in be- half of us all the beautiful suburbs of the city ; so the loathness to take risks of the first, and the loath- ness to lose possible sights of the second, are not on this occasion pitted against one another. Number eight. My Lady of the Veil, being both amiable and ambitious, has put up a prayer against folly and heart disease, and brought up the rear. Imagine us, then, at the conclusion of our first hundred steps trailing out six in number into the gallery of the triforium, and wending our way in single file along and along after our guide under low arches, through a bit of cool, black tunnel, always with the wall of the nave at our left and a parapet of stone at our right, over which last we look wonderingly to the opposite pillars and windows, and down into great depths of the luminous nave ; arriving at last, after many catchings of breath, at the west end, where this narrow gallery crosses be- tween portals below and windows above. Here we take our stand, right in the middle and look down these five pillared avenues — an extreme length of nearly four hundred feet, a width of a hundred and fifty, a height of about the same ; no break but the huge clustered columns, fifty-six in number ; and everywhere, through all this solemn state, the light from rainbow windows. We appreciate the altitude the better by having the half of it below us ; we meas- ure distances and sizes from the standard of these triforium pillars beside us, which looked so tiny from below ; we get a grip, as you may say, upon this whole by the very fact of looking down upon its great- ness. Can you see that every pillar bears upon one side a standing figure, supported by a console and sheltered by a carven canopy, all of stone? Those are the saints and apostles, the prophets and martyrs, who 266 EIGHT WEEKS have been privileged to become pillars in the house of the Lord. Day and night they watch and sing praises, they show forth the cunning of the Great Sculptor who carved out heroes from simple, human stuff. They see the darkness come without fear ; they welcome the dawning of the morn through the high lancets of the choir ; they catch the first rays of the sun and stand forth in a hundred different hues as he passes from window to window, looking in upon their saintliness. If you could just look around the corner a bit into the south transept you would be amazed at one figure, greater than them all, beloved Saint Christopher with his pine tree staff and his heavy child-burden. His story is so choice and so helpful, even to little men like us who are content with easy service, that it is always a delight to see it put into statue or picture ; and I have vexed my brain in vain to discover how we might introduce him into the over-historical calendar of our Protestant churches. It is a real work of supererogation for me to refrain from telling his story here, although I know it to be familiar to every- body, and if, some day, one of you should ask — "Just what is that tale of St. Christopher after all?" I should cry out with delight, "There, I will never again with- hold my tongue or my pen from one of the golden legends." This time, however, I will call your atten- tion instead to the distant chapels, eight in all, that surround the choir. You can hardly distinguish them so far away, and thereby you realize how long a dis- tance four hundred feet may be when found inside a church. The first one at your left is dedicated to St. Engelbert, who would have been the founder of this great pile but for the assassin's hand. The second celebrates a still earlier ecclesiastic under whose rule the city walls were begun. Cologne cannot live happy 2D 7 EIGHT LANDS IN without a wall. Whenever removed to make room for new city quarters and replaced by encircling boule- vards, it is re-erected in modified form half a mile further out. Chapel number three is sacred to Arch- bishop Conrad, the actual founder, and, besides his bronze statue, contains the original plans of the fagade. Number four, directly behind the high altar, was long the choicest of them all, for here the bones of the Wise Men of the East were buried, and from these come the three crowns that you see everywhere in the escutcheon of the city. Now, if you are a habitual doubter, don't be nasty about the pet stories of the world; at least pass them by with a smile at their beauty. But if you have faith enough to accept the Puritans and the Mayflower, listen a moment to the tale of the Three Kings; for what the Mayflower is to New England, that is the gallant ship of Saint Helena to the ecclesiastics of the middle age. Empress Helena herself was at first a scoffer, and declared she would rather her son, the youthful Constantine, should be a Jew than a Christian. But when she later ac- cepted the faith of the Nazarene she set forth with woman's zeal to see for herself all that pertained to His earthly pilgrimage. She searched Jerusalem from end to end ; she discovered the three crosses buried under Calvary ; she tested them by their miracle-work- ing power to find which had borne our Lord ; she searched out the nails, the vestments, the crown of thorns ; she purchased the stairs from Pilate's judg- ment hall, and ship-loads of earth from sacred mounts ; she added bones of martyrs many ; and then she sailed triumphantly home to Constantinople to rejoice the hearts of relic-loving Christendom. So when you are disposed to question how the crowns of the Three Kings happen to be in the treasury of Cologne, and are referred back first to an archbishop, then to the Em- 268 EIGHT WEEKS peror Barbarossa, and then to Constantinople, you may know that you are on the right track to Empress Helena and her ships, and may shift further respon- sibility upon that good and discriminating woman. The other four chapels are dedicated to further saints and bishops, and to the Holy Virgin, and in one of them is the most famous work of early German painting — the "Dombild," a huge winged picture by Meister Stephan of the fifteenth century. In this you may see, when you take time to look near by, the adoration of the Magi flanked by pictures of Sts. Gereon and Ursula, who antedate St. Helena herself and are two of the great saints of Cologne. As in all the other cathedrals we have visited, we are in a great crowd here, "compassed about with a great crowd of witnesses," and our insignificant lives, which we started out with in a spirit of American independence and of twentieth century individualism, begin to seem to us little parts of a great structure, essential parts, perhaps, like any of the myriad unmarked stones of this cathedral. Those hundred winding steps were voted worth while, even by My Lady in Green ; and to most of us they had brought so much that we were quite ready to descend now to terra firma and to unstrenuous shop windows, leaving numbers one, two, and three to climb the other twelve dozen, to survey the city roofs, the great river, and the distant Siebengebirge. All this Sabbath day those three enthusiasts have felt obliged to keep on the move, just to prove that their muscles are not lame ; and we, the others, have had to keep up with them, considering that tired muscles on our part would be wholly without excuse. For all this going no occasion has been needed ex- cept the good Sunday one of attending church. For here stand four beautiful Romanesque buildings, rep- 269 EIGHT LANDS IN resenting early days, and commemorating favorite saints. Their architecture is unlike anything we have so far seen, and yet is sufficiently simple to be taken in easily and to mingle ever afterwards with the mem- ories of worship. Cologne is a Catholic city, and this means that peo- ple come and go during church services with much freedom ; and we have felt no hesitation at sharing quietly in the worship of several congregations. Four churches have drawn us with an almost irresistible charm — first great St. Martin's, which stands quite near the river on land which was once an island, con- spicuous in all pictures of Cologne for its massive square tower with turrets at the corners. It is a hundred years older than the cathedral, and the orig- inal church dated back to the days of Merovingian kings. It is a characteristic of all these Romanesque churches that they make much of the eastern end, the choir and transept; and Gross Sanct Martin has its huge central tower rising over the intersection to a height of 270 feet. The three others make a rectangle with the cathe- dral as though the four were at the extreme points of a letter H, standing perpendicular to the Rhine, St. Mary in the Capitol being the left base; the Apos- tles' Church, a half mile farther away, the left top ; St. Gereon the right top, and the cathedral the right base. In this order, too, we visited them, and were fain to think each finer than its predecessor. St. Mary in the Capitol, dedicated two hundred years before the cathedral was begun, consists of a simple nave and aisles, widening out into a beautiful clover-leaf of choir and transepts — more accurately, a triapsal east end — exactly symmetrical, solid, enduring, rejoicing in the round arch which is the mark of the Roman- esque, employing it in vaulting, windows and dec- 270 EIGHT WEEKS orative frieze, and seeming to say, "This arch is all-sufficient ; nothing can outdo it in strength or beauty ; shame on you to attempt any improvement." The rich color with which the interior has been deco- rated in modern times seems to harmonize with the intoning of the mass, the rich melody of the organ, and the quaint sculptures most noticeable in the organ loft at the west end. We passed out through ancient tu cloisters that serve now as a connecting passage be- tween two streets, and took our way to the Church of the Apostles. This, built also with an eastern trefoil, boasts a dome over the intersection, a second pair of transepts at the west, and a square tower over their intersection. Here we found the stone pillars and walls left in natural grey with gold touches here and there, and rich mosaics in the choir. An admirable 271 EIGHT LANDS IN adaptation of galleries and niches adds a still further ornament, and the whole seems a perfect sanctuary to be named after the twelve. Here, too, we found services in progress, a crowded churchful of people pouring out — as many more pushing in to take their places, a grand pealing of the organ, responses in song from the congregation — but, air ! no, there was none. Why should one ask for air when there is plenty of incense? At home the question frequently ends with the first six words ; and if we cannot answer it satis- factorily in our churches, what can we expect in a land brought up to shut doors and keep interiors to them- selves ? Therefore we sped away to St. Geryon, the most charming of them all ; a nave nearly circular, a straight choir unfolding into a triple apse, a sacristy branching out here, a baptistery there, a vestibule with more attachments at the west end, and underneath another whole audience room known as the crypt, and seeming Nj&tre-' ,■ Ve/fc^° ml 272 EIGHT WEEKS as plain and homey as a New England prayer-meet- ing room — if you can imagine such a room with stone mosaic floor, low arches and pillars centuries old. Isn't this an ideal church, begun by good St. Helena herself to the honor of Captain Geryon and his three hundred soldiers of a Theban legion who perished here for their faith in the persecution just before the days of Constantine? The stone sarcophagi of the martyrs are built into the walls of the chapels that surround this nave, and it is their skulls above which twine the gold arabesques of the choir. It was touching to find here a children's service; innocent little Christians kneeling below the bones of the martyrs, and learning to carry out the spirit of St. Geryon in the material- istic bustle of to-day. But we must sit down again in joy, kneel down again in devotion with the worshipers in the great cathedral. In spite of the charm of the Roman- esque that has been about us all the morning, the up- springing of the Gothic columns lifts us into a new sphere of worship — a spirit of hope, of anticipation ; a feeling as though we could catch a breath of the great expanses of the Heavenly Temple. No gasping for air here, no crowding for room. The people and the aristocracy are side by side ; a market-woman's basket, a soldier's clanking sabre, a nurse in flowing apron with a child in her arms ; a great throng of common- place anybodies, with a sprinkling of tourists and sis- ters of mercy; and we all join our voices together to answer the music of choir and organ ; we all sit together on wooden benches and hear about good St. Joseph, the model to all upright men of to-day. Then my thoughts wander a little, for my eyes have rested upon one of the pillar saints done in gold instead of stone ; gilded, at least. Very strange that one prophet or apostle should be singled out for this conspicuous 273 EIGHT LANDS IN honor. I have quite lost St. Joseph and his sixth point of excellence in my wandering observation, when, lo ! the golden hands turn to stone, the golden mantle to gray, the golden hair flows down in grizzly locks, and the transfiguring light of a clear-story win- dow pane has passed on to other pillars and other saints. I confess that I found a lot of comfort in that golden statue. St. Joseph yielded to the little homily that I preached to myself. Who knows what moment, when we are standing steadfast in our lot, some light of love or circumstance may suddenly make us, too, step grandly forth in gold ? We all agree that Cologne has marked one, or rather two of our great days. To be sure, we have not seen the bones of St. Ursula and her eleven thousand vir- gins, even though their story is among the best of the sacred legends ; neither have we entered the ancient Rathouse with its Hansa-Saal, rich in political mem- ories, nor the banqueting hall of the old Giirzenich, where emperors were wont to lead the dance. We have not halfway observed the market-places and fountains, nor driven through the great Ringstrasse, named from all the imperial houses of Germany ; not a museum or zoological garden have we entered. But we began our day in the still small hours with a sound of music as high up as our fifth-story rooms in the hotel, and found, between the shiftings of our dreams, that it was not larks in the sky, but cathedral bells calling to matins. We have felt the ages once more all about us, those ages that are beginning to be old friends ; and we say to ourselves with increasing per- ception of their meaning, the words with which we began the day, "Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." A good Sabbath night to you, from M. 274 EIGHT WEEKS XXXIII— A HIGH DAY ON THE RHINE. Steamer Borussia, on the Rhine, Monday, Aug. 2. Dear friends and fellozv travelers: After a careful consideration of our itinerary, and a reference to My Lady in Green as to my mathematical accuracy, I can confidently say that we have in all four full days for the German empire. On Saturday afternoon we entered it at Aix ; on Wednesday we leave by the gates of the Rhine and reach Zurich as our first stopping place in Switzerland. Does that sound to you pre- posterous ? Do you think we would better conceal the fact that we have been in Germany at all, for fear that we shall seem to be handling what we have merely touched ? Don't despair. Unless I am greatly at fault these four days will be a valuable possession to us, a pocket-kodak presentment of a large subject, a sam- ple from which we can reconstruct the great and glo- rious fabric far more accurately from having looked at its colors and felt its warp and woof. Whenever we are established for several days in a hotel, our possessions are almost as varied and as scattered as the component parts of this great empire. In the wardrobe wraps, overshoes, umbrella, best silk blouse; on the table, guide-books, unfinished letters, paper and ink ; on the bureau toilet articles, a spirit lamp ; on the bed a lot of new purchases laid out for 275 EIGHT LANDS IN general admiration ; changes of raiment in the draw- ers, a half-filled suit case on the rack; and everywhere and anywhere a few score of beloved postal cards. "What, take all those things in one hand, or even in two ! Trust all those treasures to one leather strap over the shoulder of a hurrying porter ! Impossible !" But watch My Lady Bright Eyes stow those hundred possessions away in their familiar corners of her suit case, top off even with a pink kimona and slippers, close, lock and strap ; and lo ! with one deft hand she puts all out into the corridor; and the porter with his strap flings three or four such microcosms over his broad shoulders, hales them the whole length of a con- tinental railway station, hoists them into our "reserved compartment," and slams them into the racks over^our heads with a vigor that makes us tremble for their outsides. A suit-case is a grand encourager to travel- ers of limited time and still more limited capacity. What we can do with its contents we can possibly do with other material difficult to handle. Now here is the German empire. We are along its western border, ascending the Rhine — that is, moving south. The most of the northern portion of the empire lies behind us untouched, and much of the southern part is far away at our left; but we can get a geo- graphical grip on the whole of it if we will and per- haps some historical grip besides. This empire, such a noble successor to that old and patched up empire that Napoleon brought to its close in 1806, — this, a German federation, while that was of mongrel breed — has led its proud existence since 1870 with few changes of boundary or constitution. It consists of four kingdoms — Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, and Wiirt- temberg, and numerous grand duchies, principalities, provinces and free cities — twenty-six federated states in all; and has its capital in Berlin, which is also the 276 EIGHT WEEKS capital of the Kingdom of Prussia. Cologne, which we are just leaving behind us, is in Prussia, and the black and white stripes of the Prussian flag are as much in evidence as the red, white and black of the empire. Prussia, then, with its pride of leadership, its imperial palaces, its many provinces, stretches away to the north and east, with a lot of little duchies lying safely in its encircling arms ; and off beside the North Sea and the Baltic are the famous Hanse cities that were for centuries the cradle of industry and inde- pendent states — Bremen, Hamburg, Lubeck, and 277 EIGHT LANDS IN Dantzic ; the first three still retaining their autonomy in" the great federation. Behind us, too, lie the Harz mountains with the Brockenberg, the dancing place of the witches; the Franconian forest, with the Wart- burg castle; the Luther region; the region of Goethe and Schiller; the region of Frederick the Great and the Humboldts. Directly east, but far away, is the ikingdom of Saxony, with Dresden and its art treas- ures, and the lovely Saxon Switzerland, which is not Switzerland at all, but a beautiful rocky region along the upper Elbe. There is a Prussian Province of Saxony, as well ; and these two recall to us the fierce, defiant Saxons whom Charlemagne in his converting zeal baptized in blood; and the more recent Christian Saxons whose sunny, social nature Lessing contrasts with the Prussian solidity in his Mina von Barnhelm. Before the day is over we shall be passing between the conquered Province of Alsace on our right and the Grand Duchy of Baden on our left. This is the old Palatinate which took its name from the palace lords or Paladins, whom Charlemagne once estab- lished along the great river highway of his empire. At that point Wurttemberg will not be far to the east of us, with its capital of Stuttgart, and its memories of Swabian dukes and Hohenstauffen emperors. And beyond it, still further to the east, will be Bavaria with its capital, Munich, famous for art and beer and music. We shall see the inflowing waters of three famous riv- ers — the Mosel from the west, bringing tales of old Treves, or Triers, its Roman ruins, its medieval bish- ops, its luscious grapes; the Main and the Neckar from the east ; the first fresh from great Frankfort, city of emperors; the last coming down from the two great universities, of Tubingen and Heidelberg, and singing the folk songs of old Swabia. Now that we know what is before us in a general 278 EIGHT WEEKS way, we can begin watching for the castles and cathe- drals that will be in sight from this steamer. I have had to write fast, you see, while the scenery is still in a quiescent frame of mind, or, as we say, tame; for when it begins to assert itself, to grow wild and poetic, and fling whole volumes of legend about, we may as well yield to its tyranny and forget every- thing — except the midday meal. I have not told you in what excitement we left Cologne— excitement to it, and a little blase curiosity for ourselves. Two great influxes of guests were ex- pected, and we fancied that even our little throng was congeed with unusual enthusiasm. First in dignity of importance, a great church congress was to convene to discuss the Holy Eucharist and raise a new zeal in prelates and laity. Delegates from ecclesiastical com- munities of Germany and neighboring states were be- ing assigned to the city's hotels, the interiors of churches were being hung with red, and even the great cathedral was ringing to the sound of hammers, as barriers were erected and scaffoldings rose to help on the crimson transformation. We were almost tempted to break into our itinerary and wait for the bishops and cardinals. But, secondly— shall I say that we rise, or sink, to our further theme when we pass from a congress of Rome's convening to a trial trip of a giant dirigible? Sure it is that an immense enthusiasm was abroad in regard to the approach of Count Zeppelin sailing all the pathless blue from an aeronautic congress in Frankfort to the housetop crowds of the city on the Rhine. I say housetop crowds advisedly, for whereas our hotel rooms were all assigned to father this and friar that, our hotel roof was equally let out to father and brother, uncle and son, of the less elevated, or more elevated — lower level or higher level ranks of 279 EIGHT LANDS IN the common people. It is a queer mixture, this, of spiritual and terrestrial flights, of anticipated uplifts of body and of soul. Browning says it is all right : "As the bird wings and sings Let us cry, All good things Are ours ; nor soul helps flesh more now than flesh helps souls," and with confidence in the poet's dictum we are keep- ing an eye out for whichever good may come our way, and are trying to find out from the ship's people to which interest to attribute the showing of varied flags at all the wharves and clubhouses. At this very moment I hear an outcry at the bow of the boat, and must join the other seven to strain my eyes for cardinals sailing the water or counts afloat in the air. And it was Count Zeppelin taking his first great air journey from Frankfort to Cologne ! Can you imagine the excitement? A great crowd at the east side of the deck, and everybody on tiptoe to get a better view than his neighbor. Just a little white cigar shining up against the blue — unlike any bird of the air; now swaying a little to one side, rising, sinking. Oh, ter- ror! is it standing on end? or is that only the per- spective as it turns this way? "And which dirigible is this?" "Why, madam, there is but one!" (By the time this letter comes to your eyes there may be twenty, but I am telling the truth for to-day.) "And who is directing its course?" "Why, Count Zeppelin himself, the old warhorse of Franco-Prussian fame; the gentleman and scholar, the pride of Stuttgart, where he lives and is loved, the pioneer and prince of the airy main." 280 EIGHT WEEKS And now the thing came nearer so that we could discern with opera glasses the tiny cars suspended from below, and guess at the groups of clever and daring men who were looking down on all the world. Even the tourist girl who had had eyes only for the meeting eyes of the dark-faced tourist man, looked higher than his six feet, and uttered an exclamation of delight. Indeed, it was a gallant sight ; light as a bird, swift as the wind, and instinct with the spirit of a man. How close we crowded together at the open space between awning and smokestack ! How untir- ingly we held our places, regardless of sun and wind ! And why is there no whistle of applause from the steamer Borussia? no running up of a pennant? no waving and shouting from us on deck? Oh, we must have been very dolts for enthusiasm, self-conscious travelers afraid to betray our joy in a fellow-man's achievements. Well, well, it is out of sight now, the pretty creature, big as this boat, dipping and courtsey- ing through the blue ; and what care we for cardinals, with Count Zeppelin overhead? Here we go back to our deck chairs, and I to my table ; the young woman to her lodestar face and a lot of talk about his past and hers ; I could not help over- hearing it, of so much more twentieth-century interest than castle this and ruin that. But for most of us these splendid crags, lining up beside us as we journey south, peeping at us from every new turn of this wind- ing stream, surprising us at the right hand and the left, flinging our artist instincts into despair as the first silhouette changes to a more captivating second, and this again to the rich detail of a nearby third — for us, the blessed eight, these castles by the Rhine are all-absorbing, and I may as well put the cap on my fountain pen at once. That awful dinner, too, is beginning to throw its obscuring shadow over the 281 EIGHT LANDS IN kaleidoscope. Alas, for our mortal needs ! And I leave you to your own imaginings while I try to pack away on my memory shelf as many as I can of Father Rhine's sweet pictures. That dinner was a great success. Our seats on either side of the long tables were assigned before we took them; the continuous windows gave us a passing panorama; the food was good, and service prompt, and we felt the whole thing a restful break in our strenuous sightseeing. My Lady of the Guide Book also found this a good opportunity for replenishing our storehouse of facts, and just at the present moment we are able to retail to you the following from that somewhat leaky magazine : This great river varies in width from nearly a quar- ^>pT -VLflUAA. tr-ivto -x^AexiruAc 282 EIGHT WEEKS :: C .'Ti5 v .'j>':^.'-i-- 1 -' '- ter of a mile, where we set sail this morning, to a third of that at the Swiss frontier ; and in depth, from being a shallow ford at the last mentioned place to the seventy-six feet that it reaches when passing nar- row and still under the Loreley Rock. Its average fall through the main part of its course is not much over two feet to the mile. Three Gothic cathedrals rise from its shores — Cologne, which we have just left, and Strassburg and Freiburg far to the south, which we shall not see, because we shall turn aside for Heidelberg castle. Cologne, as we know, rejoices in its perfect symmetry and twin spires ; Strassburg, in the variety of its architectural forms, evolved in a growth of several centuries, and in the one west spire that is waiting all these years for its rival or twin ; Freiburg, in its simple west tower, which rises like a slender pyramid of tracery — square, octagon, spire- presenting ever-changing forms from different points of view — a rival in height and beauty of Ulm in South Germany and St. Stephen's in Vienna. Three Roman- esque cathedrals divide with these our admiration — Mayence, which we shall see as we stop over for the night ; Worms, rich with legends of Bnrgundian queens and historic associations with Luther; and Speyer, magnificent both in its perfect beauty of gal- leried towers and decorated interior, and in its pride of sepulture for many German emperors. Both these last places are also famous for the diets held in them ; 283 EIGHT LANDS IN but we fear we may have to see them only in the dis- tance, as we speed by on the train after leaving our steamboat. Also, we are to look out for the two national monu- ments, Ehrenbreitstein, the huge fortress opposite the River Moselle, once a possession of the bishop-princes of Treves ; now the Gibraltar of the empire, looking up and down the river as who should say : "Is not this great Babylon which I have builded?" and the Na- tional Memorial on the Niederwald opposite Bingen — My Lady Germania in person, with sword and crown, asserting her glad sway. Last of all, we are by no means to fail of discerning on the left bank of the Rhine — that is, on our right — half an hour or more above Coblenz, the Konigstuhl. It is just an octagonal table of stone, eighteen feet in height, on which during certain centuries of the Mid- dle Ages the electors of the empire used to meet for the choosing of a new emperor. No lobbying possible there, no undue influence from powerful but unseen advisors ! Great is the might of simplicity ! So here we sit again upon the deck, and fill our- selves with beauty and facts ; some of us stand at the bow and assert that an unbroken wave of scenery from that point repays many hours of tired muscles. Others declare for the stern, and argue that every view gains from watching it slowly pass out of sight. Our Guide Book Lady, with My Lady Persistent to bear her out, tries to check the guide book stars as they pass by. "Now, which is Rheinfels and which Rheinstein? and which come first, the Drachenfels that furnished the stone for Cologne cathedral, or the Loreley that gave Heine the material for his poem?" "Oh, yes, the Drachenfels, of course, was one of the Siebengebirge, just above Bonn, and the Loreley is away up toward Bingen." "And those islands ; three, 284 EIGHT WEEKS were there not? the little Nonnenwerth, with Ro- landseck looking down on it, and the gallant Paladin mourning for his bride turned nun ; and the still littler Pfalz, where some emperor or other took tribute from passing tradesmen; and most captivating ar.d / .-■ •■ /vyty. '%fa& i /'~ : & *=#■• 't-J'T^ —rti ~- 5 ^" MaX lei eerie of them all, the Mousetower Island of Bishop Hatto." "And may we by any possibility believe that the wicked bishop was really eaten up, bones and blood? or must we, as reasonable women, accept the 285 EIGHT LAXDS IN derivation of Mouse Tower from the old German Musthurm, which signifies arsenal?" "A dozen other islands, you say ? Well, perhaps ; but those are the three I shall remember." "And what about the Cas- tles of the Cat and the Mouse? Did they have any- thing to do with Bishop Hatto? Or were they stand- ing before his legend loomed up in the mists of Fairy- land?" Whereupon My Lady in Green cries out: "Oh, look with your eyes; rejoice in all this beauty, and let the names and legends go to limbo!" And My Lady Bright Eyes, returning from the bow to rest her orbs by seeing nothing, exclaims with a sigh : "Well, henceforth, when people talk about the Hudson River, I shall keep quiet," while My Lady in Blue affirms : "This goes beyond my brightest expecta- tions." As a counter-irritant to this drain upon the aesthetic sense, we discuss the ubiquitous terraces built up of stone on all the lower hills and bearing the most com- monplace-looking grapevines, trimmed and tied to 286 EIGHT WEEKS stakes like low bean-poles, but furnishing such a wealth for German pockets and German "Gemiith- lichkeit" that the poets have almost deified the "Reben- stock" and "Weinstock." Veritable stocks they do be- come, as they are cut back from year to year till they look like crooked gnomes crept up out of the inner earth. Of course, a good crop of leaves hides the stock at this time of year; and a little later the green and purple clusters may be discernible with a glass to those who pass by; but to us, who have not taken in this phase of poetry with our Mother Goose, a view against the stiff zigzag of stone masonry, with just a little embroidery of green to retrieve it, does detract from the glorious castle ruins above ; and we are in a terrible puzzle, as a Puritan woman has a right to be, in trying to balance the relative moral values of cas- tles, robber barons, and unlimited wine. But what do you think? Now, this is truth, and not fiction. Just as we were in danger of sinking under our moral problem, a small boy shouted : "There she is!" and all the passengers began sending a wondering look to the boy's outstretched hand. One of our eight flew to the cabin to fetch up the tired members who were resting their eyes by a downstairs nap — and there we stood again, staring at that same great air- ship ; nearer, nearer, bright in the afternoon sun ; lower, lower, till we could see the travelers in their cars; this time following us, accompanying us, out- stripping us to Frankfurt in the south. Whether the journey to Cologne has been accomplished, and all those housetop watchmen are smiling with content, we do not know. There is no wireless communication between the voyagers on high and us below. We remember that there were strong winds following us 287 EIGHT LANDS IN this morning. Has the good count been turned back in his course? Meantime, we hold our breath and gaze and gaze, as so many millions have gazed along these shores before. And as we pass the inflowing Main, and begin to gather up our books and wraps for our landing at Mayence, I have a strange feeling as though I could discern those gazing eyes of the past millenniums ; eyes that fill the whole firmament, like the cherubs' faces about Raphael's madonna. There are the eyes that stared at the great Julius and his soldiers when they bridged the river a half a cen- tury before the Christian era ; and other eyes as bar- barous and defiant as theirs, that watched the building of Drusus' fifty castles on these shores; also the sus- picious, lurking eyes that flashed at the growing in- roads and looked enmity at the legions of Varus as they marched steadily to the north. See the eyes that opened wide at St. Ursula and her eleven thousand pretty maids — the Christian eyes that looked approval, the Hunnish eyes that looked cruelty and slaughter; and the eyes of the white-faced martyrs that looked to heaven as they took their death gently as lambs of the Cross. Imagine the eyes in phalanxes like those of to-day, whenever a king went down to Aix to be crowned, or when archbishops and princes, with all their gay suites, came flocking together to the Konig- stuhl to choose an imperial lord. Think of the eyes filled with horror, that saw the armies of Louis XIV. ravaging the Palatinate up and down — the pitying eyes that watched whole villages of simple folk flee- ing to other lands; the eyes that gazed half in ad- miration, half in dread at the "little man on horse- back" drawing the nations into line along this thor- oughfare of Europe. O multitude of eyes ! If we could see what you have seen we should not sleep for many a night to 288 EIGHT WEEKS come. But we have added our own gaze to yours under this August sun, and have written this down as a red-letter day, a high day. My Lady of the Veil even bared her head for a half hour, in deference either to a headache or to this day of days. My Lady Practical said she was glad she came, and she wished she had been able to put more notes into her little book. Our Lady of the Star said little, but looked much. Don't you think Old Father Rhine has shown him- self a friend worth knowing? Tired and happy, we espy the towers of the Minster of Mayence, and wish you good night. May you have visions tinged with the beauties and not the horrors of this highway of the nation^, M. THE RHINE. Whither are you zvandering, pilgrim hoary? Down to the boundless sea. Where have you been tarrying for grace and for glory? By rock-bound castles that look down on me. Where did you gather your robes of green and azure? On the icy mountains where the blue skies be. Where your gold and crimson, your Nibelungen treasure? From Mosel and Neckar, zvhere the sun sets on the lea. Where do you linger for Sunday rest and quiet? In Dom and in Minster, where thousands bend the knee. 289 EIGHT LANDS IN Where got you your song for cloister and for diet? From Lorelei and Rhinefall and bell and bird and bee. Whence is your spell, your sweet intoxication? From Roman tale and folklore, and Rhine-wine alchemy. And how will you fret when you leave your storied nation ! Oh, no, I'll greet the whole world then, and I'll sing to the wide, wide sea, I'll sing to the ships upon the sea. 290 EIGHT WEEKS XXXIV— EVENING AND MORNING IN MAYENCE. On the Train to Heidelberg. Tuesday Morning, August 3. Dear friends: If only you could have shared our ten min- utes' look this morning at the Minster of May- ence it would be worth many pages of description. "Imposing" is a good word used by the guide book in regard to it; and as it is the only one of the three great Romanesque cathedrals that we shall have an opportunity to inspect at near hand, we regret the more our brief acquaintance. A hurried run along the beautiful "Esplanade" — a promenade that bor- ders the Rhine — a turning in at the Liebfrauenplatz with the apse and dome, turrets and galleries of the east choir rising before us; thence along the side of the church — through stalls and carts of market women to the north portal — a few moments of wondering awe within the solemn aisles, of wondering admiration of the elevated choirs at either end, of intense desire to explore the chapels and cloisters and view the tombs of emperors and electors, a frequent consultation of our watches, and then another quick walk in the morn- ing freshness between pergola trees and opening shops, and up the hotel steps to join our fellow-trav- elers at breakfast — that was all that we could do toward knowing this great minster. But how much better than no introduction at all ! A better thing still 291 EIGHT LANDS IN would have been a previous study from books and pictures, preparing us to see quickly, and to know what to see; for more and more we are convinced that My Lady in Green is right when she says, "You will remember best the things that you were expecting to see; surprises may delight you, but they will not often make so permanent an impression as the sights for which you were already prepared." And I can add to this that new acquaintance is never so rich as old acquaintance advanced. Therefore, if you wish to enjoy Mayence when you come to see it, you will not grudge a few words of description on my part, even if the jarring of this train makes the writing somewhat illegible. Mayence has been such a focal point of history dur- ing all of its existence that, to accost it suddenly with no knowledge of its pedigree and past, would be like walking up to Capt. John Smith without knowing which Mr. Smith he was. The Romans, pushing their conquests here under the early emperors, made Mayence — Magontiacum — the capital of Upper Germany, Treves on the Moselle being that of the lower province. Here the Roman governors held sway, and from here Roman legions set forth to conquer the tribes of the east. When St. Boniface of England preached Christian- ity to the worshipers of Wodan and Thor in King Pepin's day, Mayence was the seat of his Rhenish mission ; and here Pope Gregory established him as Archbishop of Germany. Later the Archbishop of Mayence was also one of the seven electors who chose the new emperor on the death of his predecessor, and thus ranked as a great prince of the empire. Mayence, from being a Roman capital and an ecclesiastical capital became next a political and a commercial capital, for it was the leader of the Rhen- 292 EIGHT WEEKS ish League — that defensive confederation of Rhine cities established in the thirteenth century that was a contemporary and rival of the Hanseatic League of the north. In this leadership the city grew so rich and powerful that it was known as Golden Mayence. Its more recent history has been one of wars and defeats, of changing masters, and final incorporation in the Bavarian Palatinate. Like many, or most, continental cities of ancient foundation, its centre is a close knot of winding streets gathering around the cathedral, the market place, the palace ; its outskirts, including the space along the Rhine, a series of parks and boulevards, with hand- some residence quarters. The zeal with which in all German cities bits of greenness are pushed into every available space of the inner town, and the uniformity with which the suburbs, and the space held by ancient walls, are laid out in parks and shaded avenues, is a lesson to us of the western world. The old foun- tains which at the time of their erection were the only water supply, are still cherished with the utmost care, their quaint statues restored when necessary, their basins often transformed in summer time into flower gardens that gladden the eye. The universal custom of making pergolas of the shade trees by forcing their first branches into a horizontal position and trimming back the new year's growth every autumn, gives a shade that is thick, low, and altogether serviceable; the shadow falls where it is wanted. Like sturdy pub- lic servants, the acacias or lindens or buttonwoods stand with arms extended and fists clenched, advanc- ing their part of the public weal. It is as if the forest trees coming into the town were proud to accept its limitations and to add to its beauty. Many of these cities, on removing their walls, still retain a low barrier that is convenient when they wish 293 EIGHT LANDS IN to enforce a tax on wares brought in for sale; and they always retain those gates that are of picturesque or of historic value. In this way they possess a wealth of monuments that link them firmly and de- lightfully with the past. The very stones are con- a 294 EIGHT WEEKS stantly crying out, the gates and towers are professors of history. And now for a longer look at this "imposing" cathe- dral. Stern and dark it stands before us, as though its face were seamed with the experiences of six hun- dred years. You remember we have seen no Ro- manesque cathedral since the Norman Abbey of Dur- ham, and that was very different from the works of the same period in Germany. At Cologne we studied four churches of this type ; so we are prepared for the ornamental use of the apse, for the outside galleries, for the pleasing outline against the sky. But here all is magnified and enriched. Two choirs, at east and west, terminate in gallery-circled apses flanked with towers, and over the crossing of the west transept rises a large, octagonal lantern. It is one of the excel- lences of the Romanesque cathedral that it throws a splendid silhouette against the sky. The towers, solid and square, with utilitarian pointed caps, might seem to you poor rivals to the traceried, turreted, window- set spires of the Gothic ; but this very solidity, just embroidered with an arcaded frieze or a low pillared gallery, and set with a few chaste, round-arched win- dows, is restful to the eye ; and a little family of such towers, established symmetrically over transepts, in- tersection and porch, gives an ever-changing profile to the architectural mountain. The portals are not large or conspicuous, like those of the Gothic, and are often, as here in Mayence, introduced into one side, so that there is no real west facade. But if you miss the doorway saints you have grown accustomed to in the Gothic, and the large traceried windows, you are compensated by a sense of massive, quiet walls resting unbroken through the ages, and by that sense of perpetual strength always felt in round-arched openings, simple mullions and low pillars. Each style 295 EIGHT LANDS IN has its own incomparable charm, although the two are as unlike as the east and the west ; and to each we do homage. If you can manage to come to Heidel- berg by way of Worms — we did not — you will have a great treat there; and if you can also compass Speyer as you leave, you will have whereat to rejoice all your artistic life. But now a few moments for this dark interior. Entering about the middle of the north aisle, fresh from the fruits and greens of the market women, it seems to us almost like a noble cavern; but soon we discern nave and aisles, and arches a little pointed overhead; for twice in one century this cathedral burned through the fault of a wooden roof, and when the present vaulting was constructed the pointed arch lent itself better to the irregular spacing of the pil- lars. You also notice the elevated choirs at both ends, the dark-blue coloring and the frescoing of the west choir and the nave — the deep terra cotta of the east, the occasional glimpses of the red sandstone and gray limestone of the real walls — and along the north and west chapels, by the pillars, and at the entrance to the sacristy — called by the pretty name of the Memorie — tombs and tombs of the rulers buried here. Of great interest is a tablet set into the wall by the entrance to this Memorie — so named because of the memorial services held in it — a tablet to that Fras- trada, third wife to Charlemagne, who had the love- jewel of great price, the jewel that finally wedded him to Aix. This eastern princess died at Frankfurt and was buried there, but the church of her tomb having been destroyed, her memory has been perpet- uated here. In the cloisters outside, among many monuments, is one to the good fourteenth-century poet, Frauenlob, who sang in praise of the Virgin and of all good women; and so excellent a thing is it 296 EIGHT WEEKS to recognize virtue in our frail sex, that Herr Frauen- lob has been honored with three several tombstones since his death, the latest having been erected by the appreciative women of Mayence in the last century. I thank you for the courtesy with which you have attended to this account, much longer, I am sure, than the time we gave to the whole sight-seeing of this morning; and if you will just hie away through the market wives one block to the west, and see Mr. Gutenberg standing on his monument in the Guten- bergplatz, with various scenes from his first printing press successes on bronze tablets below him, you will remember ever afterwards that printed books began in Mayence, and you will find Thorwaldsen's statue of him a beautiful foreground for the towers of the minster. After this matutinal tour, we found ourselves at the breakfast table with tremendous appetites. Now continental Europe holds that the best beginning for the day, the only possible or reasonable beginning, is a cup of coffee and two rolls. In Switzerland, and in cities near enough to feel a Swiss influence, honey is the delicious accompaniment; and since the great influx of English and American travelers in modern times, the pads of fresh, unsalted butter have grown larger and the pitchers of hot milk more generous ; also, an egg can always be had for an extra charge, and raw eggs have become so well known as to be easily understood in almost any kind of esperanto. But a cereal for breakfast, that is absurd and can only be obtained by ordering beforehand an English porridge; and fruit is such a new- world demand as to be ridiculous. Therefore, when we sit down to the pretty flower-decked tables of our hotel and see early peaches and garnet cherries at our plates, we know that somebody besides ourself has been playing 297 EIGHT LANDS 'IN early bird ; and while we spread that sombre old cathe- dral all over the morning repast, two of our colleagues modestly confess to having explored the market. Now is the joke on us, who went in and out of that market and never remembered our thirsty friends, or on the two who went up and down the market rows and never saw the cathedral ? We have agreed to leave the matter in dispute, and to bless the difference of talents existing among us. While I am writing the rest have full permission to have a little snooze through these first uninteresting miles before we enter the Neckar Valley, where his- torical annals will have to begin anew. M. 298 EIGHT WEEKS XXXV— HEIDELBERG. Alt Heidelberg, du feine, Du Stadt an Ehren reich, Am Neckar und am Rheine Kein andrer kommt dir gleich. So sang the poet Scheffel in the last century, so sing we on this happy day, and so will posterity sing as long as the ruined towers of Heidelberg Castle look down on the church spires and houseroofs of the busy city in the valley, on the blue Neckar winding away to the Rhine, on the faint outline of the Vosges Mountains in the west. Considering, beloved, the exemplary patience with which you bore my historical sketch of Mayence, I have decided to spare you a like account of Heidel- 2 99 EIGHT LANDS IN berg, and leave you to look up its somewhat tangled web and woof according to your own discretion. Pos- sibly I am doing one good turn for you and two for myself; or possibly the atmosphere of this enchanted valley is to the tourist so laden with invitations to pleasure that serious study would seem out of place. There are students enough in the big university to unravel all the problems of the past, and to them we will leave the Hohenstauffens and counts Palatine, the Ruperts, the Ottos, the Fredericks, the Generals Tilly and Melac, the King of Bohemia and his English wife; at least we will not set these forth in historic procession, but only invite them to join us here and there, as we need their help in explaining this ruined scene of their great exploits. After leaving the broad plain of the Rhine, where we took our nap and had a pretty tissue of dreams about Bischofsheim and Mannheim, Nauheim and Laupertheim, Biedersheim and Gensheim, Grossgerau and Goddelau and Kleingerau, having lost our way among them so utterly that we had laid down the guide book with a clear conscience — we soon found the wooded hills drawing near that were to shut us safely in to the beauties of the Neckar. This is a river that can make no great boast for size, but has a charming itinerary to follow from its source among the pines of the Schwarzwald, along the castle- crowned rocks of Swabia, past Tubingen the learned and Stuttgart the delightful, winding ever east and north until it runs up against the hills of the Oden- wald and decides to turn due west and join its for- tunes with those of the Rhine. These hills to our right and left rise soft and swelling to a height of from one to two thousand feet and wooded to the top, here a red sandstone quarry cropping out and yon- der a summer resort perched on high, very like New 300 EIGHT WEEKS England hills of the same altitude, except that here there are unmistakable marks of an older civilization ; for well defined roads zigzag up the slopes, solidly built houses of plastered brick with tiled or slated roofs gather in villages at their base, and occasionally an old monastery or a ruined tower calls loudly to us, "This is the old world, the old world." So while we are wondering and admiring in a quiet way, one of our party cries out : "The old bridge and the church!" And another: "Is that the castle against the wooded hills?" And we glide into the Heidel- berg station. A drive along the pretty park that we are beginning to expect near every railway depot, then through narrow streets with a mingling of mod- ern and ancient buildings and the market place with the old church in the centre, and we are at the hotel, the head waiter welcoming us in his best English and the porters speeding our eight suit-cases in a streak of winding yellow up the stairs. The most of this afternoon we have devoted to the castle grounds, the threatening clouds having given but a few scattered drops to mar our enjoyment. We had a choice of several approaches : By the easy, winding carriage drive, by the footpath, steep and fascinating, and by that abomination of the land- scape artist that the hurried traveler usually patron- izes — the Seilbahn, or funicular. This cable road, over which one car is steadily drawn up while its companion car is as carefully let down, is surely a convenient abomination. We all flocked into one of its compartments and slid smoothly and rapidly up, meeting our brother car on the passing switch in the middle, and finding ourselves in a wink in the prac- tical little station at the terminus, where the lindens and buttonwoods welcomed us to a new garden of Fairyland. 301 EIGHT LA N DS I X This castle was founded some two hundred years before the invention of gunpowder, and so was con- sidered easy of defense on its own shelf of the moun- tain, even though higher elevations overlooked it at no great distance. Confidently the counts and electors laid out the central court, sunk an exhaustless well, erected huge towers with walls of fifteen and twenty feet in thickness, connected them by many residence wings, scooped out a deep and wide moat on the three sides that were not already precipitous, swung a drawbridge from the entrance gate under the clock- tower, filled the cellars with wine, and settled down to a safe and happy life just above the crowded streets of the town. But the cannon of Tilly in the Thirty Years' War and of Count Melac in the Palatinate War of Louis XIV, proved too much for city and fortress ; and when the last named general, after a winter's resi- dence in these gorgeous halls, found himself obliged to evacuate, he was ordered by his magnificnt mas- ter to leave the place a ruin. Tremendous stores of powder were exploded in the casements of the tow- ers, the other parts of the building were fired, the town was treated in the same way, and the delight of the Neckar became a blasted wreck. And yet this is commonly spoken of as the loveliest ruin of Germany. Lovely ruin ! A strange association of words ! What is there in every one of these ancient castles that "does tease us out of thought as doth eternity?" That ruin at the outset must have looked as dire a horror as shattered Messina — its purpose defeated, its sym- metry destroyed, its art in mourning. Yet look at it after two hundred years as you see it from the valley, rosy red against the green of the Konigstuhl, matching in color yonder far-away quarry from which its every stone was cut and shaped; its long 302 EIGHT 'WEEKS' north front lifting up unroofed gables, unglazed win- dows, broken towers — the loftiest one at the far east dominating the rest and looking from its empty eyes right royally about it, as though from the outset raised on high to rule its fellows ; look at it again from our present level as we enter at the clock-tower gate with so many stone men standing guard in their niches, and such carpets of ivy hung on its fagades, its old moats turned into sunken gardens, the grounds which soldiery once laid waste a pleasure park with res- taurant and afternoon concerts, you begin to wonder whether ruin is an element of beauty ; and you ask yourself what makes the difference between this ruin's first estate and now ; also, whether any exploded gas factory at home, if properly trimmed up with Vir- ginia creeper, would do as well ; whether the Dalles of the Mississippi and the grotesque shapes of the "Garden of the Gods" furnish us of the west a coun- terpart when we say of them : "They are like ruined castles of a giant race" ; whether, finally, those arti- ficial ruins that are sometimes prinked up by returned travelers ever do or ever could satisfy the craving of the occidental sense. Shall we always have to come to Europe for our ruins? Would we care to have them in our own country, with all the tales of pride and tyranny, robbery and war that they entail? And could Fairyland be Fairyland without them ? Well, there's the saying about a fool asking what a wise man cannot answer; and lest you should think that I consider you the answerer in this case, I plan to take a rainy day for it some time myself and lay out clearly in my own mind : First, What is the charm of a ruined castle? and, second, What part do the ruined towers of one century play in the upbuild- ing of another? Mind, I say towers; for a ruin with- out a tower is to be tolerated, but scarcely approved. 303 EIGHT LANDS IN This afternoon being not exactly rainy, but only threatening, I think it best for us to turn at once to the Elizabethenpforte, the gate of welcome built by the Elector Frederick V., when he brought home Eliz- abeth, James I. of England's daughter, as his bride. If one has the patience for a single bit of his- tory, that episode is among the most interesting; for this couple reigned for a brief year as king and queen of Bohemia ; and from them was descended the Electress Sophia, the mother of George I. of England. Having admired the carvings on this gate, the ivy vine and darting lizards in pink stone on its 304 EIGHT WEEKS pillars, the arms of England and the Palatinate over- head, and having called up in fancy a troop of Eng- lish maids of honor to romp with their young mis- tress in the garden behind, we next enter the castle court by way of drawbridge and gate, look down into the deep well at our right, try to grasp the various architectural periods here presented, and make the following mental notes: The pillars over this well, brought from Charlemagne's palace at Ingel- heim, are the oldest thing here; the Romanesque gal- lery opposite us comes next in time; the Gothic door- way at our left, with its round, traceried window and carving of roses and angels, follows next; and latest of all come the Renaissance wings that are the most prominent part of the enclosing buildings, and are rich in sculpture. Unlike Kenilworth, this palace has never been entirely ruined. The rooms in the old Romanesque wing are the home of the caretakers, the great halls and chapels are in half preservation and a tour of the whole series can be made under the con- duct of a guide. Before undertaking this we make a careful comparison of the different fagades and try to tell ourselves why the Otto-Heinrichsbau, with its quiet, conventional decorations, its caryatid portal, its statues of Christian virtues and pagan gods, is worthy of Michael Angelo, and ranks higher than the Friedrichsbau, which is more heavily decorated and holds in its canopied niches the stalwart figures of rulers from Charlemagne down to Frederick IV. We also take account of the five towers — the clock tower behind us, through which we entered ; the huge chunk known as the Dicke Thurm, away off" at our left; the lofty octagonal tower and its lesser fellow at our right; and behind us, again, the veriest hero of them all— the Gesprengte Thurm, or exploded tower. This last refused to be shattered by that 305 EIGHT LANDS IN The. C^tle G/ffiirt* TheWell, 306 EIGHT WEEKS awful blast of powder from its interior, which just tore two huge rents from top to bottom, where deep- cleft windows lessened the resistance of the twenty- two feet of thickness, and dropped a third of the huge bulk unbroken into the moat. There it lies aslant to this day, exhibiting its bulk and its muscle, this prizefighter of stone and mortar; and the vines have trailed over it, mosses and ferns and brambles vie with one another in beautifying it, trees have sprung up on its summit; but none of those stones that heard the explosion of 1689 have loosened from their matrixes ; you can almost fancy that they are quivering still with the roar that must have echoed to the Odenwald and pealed away to the Vosges Mountains across the Rhine. All parts of the castle are done in the same pink sandstone, shading into reds and browns with the passing of time, and all take as naturally to their ivy vines as though these were an embroidery planned from the beginning. But here is a throng of tourists waiting to be shown the interior, and we join them with regret, because explanations given to twenty are always unsatisfac- tory, especially when given in three different lan- guages; and what with trying to keep us all within hearing distance, address us all in our mother tongues, and reply to those dreamy souls who come in at the end of every description with questions already an- swered, the poor guide is driven almost distracted. We hope that our shillings give him a good, fat sal- ary — for to hurry through those entrancing halls and gloomy corridors, up those winding stairs and down those steep inclines, away from those oriel-window landscapes — that we could not and would not do. I shall not attempt to give you this hour's tour in detail ; but there are a few darling spots where you must be right at our side. 307 EIGHT LANDS IN First is this underground sculpture gallery or sol- diers' home, I don't know which to call it, where the veteran statues that have become too banged up by war and weather to be ornamental, or too decrepit to be safe, have been stored away to meditate upon their past glories and upon the dapper young copies of themselves now set up in their places. Never did you see such an assembly before. In the gloom of a cold basement, with broken pavement underfoot and spiderwebbed vaulting overhead, they stand jos- tling one another, ogling, leering, tipping, with their faces of red and gray — here a nose gone and there an ear ; a broken sword ; garbled armor ; this elector without a head, this prophet lacking a mouth, this Christian grace so weatherbeaten that you guess in vain between courage and humility. Oh, the dear old chaps ! Are they having to stand beside their direst enemies forever and forever? Are they mourn- ing for the light they never more shall see again? Are they rejoicing at their escape from wind and rain? Be proud, at least, you past numbers, that the modern age can do nothing better than reproduce your original estate for the admiration of visiting thousands. A cellar of a more cheerful type is the great wine vault with the two huge casks — the first to make you cry out: "It that the big tun? Why, that's only a big hogshead !" and the second to show off its im- mensity by contrast and tickle your fancy with the thought of the army of vintners who poured and poured and poured on the rare occasions of its fill- ing. This monster that lies upon its side, flanked by two staircases and topped with a dancing floor, is a queer offset to the artistic excellence of its surround- ings. No art here but the art of the cooper, carried to its extreme limit ; no beauty but the suggestion of ex- 308 EIGHT WEEKS haustless wine; no pride of lordship except the pride of bulk. And yet so triumphant was the wit of the cinquecento fabricator who first built a big wine tun in the bowels of this castle, that the centuries have de- manded a permanent exhibit. Number one was replaced in the sixteen hundreds by number two ; this again by number three and four, the last of which, a veteran of a hundred and fifty years, we gaze upon to-day; and so great is its reputation in the countryside that peas- ants coming to Heidelberg for a holiday inquire their way "to the Tun," and having seen its reverend bulk, climbed up the stairs on one side and descended the stairs on the other, danced a round, perhaps, on the platform, and patted the wooden statue of the court jester, Perkeo, its smirking contemporary, go away content, with little heed to the most beautiful ruin in Germany. Ruins are such a common thing — to be found on every hilltop. But a big wine barrel that holds 49,000 gallons, and has been filled, actually filled, more than once or twice with that which maketh glad the heart of man — how should that be other than a lifelong wonder and delight to the peasant heart ! And do you think that we, too, went up the stairs and down the stairs with a pagan veneration for bulk, and a new world itching for a place in the old world processions? Well, if the jester keeps his counsel, so will I mine. But this I will tell you — that among the rhymes and anecdotes that are specialties of our eight, My Lady Practical's adaptation of an old song is often on her lips and ours, as expressive of our daily expe- rience in castles and museums, cathedrals and towers : The King of France, with forty thousand men, Marched up the (hill) (stairs), and then marched down again. 309 EIGHT LANDS IN A third underground bit that you must not fail of is the approach under the north terrace or Altan, a vaulted passage leading from a steep footpath up into the court. To see it aright you should have climbed the footpath, as we did not, the ivied castle wall at your right, the tree-grown slope dropping to the val- ley at your left, then a bit of mossy, broken ramparts, some straggling elder trees of the days of old Perkeo, a sentinel's tower above you, dainty as a lady's bower — and then the fresh coolness and dark of the low- browed vault, with the daylight sifting in through the ivy of four great window openings, and traceries overhead in grays and greens that delight you when your eyes have become accustomed to the twilight — mould and moss, the stalactite beginnings from dripping cement, and the blackened festoons of an- cient cobwebs. Now bring in a white-bloused wife with dinner-pail to ensconce herself and her good man in one of the window seats against the ivy green ; or an old woman on her cane, panting from the steep ascent; or a light-stepping little lad with bare feet, arms out at the elbows, and both hands up to the basket of fruit on his head — and you have a picture ready for your canvas. But, having kept you with me so long in darkness, I will turn you square around and lead you out upon the roof of this very vault, the great Altan, or bal- cony, where hundreds can promenade with delight, looking off to the hills on either side, to the town, the Neckar, and the gorgeous sunsets that so often transfigure the Rhine Valley into a valley of dreams. After you have committed to memory this pretty pic- ture of city, river and hills — oh, these unfaithful stew- ards, these memories to which we commit so much! — you may take your own time in the banqueting halls, the chapels, the library; may study more in 310 EIGHT WEEKS detail than we the carved chimney pieces, the deco- rated doorways, the mullioned windows; may climb the winding staircases in the towers, and examine the paintings, models and manuscripts of the museum. But we must away to the band concert, for, remem- ber, four days in Germany. We heard church music on the Sabbath, and this may be our only other occa- sion for music in the land of melody. Band concerts vary in excellence, but are generally not to be despised among these people who are born to music, educated to music, and live and die to music; and when, as in this case, a military band from another city is giving a classical programme, it is worth while to risk a few raindrops and listen with all our musical ears. Never mind those waiters; if you don't take kindly to beer, a cup of tea or choco- late will appease them. But beware of this table of tourists who have learned in their native land — I fear across the Atlantic — to use music as an accompani- ment to conversation. How it fidgets the director to hear their hum of talk and low laughter ! A bold and merciful woman has ventured to call the attention of their chaperon to the silence all around, and they have the good sense to say thank you, and take the hint. Verily, I hope they are from across the Atlantic ; for it is a credit to a young person or a young nation to be willing to learn. That concert was a treat, and added one more treasure to a day already rich. Who cares if we did not have time to explore the great arched terrace be- yond the pinery, and see the old broken river god lying in his pond, or the fresh, new poet Scheffel standing on his airy pedestal? Who cares if a little rain did fall upon our dusty suits and cut our prospects short? Aren't we travelers of sufficient calibre to take in a little rain with much sunshine? Should we 3ii EIGHT LANDS IN not be thankful that the land is not to suffer drought? Haven't we been amazed already that our letters have so seldom chronicled a storm? And have we not been obliged to appeal more than once to My Lady Per- sistent for her admirable quotation from Farmer Wise- acres that "he had noticed how we seldom have much rain in a dry spell"? With all our virtuous wisdom, perhaps also we should be thankful that this one night of our sojourn here does not happen to fall on the date of an illumination ; for, don't you see, we are very tired and ought to go to bed early. But just supposing that some time you' should have two days here, or should be less tired, or more strong than we ; then be sure to find out, if you can, when an illumi- nation of the castle is to occur, and plan to see it. This is the way it is : Under the sunset light — for illumination days must be good and give fair weather — all the town and all its visitors stream out across the old bridge to estab- lish themselves on terraces and walls, on restaurant porches, on grandstands and river banks — that is, all except those who are making the river gay with deco- rated boats, colored lanterns, music and fireworks. Then comes a long time for gossip or naps, till pitch dark has blotted out every line of castle, and perhaps of hills ; for moonlight also must not appear on these occasions ; a time of waiting, too ; of striking matches to look at watches, and of waking up dead- asleep children — till, with a gasp of silence the great throng recognizes the flash of a signal gun and the boom of its discharge. All the world holds its breath and looks toward one spot in the blackness — and lo ! like the jasper walls of the heavenly city the beautiful vision stands before you, all its pride and all its down- fall jasper in flames; every statue glorified in its niche, every turret and pillar clear-cut against the 312 EIGHT WEEKS darkness; the interior of the high tower glowing like a fiery furnace ; a miracle, a joy, an amazement. And then the world begins to take breath again, to exclaim, to applaud ; musicians in the river boats strike into gala strains ; restaurants and hotels send up rockets — the Castle Hotel on yonder hill throws itself also into jasper, just to show how awkward a splendid modern building can look beside a ruined fortress ; not content with this display of its shortcomings, it changes to emerald ; and all the while our castle holds his own, tells his old, old story in flame, shows us his sculpture and architecture in flame, asks us another set of flaming questions about the old, the new, and the beautiful, during, perhaps, ten minutes. Then the glory begins to die out and is soon another of those burning memories that you hang in your picture gal- lery. How do they do it, so that no mechanism of lights appears, only the glowing result? I do not know what modern methods electricity may have introduced ; but when last I saw this grand display, some scores of men and boys with red lights and matches, and a good training in doing things on time, accomplished the whole miracle. And every man and boy had to hide behind his individual board or barrel and con- ceal the glowing flame of his red light, working merely toward the glory of the whole and the oblit- eration of the individual. What a lesson in flame to us who looked on ! Most of us have plenty of opportunity for self-obliteration in this world; our barrels are furnished to us gratis. The personal question to us is — "Do we manage our red lights well? Do we touch them off in unison when the big gun sounds? Do we turn them on the one statue that has been put in our charge?" To-morrow morning you must take your choice 313 EIGHT LANDS IN whether you will drive with part of our company along the Philosophenweg on the north hillside, and perhaps up the Neckar, where the old robber castles of Neckarsteinach perch upon their rocks — the Swal- low's Nest and his fellows — or whether you will steam away with the rest of us to Stuttgart on its hills, and combine a visit at the homes of old friends with a view of the Wiirttemberg capital. Just try to go with both parties, if you can, and good night. Yours, tired, but happy. M. 314 EIGHT WEEKS XXXVI— OLD FRIENDS IN SWABIA. Zurich, Wednesday Evening, August 4. Dear people: Have you with us bidden adieu to Germany after a long and lovely acquaintance of four days, and with us offered your first greetings to Swit- zerland, the flashing diamond of Europe? Swabia, the Black Forest and the Falls of the Rhine, all within twelve hours ; and a visit in the home of choice friends thrown in — is not that enough to mark an- other day in red? And you, besides all this, being gifted with the double sight of the absent, can also take the drive along the Heidelberg mountainsides with the other half of us, and look across once more at that rosy castle that we saw in burning coals through our imagination glass last night. A pretty full day you will have ; and if, in addition to your sightseeing, you will magnanimously offer to provide the lunch that will be needed in the train at supper-time, you may have the novel experience of some of us, of eating costly bread, far beyond the lot of ordinary mortals. For the above mentioned "some," thinking it an un- necessary task to haunt bakeries and fruiterers for a simple travelers' supper, just ordered it from the Heidelberg Hotel ; and when they came to pay their thrifty hosts, found that they were being curtailed the most of the day's postal-card money, and were being given the privilege of serving their fellow-trav- 315 EIGHT LANDS IN elers a meal of rare superiority. Just bread and butter and fruit, it looked, when we passed it around at seven o'clock, with a bit of cheese and sausage for relish; but it tasted like King Midas' fare when we heard the price of it; and we shall pat ourselves henceforth on having once, at least, supped like princes. But here I am, hurrying on to sunset, while we should have still the whole day before us. In Heidelberg we are at the northern end of the Grand Duchy of Baden, which borders the Rhine on the east in a long, narrow strip all the way to Switzer- land. Mannheim, at the influx of the Neckar, was for a long time the residence of the electors ; but now the capital is Carlsruhe, an elegant little city some fifty miles south. Beyond this lies Baden-Baden, the renowned watering place, given the double title to distinguish it from the other Badens of Europe. Its lovely location in the valley of the Oos, against the green hills of the Schwarzwald, makes it a rival of Heidelberg ; and a third to these two is Freiburg, lying still farther south, and, like them, against a forest background. These three, with similar surroundings, have each its specialty — Heidelberg its castle, Baden- Baden its mineral springs, Freiburg its Gothic cathe- dral with the open-work spire. This last city^ how- ever, must not be confounded with Freiburg, or Fri- bourg, of Switzerland, famous for its rocks and bridges, and for its great organ in the Church of St Nicholas. Carlsruhe, Baden-Baden, and Freiburg we might have seen if we had traveled toward Switzerland along the eastern shore of the Rhine. If we had followed the west shore, crossing at Mannheim, we should have passed through Alsace and Lorraine, the prov- inces taken from France by Prussia as indemnification for the war of 1870; and we could have feasted our 316 EIGHT WEEKS eyes on the four towers and galleried frieze of the Ca- thedral of Speyer, and later have looked across the city's roofs to the Gothic spire of Strassburg. At the first of these places, Speyer, we should have demanded that the train stop long enough to let us review the fortunes of the basilica; its foundation in 1030 by Conrad II., as a burial place for himself and for future emperors; its completion by his grandson, Henry IV., whose body lay unburied here for five years, awaiting the revocal of papal excommunica- tion ; its frequent injuries by fire ; its greater injury through the brutality of the "most Christian king," Louis XIV., whose general laid waste cathedral and town just after his holocaust at Heidelberg, and added to this injury the desecration of the royal tombs ; its second devastation by the French in 1794, along with its use as a powder magazine ; and after each of these disasters the slow and persistent work of masons, car- penters, sculptors, and decorators in restoring it to its original condition. If we could walk about it now and see its splendor of form and color, should we discover any intimations of the blackness or darkness which has overwhelmed it again and again? Can a building, like a person, rise more beautiful from a baptism as by fire? If so, it is because the fire-proven souls of the builders have held to their ideal, and from generation to generation have refused to see it perish from the land. At Speyer, too, we should remember the imperial diets of old, and especially that of 1537, at which the first Protestants protested against the condemnation of their doctrines. At Strassburg, our second cathedral town, we should have longed to make a closer acquaintance with the minster, which looks like a glorious, one-armed giant, and to study the development of architecture 317 EIGHT LANDS IN shown in its transition forms from Romanesque to Gothic. For these styles begin to claim our recogni- tion, like the types we observe in families of our ac- quaintance; and even when intermarriages produce some cross types hard to classify with exactness, we find ourselves recognizing a Romanesque feature here and a Gothic feature yonder, with a good deal of pleasant familiarity. At this capital of the annexed provinces, we should also have looked around us eagerly for evidences of the mingling of the two nations ; of protest, or grudge or tyranny ; of a Schmitz and a La Follette in part- nership; asd should wonder whether under the out- side of smooth prosperity there were still heart-burn- ings and hopes of revenge. Well, all this eye-straining and brain-tiring of the two Rhine Valley roads we are saved; for we turn to the south and east, and, by a route afar from both Rhine and Neckar, and reasonably void of sights and memories, reach Stuttgart on its hills and plain — a charming combination of city and country. Stuttgart is the capital of Wiirttemberg — one of the four king- doms of Germany ; mentioned in our suit-case treatise of a few letters back, and still further to the east, if your mind's eye can skim along over Ulm with its mighty spire, and Augsburg, with its ancient fame for diets and pretty women, you would come to Munich, capital of Bavaria. So we are getting a grip, as you see, on these parts of the empire ; the scattered constituents of our German pack are being laid in order, and some day, when we have time for a good application of histories and atlases, we'll be able to reduce them to a really manageable compass. But now we are in Stuttgart — at least a happy part of us are — and the best thing in all this city is the sight of two German faces, full of love and faithful 318 EIGHT WEEKS memory, trying to focus their eyes on two other faces that they have not seen for years and years. And they knew us, and we knew them, and all the sweet communion of bygone times began anew just where it had broken off, and "How is this one ?" and "Where is that?" and "Does he look like his father?" and "Is she as handsome as in the old days?" and "All those boys grown up into stalwart men, to be their moth- er's joy?" and "Can you believe that all this time has gone by since we were living together in dear old Tubingen?" Our eyes are wet with thoughts of those who are gone, and our faces are smiling with a dream of meetings after the great journey, and of rec- ognition of friends long parted in old worlds and new. Stuttgart is such a perfect German city that any mental picture of it that we can carry away with us will serve as a model of the type. A capital, includ- ing government buildings, colleges, museums of every kind ; a variety of churches, old and new ; theatres, concert halls, beer gardens, and, of course, parks, parks here, there and everywhere. All this might be- long to any German capital ; but here Nature has done so much in furnishing hillsides for sightly locations, and numberless surrounding hills for landscape effects, that the "Wall Street broker" is always within quick reach of breezy heights, and the dweller in rural sub- urbs can easily slip down to the evening treats of theatre and concert. A kindly custom that prevails all over the Conti- nent struck us with new force here — the treatment of the person with whom you are doing business of any kind as, for the time being, a valued acquaintance. Our western dullness has been pretty slow in finding out that every transaction here begins and ends with a polite "Good day." "Bon jour, monsieur," "Au 3 X 9 EIGHT LANDS IN revoir, madame," "Guten Tag, Fraulein," are just as much in demand as money in our purses ; and they are to be used con amore, besides, and not flung out as a useless form. We have been practicing on this bit of human decency until we remember it three- fourths of the time when we enter or leave a shop, when we pass a maid in the hotel corridors, when the boots comes to our door on an errand, or when we buy of the fruit woman at the corner; and we have made a mental memorandum to the effect that we will continue this good habit at home. But when our lovely hostess on leaving the tram to-day on which she was taking us to her home, bade a cheery adieu to the conductor, I confess that we found our own good manners away out of sight. It would be interesting to know whether this phase of courtesy originates in the good form of the French, or in the good fellowship of the simpler nations. The same thing is found on the railway — not really to the extent of hindering the conductor as he punches your tickets, or the porter as he rushes to the rescue of your baggage; but as a greeting to those in the com- partment when 3'ou enter and a farewell on leaving — this last being not seldom accompanied by a "bon voyage" or "gluckliche Reise." It is like carrying flowers when you travel, a real alleviation to dust and heat. It is not often that the traveler can turn from his tourist point of view to that of a citizen ; but our mid- day visit in Stuttgart made the whole place seem fa- miliar, because we looked at it through our German friends' eyes. First of all, it was the enthusiasm in regard to Count Zeppelin, not only on account of his persistent determination to make himself master of the new highway, but because he was a man of such fine rec- 320 EIGHT WEEKS ord in peace and in war that his city loved him and coveted for him every success. Next, it was the king, his homely palace, his quiet, citizen life. Then the churches, and the people's devotion to them, in spite of their being state institutions with no particular claim on any particular parishioners. And then, the growth of the city, the elegant buildings perched by magic upon the precipitous hillsides. — "You see, an architect likes to take hold of such buildings as these ; to set houses on the plain — why, that's the work of any builder; but to pile them up, one above another, with winding roads and picturesque stairs, with a garden for every residence, and every story available for attractive flats — that is an achievement to make a man's reputation." The location of a recent park with special seats reserved for adults and special ter- races for children was also of great interest, espe- cially when we understood that here, as elsewhere, vol- untary leagues for beautifying the city were a main dependence, both in furnishing a regular financial support, and in influencing public sentiment. To us of the new world these groves so carefully preserved, these firm paths and pretty bridges through wild ra- vines, are a kind of marvel, which now and then we resent a little, as spoiling the wildness of Nature ; but we seldom realize that these have all come slowly in answer to a demand from the general crowd, from the young and from the frail, as well as from sturdy climbers; and that they have come through the co- operation of citizens, and that widespread cultivation of the beautiful that are just beginning to find them- selves among us. Can you imagine a better close for our few hours of knitting up old friendships and coming in touch with good movements, than a grand rally of our eight and our hostesses in the Stuttgart railway restaurant 321 EIGHT LANDS IN at a genuine German coffee drinking? Big cups, plenty of hot milk, fresh butter and bouncing rolls? What if several of us knew that coffee in the after- noon was disastrous to the night's rest, and several others feared it would spoil the evening appetite for the aforementioned costly supper? We drank with a will so long as the delay of trains allowed, and ate with a will ; set our two elderly matrons together to gaze into each other's faces and compare daughters in the common speech of mothers; talked up and down and criss-cross of that table in a glorious mix- ture of two languages and ten tongues, and altogether were the most "gemiithlich" of companies to be found in the Stuttgart station. How long the two faces beamed upon us after we had filled our new compartment ! What wafts of friendship they sent after us into the wide world and the long years ! Is it strange that that coffee seemed to have gone to our heads? That My Lady of the Veil fell to telling her raciest stories, My Lady Bright Eyes to discovering innumerable sources of amuse- ment, My Lady Practical to reciting old songs, and we all to laughing and rejoicing in a way to amaze our neighbors before and behind? We were traveling down through old Swabia among conical, rocky hills crowned, every one, with a ruined castle. We were searching our guide books to learn whether we were passing through Reutlingen, Tubingen, Hechingen, Balingen, Ebingen, Sigmarin- gen, or only through Horb and Tuttlingen, Immendin- gen and Singen. We were reminding one another of Hohenstauffens and Hohenzollerns, of Frederick Red- beard and Eberhard the Bearded ; of the famous "Swabian Stroke" which was a euphemism for a piece of stupidity until a bold Swabian in the Cru- sades cleft a Turk right down the middle with a 322 EIGHT WEEKS double-handed stroke of his sword, and gave a new meaning to the term from thenceforth. And grad- ually we wound away from the swelling meadows, the vine and hop-covered hillsides, the close-packed villages, to a region of mountains and woods, of bolder green slopes and laughing brooks, a region of remoteness and solitude that turned our laughter to admiration, and made our costly bread seem none too good for such surroundings. This was the beautiful Black Forest — not the very depths of it, where crowds of bicyclists push in to see the simple life and to teach it how fast the out- side wheels go round; not the part of Fairyland where the houses and barns combine under one out- stretching roof that pulls its broad-brimmed hat down over its forehead, and where window joins to win- dow, a-peeping at the train that rushes by. No, we might not see the whole beauty of it in one after- noon's journey, nor talk with the cunning artificers who make cuckoo clocks and wooden toys and blown glass. For the wild ravines and waterfalls we should have needed to push into Triberg and Harnberg and Wekrathal, to Todtnau and Todtmaus, and like un- canny places. But we got the piney breath of the Schwarzwald, and the lights and shadows that jus- tify its name ; and we left it at Singen, where the great rock of Hohentwiel lifted its shoulder against the sky and called up to us Scheffel's delightful story of the pretty widow and her monkish tutor in the days of the great Hunnenschlacht, when the vast ruins you can now guess at against the sky were an impregnable castle. If you have a taste for some- thing choice in German, read Scheffel's Ekkehard, a historical tale of the tenth century. St. Nepomuk used to keep guard in stone at one end of the arched bridge; but where is he now? No EIGHT LANDS IN one has cared to replace his crumbling limbs with a fresh carving, as in the case of the guardians of Heidelberg castle. Alas for the saints and the cruci- fixes ! When they disappear from crossroads and bridges there is no simple faith to demand their return. Will our aesthetic sense come to the rescue some day, while our faith, not quite dead, if less simple, turns its efforts to hospitals and schools and playgrounds ? The sun is almost down, but not too soon to give us a flashing view of the Rhinefall. Here it is, swinging full into sight, and our train moving slowly at the right point for the display of the whole magnificent spectacle — malachite and marble rushing, plunging over the dividing rocks; toying, leaping, just for the joy of life, a tinge of the sunset pink upon them. Beautiful river, among the cliffs and trees, bounding in gladness down to the toils of life! We come on to Zurich in twilight hours, and to- morrow begin our four long and lovely days among the Alps. Good night — and sleep to the sound of waters with visions of woods and cataracts. Sincerely, M. 324 EIGHT WEEKS PART VI— SWITZERLAND. XXXVII— ON LAKE THUN. Interlaken, Thursday Evening, August 5. Good people all: Can you read the above heading without the conventional thrill, either of desire or of happy memory ? As for me, I can't look at it, here in my dark room, with the most remote of elec- tric lights glimmering down on my page, without a rush of questioning voices in my ears — Can this be I ? And am I in the little city between the lakes ? Is that great sweep of the Bernese Oberland spread out be- yond these hotel walls? Is that huge cliff of Harder towering up, up, up behind these roofs, threatening to fall upon me, daring me to take wing and fly to its glowing restaurant lights? I think I'll drop my halting pen right here and step out for the tenth time on our tiny balcony — blessed balcony ! — to see whether she is still there, the queenly Jungf rau, veiled in gray for the night, with a silver brooch where the moonlight falls upon her. Well, that is the way of it. Such sights are too great for us. They make us turn our instructive sen- tences into exclamations, reverse the natural order of our narrative, and drain our bottle of red ink dry in checking off our high days. Now I lay restraint upon myself and go back to the beginning of the day's achievements. I even dis- cipline myself by introducing a little course of geog- 327 EIGHT LANDS IN raphy ; and if you and you don't need such discipline, just skip it at discretion. It is possible to wander all over Switzerland by rail, by diligence, or on foot, crossing passes and sail- ing lakes, without having any clear idea of the lay of the land. I know this, for I have done it. And I know, too, that, however full one's soul is of inspira- tions lofty, one's mind keeps up an annoying interro- gation of, "Where are you, any way? Are you fol- lowing this river up or down? Where does this proposed pass take you? Are you going around in a circle, or are you on your way to somewhere?" If you have no wholesome fear of your mind and its impertinences, go on neglecting your map ; follow your leader and be happy. But as for me, I intend at the outset of these four days to look Switzerland right in the face, with an eye to her various features, to trace the principal rivers, learn the general water- sheds, and find out what passes lead whence and whither. You need not fear to follow me, for it will necessarily be a short operation. In my mind's eye I can see the map of this country like an egg, or a diamond, but very ragged at the edges, especially along the south. Or, I clench my right hand, lay it down with my thumb resting on this paper, and I have a pretty good suggestion of the little country. My thumb represents the great range of the Italian Alps, with Monte Rosa as the highest peak. Between my thumb and forefinger runs the River Rhone, on its way to Lake Geneva, above my thumb-nail. My forefinger, where it lies against my thumb, is the great Bernese Oberland, with the Jungfrau as its queen. (Excuse a pause right here, to see if she is still there in the frame of the nearer hills.) Above that forefinger lie the two little lakes between which we are established; and off to the 328 EIGHT WEEKS right, and up toward the big knuckles are all the lesser mountains, and the lakes and rivers that flow into the Rhine. For somewhere on the back of your hand lies the Lake of Constance, which is to the Rhine what the Lake of Geneva is to the Rhone. The two rivers have their rise about in the centre of the country. The Rhone turns west, widens out into Lake Geneva just on the border, flows on into France, then, at the City of Lyons, changes its mind entirely, and starts due south for the Mediterranean. The Rhine, from almost the same starting point, winds east and north to the northeast corner of the country, widens out into Lake Constance, flows west for a lit- tle way, gathering up all the drainage of the northern slopes, then sets its face due north for the far-away German Ocean. Just about in the centre of Switzer- land, a little northeast of our present location, lies the Lake of Lucerne, or Lake of the Four Forest Can- tons — a kind of a letter Z gone wild, so that in sailing through it you constantly fancy it corning to an end, only to find it always taking a new lease of life in a new direction. On it lies lovely Lucerne, and from it rise the isolated peaks of Rigi and Pilatus, neither of them high enough for eternal snows, but serving as splendid observation towers, with summits acces- sible by rail. Now for passes. What is a pass? And why does the tourist introduce as many passes as possible into his itinerary? A pass is a depression between peaks, giving an opportunity for a road to pass over it. In a country ridged with mountains it is often a ques- tion how to communicate between valleys that lie quite near to one another. It is. of course, easier to go over the depression than over the peaks ; and in reaching these lower levels, or saddles, you find that the mountain streams are flowing down the valley, that 329 EIGHT LANDS IN you are climbing up, and that your road is beside a series of wild gorges and cataracts. All the way you are having choice mountain scenery, both that of nearby slopes and ravines and that of the summits that rise in changing groups before you and behind. But when you reach your pass, and see a vast new land- scape spread out before you while your near moun- tains still tower on either side, your heart leaps up like that of "stout Cortez on a peak of Darien" ; and you make up your mind then and there to cross as many passes as time, purse and sole leather will permit. Switzerland can furnish you some dozen passes on her southern boundary alone, and many more con- necting her own valleys. Some of these passes are crossed by railways, others by admirable diligence roads, others only by bridle paths. Almost any one furnishes a variety of tunnels, of shelters against land and snowslides, and of heavy parapets at precipitous points. Most of them begin among villages, gardens and vineyards ; then rise to forest altitudes, to Alpine pastures, and last to scanty grass and bare rock. Some lead you near to glaciers and everlasting snows, oth- ers surprise you with a broad plateau or sluggish lake spread flat upon their summit. Some have been pierced by long tunnels, as the Simplon and Mont Cenis, so that you have a choice of driving for half a day through the wildest scenery or of riding for twenty minutes through Egyptian darkness. To this geography of Switzerland I have added these facts : That the confederation consists of twen- ty-two cantons, as independent and interdependent as our United States, and that, in general, those cantons which send their waters to the Rhine are German in speech and manners; those that drain toward the Rhone are French. 330 EIGHT WEEKS Now for an orderly account of the day. We ex- plored the lovely city of Zurich this morning, climbed to the University Terrace, walked along the quays by Zurich Lake, tried to discern through a heavy at- mosphere the line of shining peaks that should have glorified our horizon, admired laces and silks and embroidered handkerchiefs in the shop windows, and then took train for Interlaken. A beautiful country we passed through, with noth- ing that specifically said to us, Switzerland; for it is the remote villages of the higher regions that fur- nish broad-eaved chalets for the artist's brush ; and it is only in a clear atmosphere that one can expect fre- quent glimpses of snow-covered peaks. As we had planned to enjoy the loveliness of Lake Lucerne on the Sabbath, we swung around it to the north and west, passing Berne and all its bears and Ogre-foun- tains without stopping, and reached the northern ex- tremity of Lake Thun a little before sunset. And now that this has been a day of loveliness on every side, with once or twice a showing of white away off on the horizon, are we to be disappointed as we approach the grandeur to which our hearts have been rising? Will the great monarchs hide them- selves from sight, or sink down, down from the height where we have set them? Here is the little steamboat ready for us, and the water is already turning to pearl and lapis lazuli ; the bordering hills are of hues shading away from blue green, close at hand, to cloud-like splendor in the distance ; they come stepping down to us in a stately minuet, every new attitude so ravishing that we long to fix it in its place — new vistas opening be- fore our silent crowd in the prow, new charms of farewell beckoning to those in the stern — and every participant in this marvelous ceremony clothed in the 331 EIGHT LANDS IN colors of precious stones, as for a festival. And yet, between the advancing and receding wharves at which our steamer stops, between shadowy ravines and fan- tastic summits, between the villas and hotels and gar- dens and groves, our eyes are always scanning the horizon before us, and we are virtuously saying to ourselves : "Remember that the air has been pretty thick to-day, and that the very mists which give you these opalescent foregrounds may shut off the Jung- frau entirely. Don't expect too much. After all this display for your benefit, what if the Prima Donna should refuse her special performance? If she veils herself to-night, watch for her to-morrow." Where- upon, as the lake narrows to the canal that is to bring us to Interlaken, and our watches say that we are almost there, of a sudden, at our right, what is it that makes My Lady of the Guide Book cry : "Look, look !" loud out before all the people at the prow, so that they obey her, follow her eyes and hand, transfixed in a great stare at that vast pyramid of red gold that has flashed out between the opal hills? Now do you wonder that the red ink is running low? Interlaken has lost the simplicity of a little village lying amazed before the great mountain. It has changed into a summer resort of the first rank, hotels outbidding one another in excellence of location and luxuriousness of appointments ; shop windows to drive the connoisseur wild and turn the eyes of the tyro green ; parks and parklets with tropical palms front- ing the eternal snows ; concert halls radiating music ; kursaals exploding fireworks ; and away on high, emulating the stars, two burning electric lights which I have already mentioned as belonging to the restau- rant on the giant cliffs to our rear. All this we have seen to-night, and we feel as 332 EIGHT WEEKS though Switzerland were already a friend, a posses- sion, a thing to carry always with us, a thing of which to say, "Mine," even though we should part to-morrow. One more look from the balcony, and good-night. I wish you no better visions than a review of our sunset hours. M. 333 EIGHT LANDS IN XXXVIII— INTERLAKEN. Jnterlakov' xfc/ucAd££ , CA-*^3> 6 Dear stay-at-homes: You who sleep six nights in a place, a fortnight, a month — ten months — how can I ex- plain to you the feeling of leisure and content that steals over us when we are able to date our let- ters for two days running from the same hotel ? To be sure, this is not an unheard-of experience for us; but the opposite one of remembering that we "tarry but a night" begins to seem like the normal state of this transitory world ; and when we are able to unfold our rosebud suit-cases a little, by reason of a two- night exception, we take a long, deep breath of com- fort, call our hostelry our home, take possession of the whole town, and fancy that we shall never forget its every detail. Thus it is in Interlaken. We have time to burn. At least you will think so when I tell you that we have all been shopping, or, more exactly, shop-windowing, several times over. Of course, you suppose, after my last evening's enthusiasms, that we have spent all of 334 EIGHT WEEKS the day with clasped hands in front of the Jungfrau; but, alas for the little cup of human bliss ! it gets full so soon, and frightens one with its spilling, and then one has to drink it off as one is able and let it fill again at its leisure. We had a preconceived notion that after London and Paris the simple grandeur of Switzerland would be most restful. And so it is, in a way. The rush and roar are gone, the hurrying to a dozen sights a day, the crowding of the mind -with no end of his- tories and no limit of art treasures. But in another way, grandeur itself is tiring; and these shopkeepers have, perhaps, builded better than they knew for us, the travelers, when they thought only to build for themselves. You stretch your aesthetic sense to its utmost, reaching out to yon dazzling pyramid — and then you swing it neatly around upon a hand-wrought silver chain. It is the same sense, but it has suffered a wonderful relaxation in this change of objects. From precipices awful and waterfalls sublime you suffer a shameful and wholesome fall to carved bears and salad spoons. From a rhapsody of color spread over the whole circle of the horizon, you turn with a long breath to handkerchiefs and laces, and the finer and tinier the designs, the more the works of the artificer appeal to you. My Lady of the Veil, just risen from a delicious breakfast among flowers and window landscapes, ex- claims : "What ! shop windows before going up to Miirren ! You would stoop to mundane vanities as a preliminary to communion with the gods !" Where- upon we all look shamefaced, as we are wont to do when My Lady V. sets up a standard higher than the average; and then we all fall to making excuses. "But don't you think," gently protests My Lady of the Star, "that scarfs and laces were woven for the 335 EIGHT LANDS IN adornment of the masterpiece of the Great Creator? And when masterpieces buy them and wear them, are they not transferring the diaphanous tints of the Jungfrau to her superior, and outranking sisters?" At this we lift up our faces once more, and clap our hands stealthily. "And .my opinion is," says My Lady Bright Eyes, "that some of our friends at home will not be grieved to see these masterpieces improved in their outward adornment." (Continued, but more stealthy, applause.) My Lady Practical and My Lady in Blue opine that silver chains and coral brooches will make acceptable gifts, cheap, pretty, and easily packed ; against which view there is. nothing to be said. My Lady Persistent considers that models of chalets and carved chamois are a means of instruction to our friends. My Lady of the Guide Book feels that we owe it to the shops, which make such a phe- nomenal part of the show, to express our apprecia- tion of their cunning handiwork ; and My Lady in Green, being mathematical, makes a rough estimate of the number of square inches in one of those win- dows which our united purses might buy out. Where- upon we are unable to decide which side of the argu- ment she holds, and she and the instigator of the whole discussion lead the van in the window proces- sion. Carved bears and chamois and cows, carved bread- trays and salad forks, carved tables and cabinets, carved picture frames and boxes, card cases and thimble cases ; edelweis in wood, in ivory, and in sil- ver; Alpine roses in enamel, in mosaic, in precious stones ; brooches in chased gold, in burned copper, in fretted silver ; clasp pins set with turquoises and opals, with emeralds and lapis lazuli, Avith amethysts and garnets ; belt clasps, bracelets, necklaces, watch chains, fan chains, and chains for lorgnettes; tortoise shell 336 EIGHT WEEKS in every form from the unwrought back of the sea- turtle himself to open-work fans and side combs and berrets; up and down the windows, across and aslant the panes, temptingly near to the glass, those rows of pearl and diamond studs ; temptingly out of reach those rainbow crystals from the Jungfrau's own bosom ! "Oh, do go on to the photographs — in black and white, in sepia, in colors; to the old engravings and choice editions of books !" — "No, to the Swiss silks in stripes and dots and changing hues ; to the crepy gowns and dazzling boleros across the street." "Never mind the hats and coats and neckties, they are not for us; we will not squeeze even an eye's glance out of them; but the gloves next door, kids and chamois and silk ; those dainty mitts, just like our grandmothers'; and dancing slippers and walking boots ; canes, too, for old and young, for gay and sober, with chamois horns atop and strong spikes be- low ; umbrellas green and white and black ; parasols in laces, creamy or dusk ; jets ; we had almost passed those jets unnoticed! And here they begin all over again, carvings and jewels and stuffs; and by this time we are ready to turn once more to restful Nature and follow my leader to the station, where we shall take train for Lauterbrunnen and Miirren. What is the state of your geographical sense at present? Can you tell where you are and which way you are looking? Well, when we turn our backs to the two lovely lakes of Thun and Brienz, stretching to right and left, to the little winding river connecting them and trailing by the rear of our town, and to the huge Harder cliff rising sheer behind it, we are look- ing a little east of south directly at the Jungfrau, the crowning peak of the Bernese Oberland. It is the Lauterbrunnen valley that opens before us, and if it were not for those grand foreground hills on either EIGHT LANDS IN side, we could see the Monch and Eiger at the left, followed by a dozen shining "Horner" of various ap- pellations, and at the right as many more, all rising into the altitude of perpetual snow. You may remember that at the equator the snow- line begins at 15,000 feet — about the height of Mont Blanc, the loftiest of the Alps ; but in this latitude it descends much lower, to about 12,000 feet; therefore the Jungfrau, nearly 14,000 feet in height, has her head and shoulders always veiled in white. But in late summer, when sun and rain have been doing their utmost to disfigure her, the veil sometimes has a seamed and worse-for-wear look, as though it needed a bleaching, so they say ; but we can hardly believe it, so immaculate and even dazzling is its appearance at present. Up this valley, then, where we take our way, is the approach to these giants, the Lutschen valley on the fork to the left leading to Grindelwald and the Little Scheidegg Pass beyond ; the Lauterbrunnen tak- ing you to the Staubbach waterfall. Here you have a choice of railways, both of them scaling mountains that seem unapproachable — that on the left to lofty Wengen, and, with the help of tunnels and lifts, up the Jungfrau itself; that on the right to Miirren, on the top of yonder precipice. One day in Interlaken, and which of these excursions to choose? Grindelwald is one of the cosiest, chalet-filled, herd-bell-tinkling vil- lages in the Alps, with a couple of glaciers of its own close at hand, and every now and then the attraction of some conference of sages or saints, who bring the highlands of their thoughts and hopes to these shining highlands of Nature. Shops? Oh, yes, plenty of shops, too, and hotels many, but not quite so all-de- vouring as those of Interlaken. Three snow peaks EIGHT WEEKS would rise in front of you there — the Eiger, the Schreckhorn, and the Wetterhorn ; and if you went near the slopes of these mountains you would be on the watch for distant avalanches. I say distant, be- cause great care is taken to build the roads out of danger's way. An avalanche at a short remove is hardly to be desired; but a few miles away, to catch sight of a falling line of white, followed after a few seconds by a low rumble of thunder, is a thing to make one's imagination tingle. But suppose that, instead of following the Black Liitchine, with its topaz waters, you choose the opal of the White Liitschine in the Lauterbrunnen valley, then you are again among chalets of mahogany tim- bers with broad roofs weighted with stones, every changing view a gem of landscape; and you realize the meaning of the name — nothing but brooks — as you watch from both sides of your observation car for the abounding waters bursting from ravines, leap- ing down precipices, dancing over mosses and ferns. At the village of Lauterbrunnen you reach the most daring of them all, the Staubbach, which makes one headlong drop over a precipice of almost a thousand feet, and, as its name implies, turns to spray before reaching the bottom. It is somewhat the fashion at present to belittle this fall because its volume is not great, and to compare it disadvantageously with neighboring cataracts that foam and rumble. But how belittle a leap of a thousand feet? How find other than fascinating this silver scarf that sways and trembles, and never fails against the stern black wall ? Every cascade of the valley has its individual charm, and not one can say a slighting word of another. But when a new marvel is said to outshine an old one, it is well to remember that scenery is a valuable asset \ 339 EIGHT LANDS IN among these thrifty republicans, and that the man who owns a waterfall has more reasons than love for his kind for exploiting it. While looking up at this Staubbach cliff we may as well use it as a tape-measure for future altitudes. One thousand feet; keep that to lay off against the Jungfrau, or lesser heights. We shall be going up Miirren soon; that will be some 3,000 feet above our present point — three times this precipice. A few measuring-sticks of this kind are most useful. Just recall your arithmetic days and say to yourself — 5,280 feet, that is one mile; and when you know that the Jungfrau is two and a half miles high, call up some familiar distance of that length — the drive to Smith- ville or to the new Country Club — and then, by sheer force of will, lift that two and a half miles on end until you feel the height of this snowy maiden. Of course, that is reckoned from the sea level, and for many points in a mountainous country there are two or three thousand feet of the average altitude to de- duct, as here, at Lauterbrunnen, where one must take off nearly three thousand feet. One reason why I stop you right here, at this allur- ing point to fuss with measuring tapes is that the Alps have a way of rising so precipitously before us, quite unlike many of our own mountains which lift them- selves by slow degrees, first in plateaus, then in foot- hills, and last of all by bounding heights — that they, the Alps, cheat us into believing them merely big rocks. That is especially true of those which, like the black Monk now before us, are so steep as to retain but little snow, or, like Pilatus by the Lake of Lucerne, do not rise quite to the snow point. Candor obliges me to confess that we eight women had no time this morning for these mathematical diversions. W T e followed the crowd from the Lauter- 340 EIGHT WEEKS brunnen station as fast as ever we could up a steep and winding road, giving the go-by to innumerable weavers of lace sitting at little tables by the wayside, and to countless venders of carved work in their shop doors, all of whom smiled on us serenely, knowing that on our return we would be flies for their spider's web. Here is the funicular awaiting us ; and shall we choose the lower compartment, where we can look back at the retreating valley, or the front, where we may catch glimpses of green heights above? or shall we beg standing room beside the conductor, and watch the rolling of that great cable over the little wheels in the track, winding us up and up and up, almost as steep a path as that which the waterfalls leap down? In either case we have an exhilarating feeling com- pounded somehow of awe and exultation ; for never in our lives before have we emulated the lark to this extent. A rather cumbersome, iron-clad bird, this ; but steadily it rises higher and higher, till now we have reached a point above the Eiffel Tower, and are not yet half way there. See how many treetops we have left behind us in these few minutes ! Can't you imagine the barometer dropping as it did in the great Parisian lift? Now we feel as though we were be- ginning to be neighbors of the peaks at our back — as though we were friends of the eagle and the chamois. And now we are thankful that our bird has sinews of steel, and that we are set down safe and happy upon the great shelf of the mountain. Here a more horizontal electric road receives us and speeds us along between the flowery meadows and brook-tra- versed woods at our right and the great gulf at our left, with the snow giants beyond. In and out among these perilous ravines we wind, but always safely on our narrow ledge, and attended by a perfect carriage 34i EIGHT LANDS IN road beside us that seems to say : "All right ! Just as safe as though you were in the valley !" Now certain of us had been saying with great sat- isfaction that there would be three full hours at Miir- ren in which to sit down and admire such a pano- rama as we had never seen before, and might never see again. We would find out every peak by name, and lay up one more splendid negative in that mental receptacle from which we shall bring forth picture- making stuff for years to come. But "varium et mutabile semper" — no sooner had My Lady Bright Eyes begun to scan the flowery fields, and My Lady of the Star begun to realize what it meant to be in the very lap of Queen Flora, than there began to be a buzz of enquiry as to the time required to walk three miles on a good road down grade, as to the pos- sible hour of lunch in Miirren hotels, as to the nearest restaurant, and the possibility of making the mid- day meal a quick and simple one. The sequel you can guess. We seized the double gains of a divided party. The lunch upon the hotel veranda would ordinarily have been voted excellent, but we gave it little heed, for sheer wonder that we were there, face to face with those great gods. We talked in ordinary speech, but we felt like dwellers on the heights. Ganymede had been true to his word ; we had asked for Fairyland, but he had set us on Olympus. Then three-fourths of us turned our backs on that glorious spot as quickly as ever we could, and began our flowery pilgrimage through fields beyond descrip- tion for number, variety and brilliancy of blossoms; every known and loved wild thing, from daisies to anemones, harebells to pinks, and a dozen that we could not name — six great nosegays growing as we went ; bits of forest for shade, hemlocks and firs and 342 EIGHT WEEKS beeches ; babbling brooks on their way to the great leap that should turn them into waterfalls ; a tinkling of cowbells on higher slopes; an occasional pedestrian climbing up where we were speeding down ; mossy couches for rest ; rustic bridges for delight ; and al- ways, at every point, over our right shoulder, those shining miracles against the blue. &&M_, YYlowJjl,, awcLVm^^JUc The rest of us explored the little village of Miirren beyond the hotels, its pretty timber cottages, its gar- dens, its church ; the kindly, thrifty people with laces for sale ; even little girls and boys beside the road shifting their bobbins skillfully from pin to pin upon their cushions ; carved work, too, and picture postals, of course. Such a far-away, simple hamlet on the sides of Olympus ! Then we, the second party, took the electric road back past all the ungathered flowers, and met our other fraction at the funicular station. By the great steel bird we all came safely down to a world that had seemed wildly picturesque before we had seen a wilder, and fell into the hands of the expectant spiders, or spinners above mentioned. We sat by Swiss roadsides to feast on Swiss plums, and 343 EIGHT LANDS IN returned by sunset lights to this hospitable hotel. And now, I dare say, we shall gaze in at shop windows as a toner-down of our exalted state, and return quite safely to ordinary levels in the counting of our laun- dry and the packing of our grips. One should not leave a place of such hotel homes as these without paying a tribute to the kindly atten- tions of waiters and porters, the readiness of laun- dresses to hurry work for hurried travelers, and the general cleanliness and comfort that makes one's inn a pleasant thing to remember. Does it ever come upon you overwhelmingly how many people are at work in anticipation of your com- ing, to tidy your room and smooth your bed, to cook your meals and be ready to handle your baggage ? A great world, this, not only in its mountains, but also in its traveling comforts, and in its shopkeeper temptations. A good night to you all, from your tired and amazed traveler. M. 344 EIGHT WEEKS XXXIX— A CUL DE SAC. Interlaken, Saturday, August 7. Good people: It is just for my own satisfaction that I am dating a third letter from Interlaken. We shall enter our omnibus in about an hour, to drive to the steamboat landing on Lake Brienz, and I will in the meantime forego shops and make a beginning on our interesting escape from this tangle of mountains. You see, in sailing hither through the Lake of Thun, we were deliberately entering the Bernese trap as "Ro- land to the Dark Tower came." From it there is no natural escape except by retracing our steps. If we follow the little River Aare in our rear to the twin Lake of Brienz, we are advancing still farther into the cul de sac. If we take the route of the Liitschine in front of us, we seem to escape, only to be gradually rising against a wall of ice. Undoubtedly we are at last booked for a pass, and which shall it be? To go over into the Rhone valley south of us we shall take either the Gemmi, past Lauterbrunnen and Kander- steg, at our right ; or the Grimsel, past Grindelwald and the Scheidegg, at our left. Both are bridle-paths, climbing and zigzagging at a greater angle than the diligence roads, and showing an occasional cut-off steeper still, reserved for pedestrians. We are beyond the help of carriages or motor cars. What are the rival attractions of these two passes? By the Gemmi Pass we should slowly climb to one of those solemn mountain-top lakes I have spoken of with gravelly 345 EIGHT LANDS IN shores and rocky guardian peaks — a genuine roof of the world, with slates and cistern ; then, at an altitude of nearly 8,000 feet, we should greet the outspread valley of the Rhone with the shining range of the Italian Alps on its further side, and after that we should drop down by paths cut in the face of a preci- pice to Leuk Baths at our foot, where we might float around in steaming pools with all the rheumatic in- valids to rest our weary limbs. By the Grimsel Pass, on the other hand, we should work our way gradually up through Meiringen, or through Grindelwald and the Great Scheidegg, with spruce trees, brawling brooks, and snow peaks for our companions. Then we should strike the roaring Aare — how quiet it lies in the two little lakes behind us ! — and follow it up between mountains of bald rock, where one hardly dares to look aloft at the glacier-pol- ished stones waiting to roll down upon one ; on and on, without tree or shrub or grass; rocks and the flood, the flood and the rocks, and one little path to bid us take courage. At last we should reach the scanty grass of the saddle on which lies the old stone hospice of Grimsel — how well its name becomes it! and after a restful lunch, and a climb of another 1,000 feet (7,103 above sea level) descend by rough zigzags to the Rhone valley, at its very head. There the Rhone Glacier lies slanting in its great ravine, and by its melting ice sets agoing the little river that is to flow all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. A third pass, the Brunig, would take us by a pic- turesque railroad over to Lake Lucerne, in the north- east ; and as we have promised to spend our Sunday by its waters, that is the way we go, even though we shall climb only to a height of some 3,200 feet. .1 will tell you of it before the day is over. M. 34 6 EIGHT WEEKS XL— SABBATH REST BY LAKE LUCERNE. Lucerne, Sunday, Aug. 8. Long suffering friends: Contrary to my expectations, I have given you a respite of more than twenty-four hours ; and contrary to yours, I am not preparing to open before you another mountain panorama. Na- ture, aware that my adjectives were running low, and your powers of endurance, has mercifully drawn a gossamer veil over this renowned landscape. She has not obliterated outlines, nor rendered it impos- sible for me to continue my illustrated geographical treatises if I wish ; but she has just said to us, — "To- day is your Sabbath of rest ; there is not one upland vision for your bodily eyes to feast upon ; let your spir- its look up to the heights instead, the heights that shine on rainy days — the glorified summits that rise above these clogging fogs. Take your memory glass, your thanksgiving glass, and your field-glasses of faith, and look to those Delectable Mountains and Beulah Lands that are always within range." And so we have been doing as we rested in our comfortable lodgings, and strolled along the lake-side promenade. The immense throng, taking their Sun- day pleasure, jostled us without a thought of any- thing unusual in our attitude ; they never divined peripatetic astronomers taking observations as they walked. To go back to yesterday morning. The air had 347 EIGHT LANDS IN already begun to thicken before we set sail on Lake Brienz, so that we had a striking illustration of the effect of atmosphere on landscape. This and Lake Thun are rivals in beauty ; but our views of Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning were not to be com- pared. We tried to make this what the other had been, and were mortified at our feeble powers. The Giesbach Fall, however, that leaps down into the lake near its eastern end, and splashes away a long story about the six other leaps it has taken in the tree cov- ered gorges behind it, is a feature that Lake Thun cannot furnish. The entire descent equals that of the Staubbach, and we long to stop over and explore its loveliness. Our railroad journey takes us past Meiringen in its snow-bounded glacier-bounded valley — one of the gems of the Oberland with abundant ravines and waterfalls ; then criss-cross the Hausenbach and Kehlbach, and Grassbach (bach is a brook every time), and can't you hear their waters rush and dash? past Briinig Pass and Briinig Thai ; through tunnels, many high walled cuttings ; past Sarner See and Sar- ner Au — all pretty words to tell of vale and lake and meadows — and then down through Alpnach Dorf, Alpnachstadt, and Hergiswil to Lucerne, which gives its name also to the lake and to the canton. We are now in the William Tell region, which means to the laity the region of the great conspiracy for independence at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The conspiring cantons of Schwitz, Uri, and Unterwalden lie along the eastern and southern shores of the lake, while that of Lucerne, on the north and west, shows at Kiissnach the ruined castle of the tyrant Gessler — the immediate object of their hate. Doffing our hats to the great authorities, we humbly acknowledge that the whole Wilhelm Tell episode, 348 EIGHT WEEKS with the thirty-three heroes who took the pledge at the midnight meeting in Riitli Forest, and proceeded to drive out the Austrian governors and demolish their strongholds, may belong to legend rather than history. But legend does not spring into being with- out some foundation in truth ; and ruined castles are graphic recorders of tyranny overthrown. If Schiller did not give us history pure and simple in his classic drama, he gave us an ideal picture that to our heart of hearts tells more of truth than anything we can ourselves reconstruct from authenticated annals. These sturdy mountaineers resolved to maintain their freedom against the envy of princes and emperors, and by slow degrees they won for themselves that place among the nations that can be compared to nothing else than the steadfastness of their everlast- ing hills. Our Saturday afternoon gave us time to explore some quaint parts of this city that is, alas ! turning all too fast into a fashionable congeries of hotels and promenades ; to cross the old covered bridges over the Reuss, and strain our eyes at the ancient paintings under their rafters ; and to visit the Lion of Lucerne and the Glacier Gardens. Both of these last are unique, and Nature certainly did the generous thing to this city when she placed a cliff" for Thornwalden's great sculpture and a lot of potholes and glacier markings all in close proximity to its centre. The Lion, noble, wounded creature, twenty-eight feet in length, was carved from the Danish sculptor's designs in 1821, to commemorate the fidelity of the Swiss Guard, some 800 in all, who gave their lives in defense of Louis XVI., and the Tuileries in August of 1792. The Swiss have always been famous as mercenary soldiers and, as in this case, have shown themselves faithful to their pledges. To this day it 349 EIGHT LANDS IN is a Swiss Guard to whom the Pope in the Vatican entrusts his safety. The bold cliff in which the lion is carved, descends perpendicularly to a little pool of water; and the splendid dignity of that death scene, with the vines and evergreens like funeral flowers about it, throws a reverent hush upon the crowds of tourists constantly passing. For fifty years this king of beasts had reigned supreme when a rival was discovered by some prying naturalist in the glacial remains of a remarkable char- acter close at hand. At once the thrifty Swiss began to develop this gift of the great Mother, and what was not already in situ of glacier mills and giant cauldrons with smooth-worn boulders ready for the churning in their dry hollows, they proceeded to im- port from similar localities, turned an artificial glacial stream into one of the "mills" to illustrate the rotary process, added models of Alpine huts, reliefs of mountains and glaciers, and a collection of the fauna of the region, and set forth the whole museum with such a cunning array of stone steps, winding paths, and rustic bridges, that the tourist is allured into it, whether he be in search of science or of recreation. This city of Lucerne, established on the steep shores of the lake, gives occasion for many climbing, twisting streets, unexpected stairways, and a certain mixing up of the perpendicular and horizontal, done in stone as if for all time, that to our western sense is a continual astonishment. Where we are inclined to reduce an uneven quarter to a level, the European turns it into a labyrinth of masonry, which enables one building to peep over another, use its roof for its own garden, make thoroughfares through its courts, and, in general, settle down to a snug century-long life of architectural intimacy. 350 EIGHT WEEKS For example, in descending from a winding hillside street, like a dry canal, to the Hofkirche, or Court Church, of St. Leodegar, we were uncertain whether a cloister that lay before us was a part of the church or of the thoroughfare, and whether the carved tomb- stones in the pavement, with occasional wreaths laid upon them, were to be admired or trodden upon. The old church itself, dating back to the eighth century, and adorned with quaint, colored carvings — "Cal- varys," and the like, set into the outer wall — drew us strongly; but we had set out to find a Scotch service held in a German house of worship, and turned our faces resolutely away from such enticements. We were amply repaid by the joy of worshipping in our own tongue, and by the additional joy of being greeted by old friends. Do you happen to know the feeling that comes upon one when welcomed in every possible way of courtesy by people whom one has never met before and will never meet again? Some- times it throws a flashlight on the brotherhood of mankind that men of alien blood and unknown tongues can thus lend hand to one another all around the globe. Sometimes it comes across one like a pall that, of all these crowds, not one knows me as me, nor would miss me if I should drop out of existence. And when one happens to be in the pall-like frame of mind, and is reasoning with oneself in the church pew that, after all, we aliens are not far apart if our prayers meet at the All-Father's throne — if then, just as one is expanding into a broad smile toward the human race in general and Scotch Presbyterians in particular, a gentleman stands waiting in the aisle, and says with outstretched hand : "Is not this My Lady So-and-So, whom I have known in little X among the Berkshires?" what kind of a smile, do 351 EIGHT LANDS IN you think, takes the place of that conventional one of a moment before? Wouldn't the transformation be a study for a portrait painter ? With two sets of old friends have we held converse on this good day. All the smiles in the weather chart have chased each other across our faces, and we have balanced in our minds the rival joys of an unexpected encounter and of a meeting that brought two friends clean over the Alps to see us. To-morrow we expect to take that same journey in reverse order, over the St. Gotthard Pass ; leave behind us this land of snow and ice, and make our first entrance into the fruitful land of Italy. From the high to the low, from the cold to the warm, from the tyrant defiers to the long-time tyrant-ridden, from the field to the city, from the architecture of Nature to the arts of man — great contrasts lie open to us ; and it is no small compliment to our human make-up that we are expected to delight in both extremes, to gain from both, and fellowship with both. Long live variety, and long live human sympathy that can em- brace all excellencies in its outstretched arms ! Our bard, who must drop into verse when feeling runs high, hands me these couplets to close the story of our five days' sojourn : SWITZERLAND. White-robed she stands, priestess among the nations, And lifts up holy hands to God on high. Perpetual hymns rise from her mighty organs, Perpetual incense floats from rocky shrines. Forests of costly cedars wall her courts, Gold-starred her roof, her pavement malachite. Wild goats and screaming birds dwell by her altars, 352 EIGHT WEEKS And simple folk dare touch her garment's hem. The silly world grows silent in her presence, And having come to wonder, kneels to pray. Post Scriptum. — If I am not mistaken I have so far made little use of my woman's privilege of post- scripts. In this one I want to answer some questions that I can imagine you as asking. First — Chalets; pronounced shallays. A term ap- plied to the broad-eaved timber buildings of the Swiss, whether it be the dwellings, with balconies full of flowers above, and cattle snugly housed under- neath, or the smaller structures for grain and tools that stand perched on poles along the hillsides. In both cases the timbers are of a rich, mahogany color, and the roofs are loaded with big stones. Picturesque as both these features are, they arise from the natural order of things. In vain have I tried to draw from a Swiss the confession that any of these beautiful browns are the result of staining or any other artistic treatment. It is just the sun of Switzerland burning through the rarified air that turns the fresh spruce of the mountains into mahogany ; and of this you can convince yourself when you see how every chalet faces to the south and reddens to the south — the east and west sides following suit to a certain extent, but the north turning silvery grey like our own unpainted buildings. The stones, too, on the roofs are only an econom- ical makeshift for shingle nails ; for in the primitive days shingles were axe-hewn; axe-hewn boards held them in place, and hillside boulders laid in regular order upon these last, finished the carpenter's work. Of late, alas ! shingle nails and machine-made shin- gles are attainable by all the peasants ; and even roofs of corrugated steel show their bold faces in many a 353 EIGHT LANDS IN place, although they have the grace to assume red paint in imitation of brick tiles. Second — Cowbells and goatbells. Most of these are now out of hearing; for during the summer the herders drive their charges to the pastures of the higher Alps — slopes so steep that you wonder whether the cattle are sharp-shod ; and there they make big cheeses in little mahogany lean-tos against protecting rocks. Every cow has her bell, big and noisy; and every goat a smaller one, of lighter tone. From a distance the sound is so pretty that you are sure you are in Fairyland, where all the flowers are a-tinkle with silver bells ; but when autumn brings a return of herds and flocks to the lower levels, and the door yards are turned over to the cow-and-goat lawn- mower, it is just as well for the tourist to move on, or buy abundant cotton for his ears. Third — Yodels. This melody peculiar to the moun- taineers, a kind of throaty warble without words, seems to me always to lend itself to the Swiss land- scape ; and whether used as a diversion or as a call, to outshine the ordinary songs and shouts of other rustics. Fourth — The temperature. Of course, it gradually lowers until you reach the snow line ; but it does not offer the sudden and extreme changes experienced along our Atlantic coast. In sheltered valleys front- ing the south, such is the power of the sun through the thin air, that even in January a summer's warmth often prevails at midday, and many vegetables are kept growing all winter long. Shelter from wind and exposure to sun can do almost anything, especially above the fogs of the valleys. It used to be the case that Swiss hotels had to make all their gains in two or three summer months ; but with the present appre- ciation of cold, clear air as a physical cure-all, they 354 EIGHT WEEKS are beginning to find themselves in demand all the year round. One after another the upland houses put in electric lighting and steam heat, furnish their beds with heavy blankets and down over-beds, select a level meadow to flood for a skating rink, and begin to advertise their winter sports. Invalids flock to them for new vigor; young men and maidens carry up to them their skis and skates ; even ordinary trav- elers find it worth while to provide themselves with hoods and mufflers, sweaters and bloomers, canes and curling sticks, for midwinter delights. I don't know what these old mountain sides think about it after having had things their own way for nine months of the year and all the years of man's residence among them. Fifth — Snow peaks in the landscape. When the sun shines on your side of them, they are dazzling white; but when it is behind them, they just show a soft gray like any other distant peaks. I have seen a whole range of Alps at sunrise, when you could not have distinguished them from a range of Adiron- dacks ; but the same mountains, a few hours later, were a shining sight to make one's heart leap. The Jungfrau, as we first saw her, was gold and silver. After the sun had gone down she was in gray, and later the fortunate ones who were not dazzling their eyes at the shop windows, saw her shine out for a brief fifteen minutes in the softest tints of pink and rose. Farewell at last, and be ready for mountains and tunnels to-morrow. M. 355 EIGHT LANDS IN XLI— THE GREAT WHITE WALL. Milan, Monday, August 9. Beloved: We have crossed the great white wall that shuts off Italy from its European neighbors. It opened fifty-six gates to let us through — gates of Egyptian darkness into which we rushed blindly with the daring of the iron horse, and out of which we emerged smiling, taking long breaths for body and soul. And how could eight people utilize fifty-six gates? By taking them in succession, all these little gates that one after another make up the great St. Gotthard portal. As I have before said, there are a dozen well-known passes across these Alps, of which we took the mid- dle one, whose railroad begins at the fourfold Lake of Lucerne, that central and unrivaled gem of Switzer- land, and ends in a group of lakes like Lucerne, shaken into many parts, and so beautiful as to be known par excellence as "the Italian Lakes." Italy's natural communication with the north is limited to the difficult coast line of the Italian and French Riviera, or the equally difficult line from Ven- ice, around the northern end of the Adriatic — the Austrian Riviera. Consequently there have been from earliest historic times roads more or less defined over these mountain saddles, where Caesar sent his legions by forced marches to the attack of the Helvetians, or Varus led his armies to the conquest of Germany. 356 EIGHT WEEKS Long before this the Gauls had found a way to swoop down upon their envied neighbors ; and Hannibal had somehow tugged his big elephants over the wall. Later the Goths and Huns tried their skill at climbing, with renowned success; and after them the Franks and Germans found it necessary to blaze a pretty dis- tinct path, so that they could speed down to Italy on occasion, to secure an imperial crown or to try a bout with a recalcitrant pope. When we have nothing else to dream about on some dull night, we'll call up before our eyes those processions of warriors, emigrants, merchants and princes who have tramped the highways and bored the tunnels, established lodg- ings and constructed shelters, bridged the cataracts, and dared the avalanches, along which we glide to-day on velvet cushions, a pleasure journey of six or eight hours. Beginning at the west, the Mont Cenis and Little St. Bernard Passes connect France and Italy — the first pierced by a tunnel of seven and three-fourth miles, the longest in the world at the time of its con- struction in the sixties ; the second crossed by a dili- gence road. Somewhere along this last Hannibal and Caesar made their crossing. The next four passes connect Switzerland and Italy — the Great St. Bernard, the Simplon, the St. Gotthard, and the Spliigen. The Great St. Bernard, like its neighbor of the same cognomen, was built by the efforts of St. Bernard of Menthon in the tenth century. Born a little to the west of Mont Blanc, and beginning as a missionary bishop to Savoy, Switzerland, and the neighboring parts of Italy, he not only laid out the two passes connecting the different parts of his dio- cese, but established upon them the two hospices which have been a refuge and safeguard for nigh on a thousand years. Here live small communities of 357 EIGHT LANDS IN monks with their dogs, devoting themselves to a min- istry of self-sacrifice; for the altitude of 8,000 feet usually breaks down the health of a young man long before he reaches forty, and he has to retire to some other convent for his premature age. As for the noble dogs, I do not need to sing their praise. Over the Great St. Bernard Pass, Napoleon led 30,000 soldiers in the year 1800, while he was still first consul, and he made up his mind that no such difficult road as this should shut off his cannon from Italy. So he began in that very year the Simplon — one of the noblest passes of them all, in which the wildest gorges and most dangerous of declivities are threaded by a firm macadamized road of such low gradient that diligence horses can travel it on a trot — bordered all the way by parapets or stone markers, and carried past danger points under galleries of stone or by tunnels in the rock. The completion of this road was one of the triumphs that signalized the early reign of the young emperor. Of late a Simplon railroad has been constructed which makes the most of the journey through one tunnel of over 12 miles in length — a terrible sacrifice of beauty to speed ; but, alas ! speed is such an asset in these days ! and a tun- nel is much more practicable in snow time than a pass of 6,000 feet elevation. After this comes the St. Gotthard, of which more anon ; then the Spliigen and Austrian Stelvio, both splendid in scenery, and furnishing ravines and water- falls of their own especial pride ; the Spliigen, starting from the canton of the Grison, which includes the lovely vales of Engadine and the Swiss Tyrol, the Stelvio beginning in the Austrian Tyrol. It is the highest pass in Europe, reaching an altitude of 9,000 feet, and its mountain station of St. Maria boasts that it is the highest inhabited house of the Alps. In this 358 EIGHT WEEKS region one hears a Romansch language, a descendant of the tongue of the old Roman colonists, also much Italian. Several other less traveled passes in this neighborhood are said to date back to Roman times. Last are the two Austro-Italian railway passes — the Brenner and the Semmering. Neither is very high ; but the Brenner, the best pass for Munich, starts in Innsbruck, city of towering cliffs and imperial castles ; while the Semmering carries you by precipices, bridges and tunnels past the dolomites, and is the best route from Vienna. Now, there you are, with your white wall and its turnstiles before you. Which will you choose ? We came by the St. Gotthard ; and I have been very- foolish to tire your willing fancies with eleven other passes before beginning on it. But railroads move fast ; don't fear a long exposition. There is not half time to pick out the villages we rush through or soar above, not to mention the churches, towers, and ruined castles. Hither and yon our carriages whirl. Now we travelers fly to the east window, now to the west. The last hamlet was deep in a valley ; the next will be far above us on a steep hillside. Here is a grand snow peak ; gaze as if it were your farewell, for how can you tell which one may be the last ? And then into a dozen tunnels in a row, some with little loopholes looking to the outer world, some in utter darkness ; and we always wondering whether this may be the big tunnel of all, that will shut us in for fifteen minutes. Now if you were a railroad, grinding your steel heels into the ledge of a precipice, and should come to a spot where you must take an upward leap or have no ledge at all to travel on, what would you do ? Why, if you were wise, like this son of St. Gotthard, you would burrow right into that precipice, but always on 359 EIGHT LANDS IN the same up-grade, describe a complete circle inside the rock, rising at every step; and when you emerged at the end of five minutes, there you would be, a score or two of metres above the point where you plunged in, and all ready for that higher ledge that just now looked so unattainable. No less than seven times would you accomplish this tour de force and tour d' esprit, either in circles or in loops; and when you came to the really great tunnel — nine miles long, and weighed down by 6,000 feet of mountain, you would find that to be only straight forward work of strength and patience, with considerable repose of spirit thrown in. Then, when you thrust your way out of that gloomy Alp — how white without, how black within ! — you would be in Italy ; Italy of the vines and olives, pomegranates and figs; Italy of the Roman Emperors and the Popes ; Italy of the Cinque Cento artists; Italy of your dreams and your desires. Of course I am not speaking politically, for the boundary line is still far ahead; but of the geograph- ical Italy which commences as soon as the chestnut groves begin to slope down the mountain sides ; as soon as the houses stand tall and stiff of stone and plaster, and the garden walls are built of upright slabs of stone (like the outcome of Jacob's dream). It will not be very long before you will see vines trained on pergolas, or flinging their wild arms out from lit- tle forest trees, set to support them, instead of cling- ing to low stakes, as they are taught to do in Ger- many and Switzerland. The olives will not appear for a long time yet, but willows and poplars, and bye and bye more vines that loop from tree to tree in long rows like a dryad's dance; and then will come a descent into a boundless plain, squared off into fields and gardens, with everywhere a thorough cultivation, 360 EIGHT WEEKS everywhere the women and children taking a part in the working of the soil. Greatest of all, you will touch the three Italian lakes of magic charm, Mag- giore, Lugano, and Como, and will pass by a cause- way right across the arm of the least one, that lies in the middle, taking in as you are able dissolving views of pearly water, like Lake Thun, but with an Italian softness in its tints, and of hills rising abrupt like lit- tle Alps, but somehow whispering of Italy. This is the land of Lombardy, named from those conquerors who poured down over these Alps in the sixth century — a mighty half-pagan horde, who changed the whole character of Italy by their infusion of northern blood, and were themselves changed in return from savage warriors to Christian counts and dukes. I trust you are able to specialize some of the state- ments I am giving you in bulk, and to introduce occa- sional exceptions to my generalizations. Above all, I trust you can discover where the "you" of my tale changed from a steel railroad to my beloveds at home ; and also to discern that I have not intended to represent the St. Gotthard tunnel as having been bored through from a Swiss entrance to an Italian exit; for I could tell you, if I should take time enough, just how the engineers began at each end, with what interest they advanced along their blind way, with what excitement they heard at last each others drills picking at the intervening rock, and how they fell into one another's arms when at last the wall of division dropped down between the little republic on the hills and the happy kingdom by the seas. This was in 1888. Some twenty years later the Simplon tunnel followed suit on a greater scale, being more than twelve miles long; and now we read that 361 EIGHT LANDS IN there is a project for tunneling the old pass of the Romans, the Little St. Bernard, with a tube which would exceed this in length by a mile. The old meta- phor of overcoming difficulties and surmounting obstacles must soon be laid aside ; we, the successful eight, may as well begin to tunnel certain steeps that have lain before us, and bore the last impediments in our summer tour. And I am lodged in a Milan hotel, from the win- dows of which I can crane my neck and see the mar- ble turrets of the cathedral filling the whole end of the street ; and yet I sit with pen in hand to extort some semblance of wit from the black Simplon Tun- nel ! Such is the charming inconsistency of the weary traveler. We have already walked through the great house of God, and our souls are full of it; but you must wait till to-morrow for this joy; and in the anticipation of accompanying you then I bid you a happy good night. M. 362 EIGHT WEEKS PART VII— ITALY. XLII— MILANO LA GRANDE. Milan, Aug. 10. Dear friends: You will not need to rise from your beds in this city hotel to know that you are in Italy. The sound of it is in the air. Of course you slept with your windows open, like all good Americans. You wondered far on into the small hours whether Italy never cared to go to sleep; through your dreams you felt, possibly an hour or two of real quiet ; and then the bustle began again — electric trams, country carts, and jangling bells on the horses, vying with street sweepers, market wives, and workmen of divers sorts, especially the builders next door. And the Italian tongue ! I thought per- haps my memory had exaggerated its trills and im- pacts when I had allowed myself to compare it to the sound of a lively fanning mill; but there it is, living up fully to my first impressions of it. From cultured people within doors, from pulpit orators, from little children, from prima donnas and improvisatori, it is that dulcet thing that convention raves about ; but on the streets, from workmen who add to its natural emphasis the accentuation of their very positive desires, its rat-tat-tattle is anything but soothing. But if you should shut your windows and put wool in your ears, you would still guess Italy as you looked up to your ceiling, so lofty it is, and decorated, ten chances to one, with little loves and languishing god- 365 EIGHT LANDS IN desses, as though every hotel were a palace lapsed from its first estate. As lying abed is a welcome privilege to strenuous travelers, I'll just allow myself to put into words the differences that strike one's ear in listening to the talk of the nations, and in making a study also of their best of speech. There is not only the difference of actual sounds, but fully as much in putting these sounds together and in adjusting their proper accents. You easily differentiate the French nasals and liquids from the German gutturals and umlauts ; and among the Italians you notice no sounds that are wholly new, but a great prevalence of the r's and the so- called soft g and ch ; also of those consonants we call mutes — p, k, and t, which, as used by them, have none of the retiring quality one would expect from a mute. But a subtler discovery it is that the French make much of their vowels while minimizing their consonants to the last degree ; that the Germans exult in both vowels and consonants, and make them ring out in a way that shames our feeble imitation ; and that the Italians end every word, or at least every phrase, with a vowel sound, this being so universal that it seems to them impossible to say "Good morn- ing," and "Gooda morning" is the nearest approach in their power. Most subtle of all is the accentuation and phrasing, without which French is not French, nor German, German. French syllables must run along like beads upon a string, the pauses at the end of phrases giving the only opportunity for accent, and the last syllable before this pause being the big bead on which you may intone to your heart's con- tent. Keep right down to a horizontal level till you reach these pauses — then soar to any height that pleases you. Oh, oui ; il-le-faut-tou-jours'. 366 EIGHT WEEKS It is an excellent thing in any country to polish your speech by attending church. Try to so sanctify your study that your conscience will let you get in touch with the worship and with the speech at the same time; for preachers can generally be depended upon for a good use of their own tongues ; and they will give it to you more slowly and intelligibly than the actors on the stage, to whom you are recom- mended. But if you cannot listen to sermons seven days in the week, your salesmen and shop girls will teach you a good deal, even though they be not infalli- ble in speech ; and when you are able to imitate the flight into the zenith with which a shopkeeper tells you that a handkerchief sells at un-franc-quatre-vingt- quinze, you are well on toward a great achievement. Now the German does quite differently ; he has no law to keep his phrases on a level, nor to confine his accents to final syllables ; but when he wishes to em- phasize a word or a syllable, he just lays it hori- zontally on a high shelf with a good, firm slap as he puts it there. Ach, nein; das ware mir unmoglich. With the Italian it is the one bold accent on every polysyllabic word that is the essential ; and the tone of the whole sentence is such a rhythmic succession of these accents, on an ever varying pitch, as to give occasion for the remark often heard that Italian is not spoken, but sung. Certainly from soft, sweet voices the pronounced cadences are most musical ; and the g and ch, and r and t, fall into their respective places like well trained instruments in an orchestra ; but from the people on the streets, especially late at night and early in the morning, when all Italians seem to feel an afflatus of intercommunication, kindly de- liver me. I'll shut that window now, and begin my toilet at once, lest you turn upon me with inquiries Z&7 EIGHT LANDS IN about the English and its idiosyncrasies. These idiosyncrasies, which I am inclined to think rather refined, expressive, and clear-cut, will be much more so in our western world when we have introduced the teaching of voice production used in English schools. You remember that I ventured a statement in regard to great improvement of late years in English speech ; and now I can explain and corroborate my impres- sion ; for I learn that voice production is a recent addition to the curriculum of British schools, and is begun at about the age of fourteen. Viva la voice- production ! and may it ring and sing until it has crossed the Atlantic and reached our colleges and seminaries as well as our public schools. Do you realize, my friends, that it is a long eight days since we have satisfied ourselves with the sight of a cathedral? Do you also begin to realize that cathedrals, like mountains, fill a great hall in one's gallery of delights; and that this, once occupied, can never again be vacant without a daily sense of lack? Between Cologne and Milan what feasts have been ours ! And whether we call the Alps "our temples of ice," or this vast cathedral "a mountain in marble," we are in either case using the one vast satisfaction to describe the other. I am sorry that, as you look down this street, the glorious vision with which it ends is not shining like the Jungfrau. But perhaps it is just as well to see it first in its least splendor, and so let it grow upon you. If the sun should strike it now I would not be surprised at a shout like that which greeted the first view of the mountain. Even from this distance you can see the forest of marble spires and pinnacles that go to its making; and as you ap- proach you discover that your street-wide view was only a small section of the great choir. The Carrara marble, in which it was begun more than five hundred 368 EIGHT WEEKS /I a -t- mm ■ mm if kimm W. A^MlJ.- tan 369 EIGHT LANDS IN years ago, long shone like the snows of Monte Rosa; but now it darkens a little from decade to decade, as marble must, especially in the smoky air of cities. Still, it is evidently white marble, through and through, and the upper shafts against the sky seem hardly to forget their pristine splendor. If you were living in Milan you would soon find yourself uneasy if long out of sight of the cathedral; you would be glad that many streets converged to it ; you would glance up one and another of them on a hot day to rest your eyes on its coolness ; you would use it as a landmark when astray in tangled thoroughfares ; you would rejoice in its shadow in summer, and in its reflected warmth in winter; you would often take your way directly through its interior, not so much to cut off distance as to feast your soul ; you would always be thinking, when tired of humdrum employ- ments, "Just: a few minutes' walk, and I can sit down in the great temple" ; you would seldom pass from one end of the Piazza to the other without whispering to yourself "Go round about Zion, tell the towers thereof"; you would come to measuring all heights and all widths by its great dimensions, to comparing all sculpture with what you loved best of its 2,000 statues ; it would be the first sight you would show 3^our friends from abroad; the supreme object of choice when you selected souvenirs to send away. To live without it, to drop it out of one's daily experi- ence — what a bereavement ! But we, you see, are here for two half days, and we are trying to sketch in such outlines, by our powers of perceiving, and admiring, as we may fill in from future acquaintance. Don't you know how just an introduction to a great man puts you in communication with his past, and keeps you interested for his every act in future? Will you enter at this south transept, where the 370 EIGHT WEEKS curtain-covered doorway is open all the day, or go the long way round to the west front? I advise the lat- ter. Even for myself, who took a good look yester- day, I think it is better to enter facing the long vista of columns, the high altar, and the choir, just as the architect planned we should do. A first impression of grand perspectives is heightened by every later visit ; and there, too, I would not hurry to the central door, even if it should be open; for one admiring glance down the outer aisle, a second down its neigh- bor, wider and loftier, and then a full view in the cen- tre of the nave — that will give you the natural and perfect climax. Indeed, I would not hasten even to step into that side aisle ; for, consider ; this may be the most beautiful place that you will ever enter until you go up to the New Jerusalem. Step not rashly into the presence of the supreme. A thought, a prayer, some sense of preparedness comes before a great introduction. Our eight have never stood before in a cathedral all of marble. Behold it ! like a bride adorned for her husband! Samite and satin and lace all wrought in marble ; the lofty clustered columns girdled about with galleries of saints; the groined ceiling so high that our best church steeple at home of 150 feet could stand under it; broad spaces in these aisles and transepts where our whole cityful could worship, for it will hold 40,000 people ; and a glory of stained glass such as we have not seen since we left Notre Dame— the largest windows set in any cathedral, and burning with all the colors of jewels as though they were the precious ornaments of this bride. How black is the cavern in yonder shining Alp ! How white and costly is this vast interior ! "The King's Daughter is all glorious within." Could there be a better ideal wrought of earthly stuff to set forth heavenly 371 EIGHT LANDS IN beauty? The beauty that every one of our home churches emulates in its small way ; the beauty that these little walking temples of ours are striving to attain — "all glorious within." San Carlo Borromeo is perhaps the greatest hero of this cathedral. He is the saint par excellence of Northern Italy, living just after the Reformation, and showing by a life of love and piety, coupled with rare ability, what great excellencies still re- mained in the Catholic Church. He belonged to the aristocratic family which gave its name to the beau- tiful Borromean Islands in Lago Maggiore; and through all this part of the country he traveled back and forth as missionary bishop. By him this cathed- ral was consecrated after it had been building two hundred years; by him the designs were suggested of the unique round pulpits that embrace the pillars on either side of the choir. In one of the chapels in the north aisle is preserved the simple wooden cruci- fix that he carried, bare-footed, to the sick in the year of the plague ; and under the dome, the place of honor is given to his tomb, beloved cardinal and saint. Another name that we must be sure to associate with Milan Cathedral is that of Gian Galeozzo, great- est of the family of the Visconti, founder both of this building and of the great convent of La Certosa of Pavia. The Visconti and their successors, the Sforza, ruled Milan for two hundred years in the same way in which the Medici ruled Florence and the Scaligers, Verona. It was a time, from the 13th to the 15th centuries, when city republics were trying to stand alone, and were repeatedly falling into the power of crafty despots who, like all political bosses, were sometimes a boon and sometimes a curse. Along with the power, these won for themselves various titles, that of duke being the one especially coveted. 372 EIGHT WEEKS As we have not time to investigate the intricacies of these two families, we are trying to make a slight acquaintance by committing to memory the fact that "the splendor-loving" Gian Galeozzo seized the rule from his most interesting uncle, Barnabo, whom he imprisoned, and that the great convent of La Certosa of Pavia, which we long to visit and cannot, was built by him as penance appointed by the pope for this usurpation. Then, when we visit the Castello in the northwest of the city, a fine old fortress in a lovely park, we shall further realize the Visconti and their successors, the Sforza. Even though we cannot go to all the museums here, we shall not fail to add to our postal-card collection a charming head of Beatrice d'Este; and she was wife of Ludovico Sforza, the greatest of that family, patron of arts, and especially of Leonardo da Vinci. Behold how our knowledge is growing as we still sit in the great temple, both place of worship and recorder of events through the centuries. Slowly it grew under these changing rulers; even at Cardinal Borromeo's consecration it had not attained to the dome under which he lies. Spaniards and Austrians did little for it in the time of their lordship; and at last it was Napoleon who distinguished himself by furnishing the fagade. Like some other of his works, it is not wholly satisfactory, being somewhat at vari- ance with the rest of the structure; and when Milan has money to spend, some day, you'll see another in its place, and will be able to add at least one more century to the years of its development. From the square in front of the cathedral many streets radiate, and all the great tram lines start. Here we stop on the broad steps of the cathedral to "orient ourselves," as the Germans say, and decide what to see and what to postpone to that "next time" 373 EIGHT LANDS IN that every traveler talks about. The rattle of Italian speech is all about us, also the animation of Italian gesture. Two women, carrying on an undertone con- versation by the church doors, have their faces close together and their hands up-lifted between them, with fingers in motion as though they were deaf mutes. Much as the Italian loves to use his voice, he also takes delight in expressing himself in gesture alone; and those eloquent fingers are a kind of esperanto, understood by all. The splendid building at our right, with colonnades below, a dome overhead, and a huge archway for its portal, is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, of which Milan is justly proud. A palace of delights it is by day or by night ; for the shops and restaurants are of the best ; the four arms that meet under its dome are convenient connections between principal streets, and the vista as you enter from this Piazza del Duomo ends in the Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, where that many-sided genius stands in quiet marble on his pedestal with four of his favorite pupils looking up to him for inspiration. When you have seen that statue once you want to see it again ; when you have seen it twice, you wonder why every city cannot have such a work of grace and honor to look to in the cen- tre of its hurrying trade. Plots of grass and shrubs surround it, seats are ready for the weary, and there is no hour of the day when some one is not looking toward the great master. Off to the north from Leonardo is the Brera, the famous picture gallery where you can see Raphael's "Espousals" and a lot of pretty things by Luini and others of the Leonardo school. But we must come back to our church steps, where, by ecclesiastical rule, we are facing the west. For the high altar must be to the east that priest and peo- 374 EIGHT WEEKS pie when joining in the creed may look toward Jeru- salem, toward the rising sun, and to the coming of the Lord. St. Peter's is one of the few exceptions, as we shall see when we reach Rome. Looking west, then, the street opposite us that turns a little north would show us at its end a city park and the old cas- tle ; but to the south and west we must go to see three sights we cannot afford to miss — the old Roman pil- lars, the Church of St. Ambrose, and the "Last Sup- per," by Leonardo. So great has been the glory of "Milano la Grande" in the last five centuries that one almost forgets her importance in earlier days ; and our electric tram gives us short time for recalling a few historic points ; how in the divided empire under Diocletian in the fourth century the capital of the West was transferred from Rome to this city, and here remained for more or less of a hundred years until Honorius moved it to Ravenna (410 A. D.) ; how, later, the Lombards made their capital in Pavia, a little way to the south, and 375 EIGHT LANDS IN how the repeated contests with them, with rival cities, and with the growing power of German emperors, reduced Milan once and again to a state of ruin. But here stand the sixteen Corinthian columns, all in a row beside the curbstone, looking across the sidewalk to San Lorenzo, the oldest church of the city, where three men stand ringing a chime of bells, and down on our electric tram roaring along the narrow street between its steel rails and its overhead wire. A strange position for a Roman colonnade, gray with age, revered as the great-grandfather of all the structures in the city ! If only it could tell us whether this octagonal church was once its fellow — a great bathing hall of an emperor's palace; and how the change came about from the worship of Jupiter and Minerva to the prayers to Christ and the Virgin. Did the change sweep suddenly over the people like the passing of a cloud and sun across the landscape? or was it a struggle as fierce as the wars of the Lom- bards? Did this very street, perhaps, redden with the blood of martyrs ? And did the little boys at play beneath this colonnade pitch pennies stamped with the words "Annihilation of the Christians"? What was the Gothic king like who transformed the rotunda into a church? And who first set these Christian bells aj angling to the rythmic pulling of their ropes? Last of all, what do you think, Grey Beards, of the breakneck speed of these modern days, and of the impudent spark that flashes under the brow of your venerable architrave? The columns are silent, but they have taught us a part of our lesson, for we shall never forget that Milan once stood a Roman city. And not many blocks away we come to the next oldest church, of which we have much more definite information — the beloved San Ambrogio, where we 376 EIGHT WEEKS ilV 't ^ . ' _*^^ never can go too often or stay too long. You see we have dropped back a thousand years from the found- ing of the cathedral, and 1200 years from that other saint, Carlo Borromeo, whom we mean to cherish in memory. 377 EIGHT LANDS IN We find San Ambrogio standing low, so that the pavement bends down to it, and inconspicuous on account of the atrium, or walled court, that shuts it in in front. The present church is said to be of the twelfth centurry ; but no atria like this were erected at that date, and everything about this old Roman method of approach speaks strongly for the tradition that the original church replaced a temple of Bacchus, and that what it kept of ancient walls and animal carvings it again handed on to its successor of the twelfth century. This is the first illustration we have had of an ancient basilica, a church made out of, or on the plan of, a Roman tribunal. We shall see better than this in Florence and Rome, basilicas flat-roofed within and domed like this church ; but the atrium we shall not often find; and this is in itself an ancient feature worth coming a long way to see. Notice also the pagan beasts carved on the entrance pillars. What an interesting contrast they make with the Christian tombstones and faded frescoes ! At the great doors we have to pause again — with emperors, mostly, for our ghostly companions ; for here Theodosius the Great found his entrance barred when he came to offer up thanksgiving for victories over his enemies in Thrace. Cruelty, Bishop Am- brose said. Footprints tracked in blood might not enter there. And the emperor yielded to the saint and did long penance at his command. This was in the first days of the church. A few centuries later German kings came here to receive the iron crown of Lombardy preliminary to obtaining the im- perial crown at Rome. But that iron crown, whose chief jewel is the thin hoop of iron, hammered from a nail of the true cross, and hidden behind the broad band of gold and precious stones, you cannot now see 378 EIGHT WEEKS unless you will stay over long enough to take an afternoon s ride to little Monza in the north ; for there one of these emperors, Frederick Barbarossa, carried it at the time when he razed Milan to the ground- and there you may see it exhibited to the swinging of incense when you and we take our next journey Now at last, after the delay caused by imperial penances and coronation processions, we step inside the historic gates, the precious wood of which is encased in gratings of iron, and directly are sur- rounded with a rich darkness, soft shades of buff terra cotta, and gray that fit so well the low round arches and heavy piers. Very unlike the cathedral and very satisfying. Everything seems old and touched with sacred associations. The pulpit is the very one from which St. Ambrose preached ; the altar is covered with a casing of chased silver and gold inlaid with enamel and gems, a masterpiece of a Ger- man goldsmith of Carlovingian times ; but this, again you will not see unless you pay a round five francs and give notice in time for the custodian to unlock and remove the metal covering that protects it from dishonest hands and transforms it into an ordinary altar. Over your head are mosaics of the same a^e and when you go down into the crypt you may lay your hand upon the stone sarcophagus of Pepin, the son of Charlemagne, and view a long row of those of the early bishops. But, best of all, you may be led by a low-voiced priest into a chapel opening from the south transept which he declares to be a part of the original church, and in which stands the episcopal throne, a quaint marble seat, used by Saint Ambrose. It seems to be always a priest with a low, distinct utterance and a saintly smile who leads tourists to this most sacred place in Milan. You are sure, as you listen to him, that his information is correct, that 379 EIGHT LANDS IN these are the very altar steps on which St. Augustine kneeled to receive baptism from his great teacher, and — altho' you know you should not — you almost believe that the Te Deum was here composed as legend reports it — "We praise thee, O God" from St. Am- brose; "We acknowledge thee to be the Lord" from St. Augustine, — and so on to the end of this hymn of the ages. St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, two strong men who from a finished secular education turned to the service of the church and are reckoned now among the great fathers. Of a surety this tram ride and this morning walk have taken us a long jour- ney and have given us communion with those whom heretofore we knew only as in story or song. It remains now to have one more upbuilding sight ■ — the view of Leonardo's masterpiece in the former refectory of the Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie. A convent refectory or the refectory of an abbey you would hardly think this simple hall to be, nor is it an inspiring approach, the buying of tickets at the little table of the porch, and the passing in through a registering turn-stile; but yonder is the Great Supper, reaching across the end of the hall. It has not fallen from the wall, as con- stant newspaper reports would have it ; nor lost its power to tell the saddest of all stories. As your eyes get accustomed to the light you see that several large copies have been hung on the side walls ; these are studies made long ago while the original was entire, and are carefully preserved as commentaries upon it. There are advantages and disadvantages, as you know, in fresco painting. The colors being laid upon fresh plaster, sink deep and cannot scale off. But if the wall itself receives such rough treatment that the plaster begins to fall, what shall then be done? Now this painting has the disadvantages of both fresco and 380 EIGHT WEEKS oil ; for it is done in the latter medium directly upon the dry plaster; and the wonder is that it has waited for us these four hundred years. Another wonder is that cunning artificers have learned how to rescue such precious works from further injury, — "arrested cases," as we say of human ills — how even to restore much of their lost beauty, and to transfer them from one wall to another. Two, at least, of the large fresco copies before us have been thus transferred. By some magic process of gluing canvas to the painted surface, loosening the plaster from its backing, rub- bing it down till only the painted scale is left, attach- ing this to a new wall or a strong backing, and then soaking off the covering canvas — so it is done. Quite simple, you see. But don't you think the man who does it draws a long breath when that choice fresco stands out fresh and content against its new back- ground ? Does it seem to you sacrilegious to be studying the transferring of frescoes in the presence of this great scene? It is only because we cannot take it all in at once, and wish a reason for looking back to it many times. Of course we think we know it by heart from engravings and photographs ; but to see it in its colors, and life-sized figures with every perfect touch of the artist speaking to us is something not to be missed. There are all the eager twelve looking, ques- tioning, asking one another's opinion, their heads gathered so close to one another as to leave the Mas- ter sitting alone ; there is the finished meal neglected, the dishes in disorder, the overturned salt, the purse held fast in the grip of Judas ; — and no attempt at local coloring, eastern dress, Roman method of reclin- ing at meals ; partly because oriental study was hardly known in Leonardo's day, partly because the painters of his time scorned to depend upon that for 38i EIGHT LANDS IN their depicting of character and situation ; — and amidst all this animation the Master alone, waiting the result of that strange word of his, the two pathetic hands not yet marked by the nails of the cross, but laid in despairing, appealing gesture on either side upon the cloth before him. "One of you shall betray me." The long, white table makes a kind of frame in front, which the alcoved walls with perfect perspective and the paneled ceiling above complete ; in the rear open windows give a far look that may be to Calvary. Ferhaps we could not have torn ourselves away if it had not been for the unintentional help of another company of tourists. They sat in rows of chairs be- tween us and the picture, twenty strong ; and all the time that we were accustoming ourselves to the light of the room we were aware that some like process was demanded of our ears. A clear, gentlemanly voice was expressing something in English, something that ran on like the endless chain of a machine, with a pleasant inflection and no pause. After a while we discovered that it was an exposition of the painting — its excellencies, its meaning, its effect upon the specta- tor, its rank among other works of art, its compeers, its authenticity, the authenticity or non-authenticity of other works attributed to Leonardo, its no, there was not any shadow of a pause, and there never was to be. The voice came from a fine-looking young man in reputable clothes. He was standing, while all the others sat and held their peace. Perhaps they listened. There was no possible excuse for calling in a policeman, or even for appealing to the man at the turnstile. Those twenty-one had paid their francs ; or. more probably, twenty had paid francs and the twenty-first had entered under his privileges of con- ductor. 382 EIGHT WEEKS We tried to ignore it all ; to gaze untroubled as one does from a rumbling train or beside a thundering waterfall. We even thought of outstaying the twenty ; but that seemed impracticable. With a sense of helplessness we were turning to the door when a motion of our Guide-book lady arrested us. She had pushed her way close to the conductor, had lifted her face to his, was trying to catch his eye. In vain. Then she broke all rules of etiquette, as one does in case of sudden peril: — "If you please. I beg your pardon. Would you kindly allow me to take my com- pany out in front of the picture and speak a few words with them about it? We will not be there long." And that polite young man assented with a bow, laid restraint upon his cultured voice, and gave us all the time we wished, which, I assure you, was not much ; for we knew that we must be at our hotel in time for lunch and the afternoon train. Do you think those twenty longed to applaud our leader? I am sure that we did ; but the hush of a great presence was upon us, and we waited till the turnstile had dis- missed us every one before we began our congratula- tions and our free expression of opinion about con- ductors with zeal beyond knowledge. This letter, as you see, has reached along till after- noon, although it seemed to begin, like the Grand Monarque's levees, in bed. And it may be in bed that I am finishing it. I'll not tell you this time, for if I should just breathe the word Venice you might want me to go right on like the aforementioned conductor. Was it as recently as this morning that we were say- ing bad words about him ? It makes a long day to travel through so many centuries and meet men of so many ages. Good night — and hope to wake to the sound of Venetian waters. M. 383 EIGHT LANDS IN XLIII— THROUGH LOMBARDY TO VENICE. Dearly beloved: I have written, you see, the magical name, so that you may have the pleasure of listening to the splash of the gondolier's oar while I tell you of our journey hither. 384 EIGHT WEEKS If there is a noisier place on the face of the earth in which to spend the night than a central Milanese hotel, I have yet to know of it. Let me warn you when you are introduced into a charming room, look- ing out on a business street, handsome draperies at the windows, mahogany furniture, and two or three good mirrors, to beware of that room. You'll sleep far bet- ter in a little low-priced affair, looking out on a court. Those things I wrote you about yesterday morning don't make a constant procession through the hotel courts. Better a little smell of the kitchen coffee and a sound of polishing boots than the roar of happy pros- perity that belongs to the Corso. As we rattled along this same Corso in our hotel omnibus, conversation was impossible, and we real- ized that we were adding fully our share to the daily noise. The manner of growth of a European city was noticeable on our way to the station. We fol- lowed comparatively narrow streets till we had passed through an old gate; then turned and skirted for a while a curving canal that seemed at one time to have been a moat ; turned again out through broader streets and a modern gate, where we entered a beauti- ful encircling boulevard, with trees and park, and smooth macadam, in place of rough pavement. The outer wall was still kept up in semblance by means of houses set in line, or of stone-walled gardens — nothing that suggested defense in war, but rather as- surance of the "dazio consumo," or city tax, paid at the gates for produce brought from outside. It is a pleasureable excitement one feels on being challenged by a gallant gens d'arme as to the contents of a bag that holds a guide-book or an opera-glass; but it is probably not so pleasant to the countryman when one of the long spikes thrust into his load of hay strikes 385 EIGHT LANDS IN a nice little porker that he is smuggling in for a patron's dinner. Approaching the station — as usual, a handsome building — by way of the station park, we wonder again why our cities at home don't follow these ex- amples. Then we take our seats in a railway car- riage, none too clean, with half the seats turning back- ward, and no ventilation but the windows, and com- paring this with traveling at home, console our van- ity for the blow just received. We also make the fol- lowing mental notes: ist, that Europe's superiority or inferiority depends entirely upon the particular ob- jects on which the traveler stakes his happiness ; 2nd, that a black story and a white story may both be truthfully told by people traveling the same route ; and 3rd, that if European travel is to give more than mere diversion, it will be by bringing home the good and by taking warning from the evil. My Lady of the Guide-book has a way of bringing us to book occasionally in regard to what we have learned, wherein My Lady of the Veil and My Lady Persistent usually bear her out. My Lady Practical brings her notebook to our aid, and the rest of us gen- erally look out at the window. But on this occasion, the landscape having not yet developed anything new, and we all being too tired to rebel, she cunningly drew from us or through us the following bits of his- tory which we have, you may say, seen and touched in these two half days : 1. Milano la Grande, a Roman capital in the 4th C. Before the close of this period its temples turned into churches. St. Ambrose baptizes St. Augustine (387 A. D.). 2. Charlemagne and his successors come here to be crowned kings of Italy, and one of his sons is buried here. 386 EIGHT WEEKS 3. A thousand years from St. Ambrose (1386) the "splendor-loving" Gian Galeozzo of the Visconti House, founds the cathedral. 4. A century later Leonardo da Vinci is at work for Ludovico Sforza, who is now Duke in the Castle. The Last Supper — "il Cenacolo" — painted by him; also the portrait of the lovely Duchess Beatrice. 5. Still a century later San Carlo Borromeo dedi- cates the cathedral (1577). 6. In 1805 Napoleon rides up and down the piazza to survey the fagade which he has brought to comple- tion. 7. One more century and the happy eight in electric trams and auto-cars survey the splendors all these worthies have prepared for them ! This glorious conclusion won all our hearts, and our mistress, finding us so unusually docile, proceeded to give us a lesson in Italian pronunciation, all in a nutshell : Give your vowels as in Latin, a, ah ; e, a ; i, ee ; o, 6 ; u, 00 ; except that the o is generally more open, be- tween hut and hot. Give your consonants as in English, except that c, when soft before e, i, and y, is ch — cera, Cesario, and g in the same position is j — giro. H is always silent; / is like y, z like ts. Notice that i merely softens c or g when placed between them and or u, and so is not itself sounded, as in Giotto, Cio. H in the same position hardens c or g, as in Ghetto, che (ka), chimico. Except for the i just noticed, pronounce every vowel as a separate syllable and accent strongly the one before the last, and with a little judicious gesturing you will do very well. All which My Lady in Blue declared to be as easy as roll- ing off a log; and we all fell to practicing on Giotto (jotto), Gian (Jahn), giardino pubblico; Venezia — an 387 EIGHT LANDS IN exception in accent ; Pavia ; Piazza — three syllables, according to rule ; citta ; Firenze ; da Vinci ; Am- brogio; and our own eight names until our brains were as rested as though they had not had fifteen cen- turies poured through them in as many hours ; and we were quite ready to look out at Verona for a pos- sible squint at the old amphitheatre or the tombs of the Scaligers. We could not see either; but we learned that the former was like the Roman Coli- seum; that a legend makes Theodoric the Great, the Ostrogothic king, set up his palace in it ; that "Dietrich of Bern," in old German tales, is the same as Theodoric of Verona; also that the Scaligers were to Verona what the Visconti and Sforza were to Milan, and that their name of Scala-geri (ladder- bearers) gives the symbol of the ladder in their escutcheon. About here the train proceeded further and My Lady Persistent suggested, with smiling irony, that a few postals added to these facts would make us quite familiar with the city; to which My Lady of the Star made addition of the plays of "Romeo and Juliet," and of "Two Gentlemen of Verona," as laid here ; and our bard begged a hearing, before leaving the land of Lombardy, for her last effusion, which I will set down at the end of my letter. At Padua, again, we tried for at least an impres- sion, and I think we saw the great domes of San An- tonio, which will make it easier for us henceforth to locate that lovable saint, who is represented with the Christ child in his arms; and My Lady of the Veil reminded us that it was to the ancient university here that Portia sent to secure her learned uncle for the defense of her lover's friend. My Lady in Green tried to make us regret that we were not robbing Venice of a few hours to see at Padua Giotto's won- 388 EIGHT WEEKS derful frescoes in Santa Maria dell' Arena. But we were a good deal like berry-pickers in a blueberry pasture — so dazed with superabundant riches that we were reckless of what we passed by. "Shan't we see Giotto at his best at Florence? And why stop for him here?" And, "Shall we see Venice from afar?" "And how shall we know when we are there ?" "Omnibuses, you say, for the hotel?" "And will the pavements be as rough as in Milan?" "A bridge, you say, a great causeway to reach the island city?" "And, alas, and alas, if we should all be disappointed !" We glided into that station as though it might h; ve been Boston. We had to shout "facchino" for a por- ter, just as at any other stopping place, and wait to see him dislodge those ten pieces ; we followed the crowd as on any commonplace platform past the ticket-puncher and out at the open gable — when, lo! a rattle of voices very much like what we had left at Milan, a shouting of hotel names, of addresses, of calls for porters, more hotels, more porters; here is the man we want and who wants us ; — a line of black in front of us, and of blue green beyond ; the crowd is pushing us toward it, and it is, it is the Grand Canal with a row of gondolas drawn up in waiting ! and the gondoliers all in a mix about who is to go with whom — trunks hustled in here, passengers there; and these two black-swans at last secured for us, and we taking our first steps into these boats of Fairyland. "Did you think you'd ever live to see the day?" "Do you believe you are in the city of Doges?" "Is this a responsible man, do you suppose? and does he know where we want to go?" "That hotel porter is not going with us ? and we are to be set adrift alone with this fierce-eyed bandit?" "Have you counted those suit-cases? You are quite sure that was not one of 389 EIGHT LANDS IN ours that was handed into the gondola in front?" And at that we are off, this disguised fairy prince swinging us along with the queer, pushing motion of his oar, the blue-green waters rocking us with a wel- spa EIGHT WEEKS coming swish against our bow ; the strange, enchanted houses rising silent from the waters on either hand. Now we turn from this broad canal into one of the narrower branches that look so dark and cistern-like at first ; we round the corner with no disaster, avoid this moss-grown wall by a knife-blade escape, it seems to us; the high, black "ferro," which terminates our prow, sways back and forth like the head of a bird ; here comes our first bridge, which is to us a kind of gate to Paradise ; the graceful creature that bears us seems to enter into our excitement, lifts her head more proudly till it reaches well up under the arch, quivers a bit and bows a bit, and now the shadow has passed away over us and we are eagerly looking out for the next turn and the next bridge. Here I must close without waiting to tell you of our vision this evening of the lighted square of St. Marks. You may dream it over, and I will tell you to-morrow whether your dreams were correct. A loving and happy good night to all. M. LOMBARDY. Ramparts of everlasting snow, By foreign foe untrod; Dozvn-sweeping folds of chestnut groves, Couch for a pagan god. Parqnettcs of poppy-dotted fields, Where singing peasants plod, Hangings of olives, mulberries, vines, With pomegranate bells anod. Mirrors of iridescent lakes A quiver with sun and cloud, 391 EIGHT LANDS IN Where Alps bend down to view their crown, Castles and villas laugh and frown, And skiffs glide silvershod. Beloiv, below, the encircling Po And sister streams that stately go Dreaming of galleys weighted low That sometime sailed their Hood. A veteran soldier close beside, The Roman road, as straight and wide As zvhen Rome's legions marched in pride To battle on barbarous sod. And listen, the far-away chant of a saint, A poet's song, a queen's complaint. Here kings are crozvned, here artists paint, And sculptured choirs in rhythm quaint Latin and Lombard, in love's constraint Lift endless praise to God. 392 EIGHT WEEKS XLIV— THE BRIDE OF THE ADRIATIC. Venice, Aug. n. Four wizards came from the four winds, To bless the youthful Venice with a bridal dower. Nature bestowed a paintbox of the rarest dyes, Conquest heaped bronze and marbles on the hundred isles, Commerce flung out a shipload of his orient stuffs, And Art transformed this medley into palaces. But see, old Father Time came by that way, Laid down his scythe and sat and mused a while, Dumb at her beauty; then he smiled and laid A bony hand caressingly upon her head, And lo! — the mightiest magician of them all! We usually begin with the practical, beloved, and when your enthusiasms are aroused, drop in a flavor- ing of the poetical. But Venice reverses all laws ; and for her a few rhythmic lines are the best kind of a text on which to enlarge. We are all of us under the spell — more than satisfied with what we find, more than willing to put up with the hot weather that has greeted us. For this last we were, of course, pre- pared, as they must be who register Italy on their books for August. We accepted it heroically in the bustle of Milan, and intended to say nothing about it in Venice ; but the stillness of this place of many shadows, and the opportunities at any moment to escape to the coolness of a gondola, have almost; 393 EIGHT LANDS IN made us friends of the 8o's. Mosquitoes we were promised, too, and were willing to accept a very small battalion of them for the pleasure of camping under these tents of spotless lace ; but they must, like ourselves, have preferred the Grand Canal, for we have seen or heard few of them. I am half inclined to think that their zest in attacking innocent sleepers has been lessened by the introduction of electric lights. Turning a button at the head of one's bed to institute a search is quite a different thing from steal- ing out from under the bars, lighting a candle, and proceeding with terror of a conflagration, to explore the lacy interior. This hotel, though only the quiet understudy for a more brilliant affair, is spacious and comfortable. If you come to it by water you wonder what luxuries it can furnish when it begins with such a narrow- minded little balcony. If you come by land, which, after several experiences of getting lost, we can now do successfully, you turn in from a broad street — fully as broad as your diningroom — at a dark alley four feet wide, with the name of another hotel on its threshold, follow it past terrifying black doors toward a globe of electric light, and just under this last are at your own side door. Here you enter the office and general waiting and reading room ; from this pass to other more sumptuous salons looking out upon the water, and to a charming garden or court, with orange trees and other exotics, pergolas, vines, tea-tables, and again a water front. The major- domo and porter can manage a pretty good English, and you may take your choice between furthering their education in that language or your own in Italian. They seem to take a fatherly interest in us, our letters, and our purchases ; and like some other fathers, consider themselves privileged to be a trifle 394 EIGHT WEEKS arbitrary. When Signore pushes into our rooms quite uninvited in making enquiries about baggage, and when he remarks severely at dinner-time, "You are late," we are inclined to think him too paternal ; but when he enters into the woes of My Lady Bright Eyes, whose head aches from sleeping in a stuffy room, and manages to have her and her belongings brought down two flights of stairs and up four to an airy apartment overlooking the Grand Canal, and all without a soldo of extra charge, we agree that his interest is genuine. You may judge from my beginning with weather and hotel, that some of the great sights have preceded this letter and depleted my stock of adjectives. You are correct. Our first evening found us ready for a good night's rest, those fifteen centuries of Milan having wearied both body and mind. We were in that state in which evening so often finds the traveler ; he is quite too tired, and will certainly devote the next day to recuperation. Whereupon he eats a good supper, sleeps like a log, and surprises himself in the morning by being ready for more sight-seeing. But here arose a difference of opinions. My Lady in Blue could not sleep if she saw another sight; My Lady in Green could not lay her head upon her pillow till she had looked with her own eyes upon the Piazza and San Marco. So we divided our allegiance be- tween the Blue and the Green and a few of us wandered out into the darkness to find our way, a short quarter of a mile, to the square of all squares. Do you cherish the idea, imbibed by many from travelers' tales, that in Venice you must always have a gondola at your call ? No more than you must have your carriage at home. The gondola is the cab of other cities ; when you are out for ease or for long distances, you take it ; when you are exploring, or 395 EIGHT LANDS IN . saving your pennies to buy more Venetian beads, you go on your own two feet. For every house in Venice has an exit toward a street or square, just as all the better ones have also their finest doorway to the water. Thus it is. Venice being situated on some threescore islands and these having been built out into the intervening waters sufficiently to make the usable land as great as possible and to reduce the water channels to a minimum, the result is a city very lobster-like in shape, facing toward the land, — its left flipper in place, its right one disappeared. This lobster shape is cut everywhere by irregular, in- tersecting canals of uniform width — or uniform nar- rowness — and, besides these, by one broad channel like a river which winds in the shape of a reversed S from the northwest, where our railroad dropped us, to the southeast corner, that looks upon the lagoon and out to sea. Except for the crossing of this Grand Canal, which must be. done by its three great bridges or by numerous ferries, you find no hindrance in passing from street to street; for little bridges by the hundred carry these across the narrower canals, arch- ing enough to let gondolas pass underneath at high water, which may come as a result of high tides or strong winds. Up a few steps, a few yards on a level, and down a few steps — that is the constant ex- perience of the pedestrian ; and that is the reason why no wheeled vehicle of any kind is in use in Venice. Not even a baby cart could do more than roll up and down some little court, or the short length of a shopping street ; except in the one lovely square, the Piazza San Marco. This is between five and six hundred feet in length — almost an eighth of a mile — and nearly half as broad. It's east end is occupied by the arches and domes of St. Mark's ; its west end by an elegant structure of Napoleon's building, which 396 EIGHT WEEKS gives pillared communication through its lower story with the streets back of it; the two long sides by con- tinuous fagades of beautiful Renaissance buildings over colonnades in which are situated the finest shops of the city. These flanking buildings, now oc- cupied by government offices, were once the palaces of the Nine Procurators, the associates of the Doge in the government of the republic and with him mak- ing up the Council of Ten. From the southeast corner of the piazza turn down an L known as the Piazzetta, which runs right out to the water — the embouchure of the Grand Canal, and has the Doge's Palace, with its double arcades and Gothic windows, on the left, and the Royal Palace, one end of which fronts the piazza, on its right. At the end looking out to sea rise the two granite columns of ancient date, surmounted re- spectively by St. Theodore on his crocodile, and the Winged Lion of St. Mark. One of you asks right here : What is the difference between the Doge's Palace and the Royal Palace, and 397 EIGHT LANDS IN why should the latter exist in a city that is not a cap- ital of the country? A very reasonable question, too. Please use mental telepathy as often as you can, and help on the usefulness of these letters. The Doge's Palace was both residence and seat of government so long as Doges governed ; but is now a kind of museum of splendor. The Royal Palace is the residence always in readiness for the King of Italy when he cares to honor the city with a visit ; and the like are to be found in all the larger cities. I am sorry that my proclivity for topography has obliged me to introduce this matter-of-fact description of the great piazza at the outset, for that is not what we saw last evening. We made our way out of our hotel in deepening twilight ostensibly by direction of our porter, but really by a sense long ago cultivated in tracing old wood roads and blazed paths on New England hillsides ; first through the little four- foot alley mentioned above — what blackness between high 398 EIGHT WEEKS walls, what suggestions of lurking cutthroats ! then, by a wrong turn, through a beautiful hotel court with a palm tree and blossoming oleanders, past an old well with marble curb and some picturesque Italian girls against a background of wistaria ; through more blackness into the light of a broad street with shops ; over a broad and handsome bridge — quite a little Rialto in its way ; by more shopping streets — corals and pearls, fretted gold chains, embroidered silks, lace scarfs, beads, beads, beads ; all that repetition of Interlaken glories that an experienced friend of ours designates as "rot" ; then under the chaste pillars that suggest an approach to a cathedral — a blaze of light in front of us, and out into the midst of that blaze into the grandest salon of all Europe ; for so it seems with its inlaid floor under foot ; its architectural mas- terpieces for walls, the tourists of all nations, and the pleasure-loving of Venice admiring, chatting, prom- enading up and down, and taking ices at little tables. In the distance, dim in the gathering dark, rises an unshapely mass that we know to be the upbuilding Campanile — that fell a few years ago. Beyond it as we make our way in that direction we begin to dis- cern the hundred pillars of the cathedral porches and a flash of light reflected from the gold background of the mosaics above them. Look down the Piazzetta to more lights upon the quays, on the water, on the islands far beyond. Fairyland again, according to programme ; and what if we do lose our way on our return and ignominiously stoop to saying the name of our hotel to some of those black-cloaked bandits? What if My Lady Practical does acknowledge to be- ing beyond measure tired, and also glad that there is no campanile to climb? We have seen the mirage set firm on solid pavements, we have touched the floating wonder. It is no dream. 399 EIGHT LANDS IN Sails that -makelV Harijorjaj. This morning we saw the same place by daylight, and, to our surprise, found it still more beautiful; for now the buffs and marbles of the palaces had their full value, and the many-tinted pillars brought from eastern lands, and the gorgeous colors of the mosaics for which Venice has always had a special reputation. Now, also, we can verify the paintings of Venetian artists in the colors of the sails that make the harbor gay — brown, red, and orange, against a sea of chryso- prase and a turquoise sky. "How ever did these people build their city in this queer place ?" asks My Lady Practical ; "and what moved them to do it?" I think they were moved by fear and by ambition. By fear of the barbarous hordes that were pouring down into Italy in the last days of the Empire and later, especially of the inexpressible Huns and the awful Lombards; — and by ambition 400 EIGHT WEEKS because they saw an opportunity to be independent of neighbors, to develop the resources of a sea-faring life, and to engage undisturbed in cunning workman- ship at home and in conquests abroad. At first the islands had broad spaces of water be- tween them, the houses and bridges were of wood with roofs of thatch, and the old homes on the main- land were a constant resource. But when the in- habitants once conceived the idea of building a city of brick and stone, of strengthening the made land with piles from the forests on shore and with sea- walls of stone — of making their fleet an object of envy, and of hiring out to warring cities in Italy and to crusaders in the East, then began the days of their glory. From the outset Venice was a republic, choos- ing a doge (a duke — Herzog) or leader whom she endued with crown and sceptre; and ruling also by great councils, electors, councils of ten, and the like. In the year 828 A. D., while the cathedral was building, the Venetians managed to obtain in Alex- andria the body of St. Mark, brought it away by stealth, and laid it under the high altar of the church as their most precious possession. Next they lent assistance to a pope against the Ghibellines and re- ceived in return the gift of a ring with command to wed the Adriatic "that posterity might know that the sea was subject to Venice as a bride to her husband." And from this arose the pompous ceremony long con- tinued of going out to sea on Ascension Day — all the powers and all the commonalty in grand attire — to drop a ring into the waters. The reversal of terms in our modern days at this point baffles us a little ; for we know Venice as the Rride of the Adriatic instead of the bridegroom ; but My Lady of the Veil remarks that relations have changed in these days, and that the pretty cognomen 401 EIGHT LANDS IN used by us may imply the same authority of the city that the pope originally intended. At the beginning of the thirteenth century arose the greatest hero of the republic, the only Venetian we shall have to remember by name until we begin looking at the artists — Enrico or Arrigo — Dandolo, "blind Dandolo," as he is usually called. Chosen as doge when his blindness had come upon him, at the age of seventy commanding a fleet at about eighty, in the Fourth Crusade — he helped to conquer Constan- tinople, brought away those bronze horses that are now prancing above our heads, with ship-loads of other spoils, and ushered in the days of greatest prosperity. To these conquests Venice later added Cyprus, Zante, and a part of Greece; also the whole Adriatic coast of Istria and Dalmatia to the Island of Corfu; and in Italy she became a kind of over-lord to many rival cities. Meanwhile the able stay-at-homes were perfecting the arts of the goldsmith and the glass-blower, the weaving of gauzy tissues learned from Persia, the use of gunpowder obtained from the Arabs ; were assimilating the learning of the Greeks, introducing printing and fine book-binding, and building up a school of painters never to be outdone in richness of color and decorative grouping. So when the blow to commerce fell in the discovery of Vasco da Gama's new sea route to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, whereby Portugal became the natural stopping place instead of Venice, the city still had her manu- factures to fall back upon. If we should go out to Murano, an island to the north, we could visit the glass manufactories of such superlative merit that we do not wonder at the aris- tocratic rank granted in the old days to the islanders. They had their own golden book of descent, minted 402 EIGHT WEEKS their own coins, and boasted that their citizens were eligible to the highest posts of the republic, and that their daughters were sought in marriage by the Venetian patricians. At Torcello, further north, we should find reminders of the earliest homes of the doges before they settled on the site of the present palace. At the Lido, an island faced with sea-walls, where tourists go for bathing, we might see the port from which Venice once sent out her 300 merchant- men for trade and her fleet of 45 galleys for war. The sad loss of prestige in commerce was followed by continued defeats in war, especially by the Turks, till one after another the declining Queen of the Adriatic had to relinquish her foreign possessions, and at last undergo the disgrace of admitting a con- queror inside her wall of sea. In 1797 Napoleon seized the republic and passed it on to Austria, under whose rule it fretted till 1866, when Prussia, in re- turn for help given by Italy, demanded that it be allowed to become a part of the United Kingdom of Italy. I think now we can appreciate better both San Marco and the Ducal Palace, which are the first places visited by every tourist. The low, round arches of San Marco, the varied pillars brought from eastern temples, the unique wainscoting within of veined alabaster, the gorgeous mosaics that cover the vaulting overhead, all remind one of Constantinople and eastern conquests, and also of the cunning workmanship that was able to adapt foreign spoils to home uses and to produce glass mosaics of permanent colors equal to those of Ra- venna. But no pen short of a Ruskin's can set forth for you the glooms and glories of this Venetian cathedral. I commend you to his "Stones of Venice," rather than 403 EIGHT LANDS IN to any feeble attempts on my part. San Marco is the opposite in almost every respect of Milan Cathedral. It can never give a sense of greatness and radiance — of outreaching and uplifting as does that; but it is almost overwhelming in its impression of richness and devotion. Be sure before you leave it to notice the row of statues upon the altar screen — the Virgin, St. Mark, and the Twelve Apostles. They are of marble — so my guide-book says, which does not lie ; but in my memory they are always gilded bronze ; and that impression must come from the reflection of so much gold and bronze about them. Look more closely at the alabaster wainscoting I have men- tioned ; see how a single choicely veined slab, by being sawed into thin sections, has furnished an elabora- tion of artistic figures for a large surface of wall. Look at the pulpits, the fonts, the great front porch, the long side vestibule. Try, if you can, to trace the Bible stories told in picture in the ceiling; and to count the various vaultings that correspond to the domes without. Be sure to cast your eyes downward, too, and see what intricate patterns in colored marbles are under your feet. Take a sunshiny time if you can to admire the Last Judgment and the Bringing of the Body of St. Mark to Venice in the mosaics of the lunettes over the entrance arches ; and if you have time, climb up to the outer gallery to take a nearer look at the four bronze horses. Why two span of horses should surmount a church entrance, instead of waiting decently at the hitching post or stables, I have never seen explained. Perhaps some of our sporting friends who give their favorite pacers several columns in the Sunday papers, may have more light upon the subject. Also, how they climbed to their present post, I cannot imagine, but this I know, that they are probably the most traveled 404 EIGHT WEEKS horses the world has ever known. They have seen the best that it can offer. History searches in vain for their origin and pedigree, and guesses at some artist in Alexandria who first attached them to a bronze chariot. Perhaps Augustus brought them to Rome, still prancing before their car, and Nero later set them up on his triumphal arch. It would have been a good time for them during that monarch's mad career, to emulate his example and dash in pieces their chariot before Trajan elevated them to his more honored arch. Here history begins to throw its light upon them at the age of two or three centuries, bap- tizes them into Christian service, and sends them in the train of Constantine to the new city called by his name, to show forth western strength and beauty in the eastern capital. Here, in Constantinople, they remained nine hundred years, no summer heats nor winter winds tiring their perpetual youth ; and from their station in mid air they might scent from afar the oncoming of Turks from the east and Crusaders from the west ; until Blind Dandolo arrived in his fleet and promised them a return to Italy. How do you suppose he managed to get them across his gang- planks and store them away among his galley slaves? still more, to escort them up to the outer gallery of St. Mark's and set them face to face with the great campanile? Rome, Constantinople, Venice; perhaps Alexandria before these. What remained of marvel or of glory? Why, next a great disgrace. A little man on horseback — a horse no bigger than they, and just of common flesh and blood, decreed that they were to go to Paris, and down they came from their high estate ; again across the gangplank and into the hold of a white-winged ship — down the Adriatic where they had passed six hundred years before, out into the Mediterranean that they knew 405 EIGHT LAXDS IN so well, out at the Straits of Gibraltar — the Pillars of Hercules these had been called in their young days — into a new ocean with the New World on the other side ; up the English Channel, and in at the River Seine, to be set up on the boastful little arch of the Carrousel, do honor to the horseback conqueror, lend emphasis to the horse fair that had given the "Place" its name, and be smirked at by the ladies of the Tuileries ! This disgrace they bore for almost twenty years ; then deliverance came. Again the gangplank, the big ship, the blue Mediterranean, and the gallery of the great Saint Mark, to stand forever in gold with that prancing step before the Last Judgment and the Winged Lions, like the four great horses of the Apocalypse. After labor comes rest; and we, having traveled the world over, so to speak, with these untiring steeds, will call our gondolas and sail the Grand Canal. We start from Riva dei Schiavoni, or Wharf of the Slaves, by the big pillars of the Piazzetta, and follow all the winding of the letter S under the Academy Bridge, the Rialto, and the Iron Bridge, to the rail- way station at the northwest. Every house we pass rises directly from the water, with foundations more or less weather-soaked in appearance, and more or less streaked in fading colors, sometimes with a mossy green toward the transverse canals ; all in pale shades of pink or buff or old marble, and most of them furnished with balconies from the upper stories, either hanging over the water or set in as '"loggie," and rich in carved balustrades or traceried arches. Occasionally the bold cornices of a Renaissance edifice are conspicuous; but the greater part of the faqades are Gothic, the time of the city's greatest prosperity having belonged to that period of art. For these buildings are, almost without exception, palazzi, 406 EIGHT WEEKS or residences, of the ancient aristocracy. The word palazzo, however, like the French palais, is applied to any handsome secular building, as, Palazzo di Giustizia, equivalent to our unpretentious courthouse. This "Canal Grande" was the Broadway and Fifth Avenue of Venice, and there are no less than seventy palazzi imposing enough to be mentioned in the guide-book by the names of the families that founded them; but many of these have been converted of late into museums or government buildings, and many more are rented to consuls and foreign residents. Of course, every one must see the modest dwelling of the famous Dandolo, the Palazzo Vendramin, where Wagner died, and the Browning and Byron Palaces. Also your gondolier will make sure that you take notice of one palace bearing a huge sign of glass manufacture, and will give you to understand that it is the glass place par excellence of the city, gallantly offering to give you ten minutes for inspection with- out extra charge. My Lady of the Guide-book, being bent on information, falls first into the trap and encourages the other seven to follow ; and when we reembark at the end of a plump half hour our hand- bags are the heavier by mosaic pens, gilded vases, neck- laces, beads, bracelets, and a lot of sample bits of the colored sticks of glass ready to be cut into mosaics — these last having been presented with great show of graciousness by the pretty workers, and acknowl- edged with coins far exceeding their value. The richer and the poorer we, as usual after such delays. A half a dozen churches, too, are scattered along, from Sta. Maria della Salute with its handsome dome and pillars at the outset, to St. Simeon the Little, at the end. But the greatest of all edifices along this canal is the Rialto Bridge, which spans it about in the middle with a mighty but graceful arch of marble, 407 EIGHT LANDS IN being 150 feet in length, and so broad as to carry two rows of marble shops beside the wide central passage and the narrow walks on either side. An- other day we will go shopping over this arch and take beautiful, long looks from it up and down this water- way of palaces. It is approaching sunset now — that is, in my story ; for in truth it is late bedtime — and after dinner no one will be too weary to take another stroll through the piazza and drop in at a few tempting shops. Great things are in store for to-morrow and next day. Farewell till then. M. 408 EIGHT WEEKS XLV— VENETIAN ART. Venice, August 12 and 13. Dear friends of mine, and friends of the beautiful, be not in despair when the skipping process seems ap- palling. Count up our achievements so far, and take courage. All the history of Venice at one bold dash ; a pretty good idea of the topography, except that I have forgotten to tell you of the Dead Lagoon, which means the swampy water up along the main land, and the Living Lagoon, or water of the Adriatic ris- ing and falling with the tide, in which last our city lies, shut off from the sea and its storms by a row of islands called the Lidi. Besides this, a first look at San Marco with its treasures and its horses ; a sweep- ing bow to the whole Grand Canal ; a slight acquaint- ance with the Rialto ; and no less than three visits to the piazza, which makes us know it like our own pockets. Now what lies still before us? The Doge's Palace, the Academia, about three churches that cannot be skipped ; the Lido, and the Giardini Pubblici ; possibly the Arsenal ; and after these nothing but the shopping streets, stuffy, and fascinating, and more gondolas. We take the Doge's Palace first, while we are fresh ; admire its portals, its "giant staircase," and old well-curbs in the court; compare its Renaissance with its Gothic wings, so tracing out its growth ; then mount to the great halls in which doges and councils once held audience. 409 EIGHT LANDS IN I shall not bother you with their number or their arrangement. Every one is gorgeous in carved or gilded wood or marble and in great paintings on the walls while overhead is an elaborate arrangement of heavy gold mouldings framing more paintings of renown. It is fully time for us to apply our survival-of-the- fittest process in selecting a few Venetian artists to immortalize in our diaries, and also to ask My Lady in Green what to look for in their works. In the first place, she attributes to them remarkable splendor of coloring, such as it was natural for Venetians to take into their affections from sea and cloud, from sunlight and palace fronts, from colored sails, gaily dressed sailors, and most of all from sun- rises and sunsets over the lagoons. Next she observes their delight in groups of strong and happy people, along with a bold use of fore- shortening and perspective. Gods and goddesses meet in mid air or come dropping down to mortals like unwinged birds ; Venice, personified, sits on her throne and receives homage ; ambassadors in robes of state appear before the stately doge and councillors. In the third place she marks a gorgeousness of dress and merrymaking that brightens the whole room where the picture hangs. Decorative pictures we may call many of these historic and sacred pieces, because the main purpose seems achieved by beauty of line and coloring, apart from the subject treated. Last, our critic says, notice their love of spacious backgrounds, be it the clouds of heaven, some open windows toward the sea. or the quiet pearl tints of walls and ceilings. No such conglomerate surround- ings of gold and color did they represent in their pictures as their builders put into the council rooms, unless in some actual indoor scene where truth de- 410 EIGHT WEEKS manded it. I cannot help feeling that some of these beautiful creatures about us are uttering a silent pro- test against the gold frames that try to outshine their costly raiments. Notice the restful contrast when you enter one of the smaller rooms finished all in panels of white, wherein the glowing deities shine unrivaled. We are sitting in the hall of the Great Council while we have our little art talk. It is over 150 feet long and half as broad — made to hold all the nobles of the city from twenty years old and upward ; and every square foot of it is as elegant as art can make it. From it open the great Gothic windows we ad- mired from without, and the elegant doorway and balcony toward the quay. Overhead, in the above- mentioned setting of gold, are Venetian battles and civic events pictured by Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and others; just below the ceiling is a frieze of doges, more than threescore and ten, in pointed caps and mantles of velvet and ermine ; below these are ranged great historical scenes by the same artists, except on the east wall, where the whole breadth is given to one huge Paradise by Tintoretto — the largest oil- painting in the world, they say; with hundreds, per- haps thousands, of heads, which have been looking their prettiest and their happiest, their stateliest and their worthiest, since Jocopo Tintoretto evolved them from his brain or hunted them up among the city's models three centuries ago. For the Cinque Cento — the century of the fifteen hundreds — was the great blooming time of Venetian art. The Bellinis had come almost a hundred years earlier, father and sons, with their quiet madonnas whom we shall learn to love; Titian, Palma Vecchio, and Giorgione followed next, beginning their work with the century ; then Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, 411 EIGHT LANDS IN with their huge canvases. My Lady Persistent and My Lady of the Star are taking these artists into their close intimacy, and declare that just from these palace walls they are learning to recognize the golden lights and glowing beauty of a Titian, the rich em- broideries and well-spaced groups of that great deco- rator, Veronese, and the animated gods and goddesses of the perspective-loving Tintoretto. So this morning has been not merely a neck-breaker for us, but a real pleasure-giver, because of the new acquaintances we have made. We cannot pass without a shudder the door that leads from the Judgment Halls to the Bridge of Sighs — an overhead gallery that had no approach except from the courtroom here and the prison across the narrow canal ; and the stairs that conduct to the some- time dreadful prisons — the Piombi, or leads, under the hot roof, and the Pozzi, or wells, a series of under-ground dungeons. The splendor of art and the horrors of cruelty side by side ! And the handsome broad quay, on which we look down, with merry tourists securing their gondolas, still keeping its old name of the Quay of the Slaves ! Did you take in the fact as you came up here by that beautiful staircase with the marble balustrade, that you were ascending the "Scala d'oro," or stairs of gold — that is, the ascent which only those aristo- crats might use whose names were written in the "Golden Book"? We are all aristocrats now-a-days. all who come to see far cities and pay our franc each for a sight of these architectural glories. So the world moves; and Venice adds to her treasury by an exhibition of her youthful portrait. Next, to the Academy, where I shall not keep you long, because a whole day would be quite too short, 412 EIGHT WEEKS and you may just as well fall back on a good art his- tory and a collection of photographs in the first place. Beautiful halls filled with beautiful works, mostly from Venetian painters, and arranged rather with reference' to good combination than to chronology. They impress you as done by men who loved to ideal- ize the real and realize the ideal — if that means anything to you ; quite different from the Hollanders, who put down actual scenes just as they occurred, with only a bit of artistic rearrangement in light and grouping. A Madonna, to the Bellinis, was a theme to be tried over and over again with persistent fol- lowing of the quiet, non-committal dignity once es- tablished for her ; but with a constant striving toward some greater excellence in pose or coloring. Tin- toretto finds Venice always ready to appear in regal form, and gods and doges equally willing to sit for their portraits. Veronese delights to show the beauty of Gospel feasts on huge canvases that almost invite you, too, to sit down at the table ; while Titian, forgetting all the court beauties and artist loves whom we see from his hand in other cities, is here supreme in two great canvases in honor of the Virgin Mary — her "Presentation in the Temple," as a child, and her "Assumption" to her heavenly throne. In the first of these, a long, large picture, painted to occupy a space above two doorways, and cunningly adjusting its composition to its place, you see in profile the flight of the temple stairs with the high- priest standing at the top, his hands upraised in blessing and surprise ; on the middle steps the little Mary in blue lifting her dress as children do who have admiringly watched their mothers, and going all alone to met the priest, a halo meanwhile shining about her. At the foot of the staircase the interested friends, especially her mother, Saint Anne, erect and 413 EIGHT LANDS IN quiet in her veil of white, and telling no one of the throbbing of her heart, and with her a throng of old and young, so natural and so carefully studied that one could easily make acquaintance with every one. The old apple-woman in the foreground, who has no thought of priests or madonnas, but wishes some of the crowd would buy her fruit, is a charming foil to all the rest. This is a picture to feast upon, whether in color or in black and white ; only it should always be reproduced in comparatively large size. The spectator demands an appreciable distance be- tween priest and people to be bridged by the little Mary, Mother of Our Lord. The other picture, the Annunciation, considered Titian's masterwork, and painted at about the middle of his ninety years of life — is full of the vigor of great art and great thought. The Virgin in mid air, filled with the bliss of the heavenly vision above her, her grave clothes changed to robes of red, angels her attendants, lifts her hands in an expression of joy realized and of a weight of sorrow and dread and death overcome; — "burst from the bonds of death," seems to express the thought in the artist's mind. Below, the eager disciples, amazed, confounded, between a desire to hold their leader back and a half longing to be taken up with her, also lift their hands and arms — strong fishermen's arms, arms ready for the world's battle ; you fancy that you see the play of the muscles and the movement upward toward the skies. This, too, is a picture to study and to love. But in the photograph you miss the power- ful coloring, the red of love and suffering that Titian did so well. In sculpture Venice has no great names except that of Canova of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, of whom she is justly proud. We shall make our 414 EIGHT WEEKS best acquaintance with him through his tomb in the Church of the Frari. Of the three churches on our list, this of the Frari is one, in the heart of the city, west from the Rialto ; San Giovanni e Paolo, the burial place of the doges, is not far to the northeast of the Piazza; and Santa Maria Formosa lies still nearer, in the same direction. For the first we take a gondola, or two of them if we all go together, remembering to make our bargain in advance. In general we meet nothing but honesty in this land. Cabmen and gondoliers, however, have very indefinite ideas on that subject, all the continent over, which I naturally lay to a long continued practice of feeing. If a pourboire is regularly to accompany the legal tariff, how should this do other- wise than leave a man's mind in a cloudy state as to his dues ? Is he sure that the pourboire will be forth- coming? How much generosity can he expect? Would it not be safer to include the fee in the price ; or else to make the trip long enough to insure a good round sum? Oh, I can see a dozen ways in which feed employees are tempted to be dishonest, either in their charges or in their service ; and I attribute our annoyance of this kind to total depravity — not of the individuals, but of the feeing system. Our gondolier, in this case, sets us down with no altercation, near our church door, giving a despairing look at our fee which is large enough to preclude a plea for more ; and we devote our ten minutes' stay to the three great objects of interest — the Pesaro Madonna of Titian and the tombs of the great painter and of the Sculptor Canova. The Madonna, which was painted for the noble family of Pesaro, introduces the donors as wor- shipers of the Virgin and child, along with saints of various ages and climes. Never did Titian achieve 415 EIGHT LANDS IN a more graceful and picturesque grouping in a relig- ious piece. The huge pillars of the background, with clouds behind, and angels on a cloud in front, give the effect of immensity ; the Madonna in sweet, proud motherhood, although sitting on high, still bending familiarly for intercourse with her wor- shipers, the precious child accepting half shyly the admiring devotion of St. Francis ; St. Peter at his big book ; the Pesaro family and their slaves on their knees — the whole is a treasure which I hope you may some day enjoy. At the same time look for Bellini's beautiful altar- piece in three sections in one of the transepts, which we could not see on account of repairs in the church ; then, on either side of the nave, facing each other, compare the two great tombs, both in marble — Titian's a kind of triumphal arch with his greatest paintings in bas-relief, and the artist himself in statue before them ; Canova's, a pyramid tomb with a pro- cession of marble mourners approaching its door, Venice herself, in marble veil, bearing the precious urn, the winged lion mourning at the other side, and the angel of death with torch inverted. This tomb Canova had designed for the great Titian when he was called himself to go in at the dark door, and his fellow citizens decreed that the veiled Venice and the lion should mourn for him. So this second, and entirely different tomb was erected for the great painter. In the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo — like the Frari, a large and elegant building — there is a great collection of the costly tombs of the doges, of more or less historic value and good taste. One cannot expect to remember them after a single visit, but only to add to one's general impression of the aristocracy and wealth of ancient Venice. 416 EIGHT WEEKS In Santa Maria Formosa, where we ran up against a most inconvenient custom of closing all churches for an hour or two at noon, we finally succeeded in gaining admittance to look upon the Santa Barbara of Palma Vecchio. It was worth the peril of sun- stroke which we had risked while lingering on the church piazza and stirring up sleeping workmen and dining neighbors in our attempts at discovering the why and the when of the closed doors. Read the story of Sta. Barbara of the fourth century ; how she was shut up in a tower by her pagan father to hide her beauty from men ; how she incurred his wrath by opening in it three windows to symbolize the Trinity, of which she had learned from a holy hermit ; how her father persecuted and finally murdered her for her faith's sake, but how she was never afraid; and then look at her standing tall and fearless before her tower, one foot upon a cannon to symbolize that she is the patroness of soldiers and all who are in peril ; a princess' coronet on her brow ; the martyr's palm branch in her hand, and the red cloak and flow- ing robe of Palma Vecchio's painting somehow fitting in, as body should to soul, to express the beauty and the bravery of this ancient early saint. She it is who kneels with face downcast before the Mother and Child in the Sistine Madonna. Raphael has shown her who feared no rivalry in beauty and no superior power in man, abashed before the vision of the infant Christ. Just one long look at this saint never to be for- gotten, and then away across the hot piazza, over a bridge at the left, down a grimy street — choose the right turn at this corner, then another bridge, a line of shops, an archway in front of us, and here we come out on the Piazza San Marco, and know just how far we are from our hotel, and how late for lunch in 417 EIGHT LANDS IN the eyes of our major-domo. The sleeping nooners all along- the way are beginning to rouse themselves and think of money to be earned or begged. Do you know how an Italian of the streets can sleep? I mean, a workman or a beggar? Given a piece of pavement, a church step, a projecting ledge of a foundation wall, and he will furnish all the other essentials for a delicious slumber. In shade or in sun, according to the demands of the season, he sleeps the sleep of the just, unless some traveler comes by from whom he has a chance of obtaining a penny. "The land of the outstretched hand." Verily, so we are finding it in spite of the fact that mendicity is sup- posed to have been done away with. Not that in- numerable beggars abound, but that innumerable little services call for fees, and that every child of a certain class grows up to the practice of putting out its hand for a small reward. Given, a tourist looking for a church, or perhaps unaware that an interesting church is near at hand, and at once children spring up from the pavement in groups eager to show you that church. If you accept their services you have to single out which one to pay or else waste your sub- stance on many ; if you refuse, which their pertinacity generally inclines you to do, they have no hesitation in expressing their disapprobation, and in some places you find a little stone gently thrown after you. In Venice there are no stones to throw. Half of us visited the Lido, and half the Giardini Pubblici, in both which places it seemed good to see grass and trees once more. Both these are to be found in hotel courts and palace grounds, but not in any streets or squares. The Venetians, loving flowers and vines, make up the loss as far as may be by little roof gardens, potted plants, and creepers that start from window boxes. We stooped to the 418 EIGHT WEEKS use of that abomination, the steam launch, which puffs, puffs, to the disgust of outsiders, while it gives a quick and refreshing outing to those on board. We all of us went up and down the shopping rows, over the shop-loaded Rialto, down to the market halls on the other side, where barges come in from the country with baskets of salads, pyramids of red tomatoes, bags of potatoes, a splendid showing of pease and beans and squashes, with no end of flowers ; we have admired the hammered copper and wrought brass that we cannot carry with us ; have invested in such laces and embroideries as our purses and grips permitted, and, in general, feel at home in Venice as a woman only can in any place after a few rounds of shopping. We have been treated courteously every- where, and have found almost everywhere "prezzi fissi" — fixed prices — in contrast to the bargaining once in vogue. The black shawl of the middle-class women has won our hearts, although it is appalling to see any wrap in this August heat. Of texture varying from merino to gauze, but always of a size to cover the most of a woman's dress, always finished with a very deep silk fringe, and worn pointed — it furnishes the "cloak of charity" that makes any woman or girl ready for the street. With it she needs no hat or gloves, no street suit, or afternoon dress. Without it she would feel indecently exposed, even in this torrid weather. Except for this shawl Venetian fashions have nothing peculiar. Every woman's hair is dressed like the hair in London or Paris; shirt-waists are the twins of those of America ; and the hats and suits of the higher class women are of the same style we have left in other cities. We go away with a delightful impression of quiet, beauty, and comfort. But we realize that weather less 419 EIGHT LANDS IN favorable might have called out such expressions as "damp and dirty," "mildewed and odorous." To be here at a time when a long-continued southeast wind should drive back the waters into the canals, send little streams up into the streets at the drainage holes, and turn all the city's sewage back upon itself— this might not be agreeable; nor, indeed, the opposite ex- perience, with some of the canals drained dry, and traffic uncertain. But for us the days from the tenth to the thirteenth of August have been all right, and our diaries are again flaming with red ink. That you may find Venice as lovely when you come, is the sincere wish of Yours devotedly, M. 420 EIGHT WEEKS XLVI— FIRENZE. FlRENZE O otuAdLoAj^Clw^. «^, Beloved friends: If you are minded like us, you found it hard to tear yourselves away from Hotel B yesterday noon. These sojourns of a few days are little epitomes of a whole life. We come as strangers, find a home and employment, attach ourselves to places and people, make a good many gains, and then the gondola is at the door and we are off on the silent river to other homes and other gains. We were heartily sorrow to bid good-by to our paternal hotel people. We exchanged addresses with the major- domo that he might look us up when he came to America ; handed out American stamps to the porter and his brother — the lad that can expostulate so volubly in his native tongue with his protesting hands upon his stomach — and almost caused a breach of the peace when we produced a few rare ones still un- canceled. How different the waterway to the station looked from its appearance on our first day ! We had learned 421 EIGHT LANDS IN to love the tawny, creamy colors of the old houses, to espy the palaces from afar and note their pretty balconies, to mark every blossoming oleander that peeped from a court, every vine that climbed to a cornice; we are constantly picking out scenes for a painter's canvas, throwing the shadows right, bring- ing the bridges in for foregrounds, bidding the house- wives leave their tattered, party-colored wash hang- ing from the upper story windows. And while I linger over this parting, we are speed- ing over the Apennines on our way to Florence. As we passed through Bologna we talked about Raphael's Saint Cecilia, and about the painters of the Eclectic School which had its headquarters there a century later than the great masters — the Caracci, Guido Reni, Guercino, Domenichino. We caught a glimpse of the great leaning towers that overtop the city ; but not of its sumptuous colonnades. Of course we mentioned its sausages. Then we left the low- lands and began one of the beautiful mountain jour- neys of Italy. The Apennines, which make the backbone of all the Peninsula, average 4,000 feet in height — the altitude of the highest Catskills ; but in the south, near Naples, reach more than twice that altitude. We shall not find them always so attractive as here, where they are wooded to the summits, and open before us such brook-threaded ravines and rocky gorges, and vales for hamlets and such hillsides for gardens and vineyards as remind us of the Briinig Pass coming down to Lucerne. But there is no possibility of a cooling view of a snow-peak ; no blue lakes to look down upon ; no Swiss chalets. Plastered houses instead, with tiled roofs, and sometimes wayside shrines, and crosses set up to bless the fields. There are tunnels enough to rouse one's admira- 422 EIGHT WEEKS tion of Italian engineers and government energy in carrying through such a difficult road; but upon most of us they have the effect instead of a considerable exasperation ; and My Lady Bright Eyes finds her accomplishment of sudden closing of windows called into vigorous play. Pleasant Italian people are travel- ing in our car ; and as the compartments are con- nected by a corridor along one side, we have quite a little inter-communication; gentlemen and ladies, babies and nurses, all seem inclined to be sociable, and are glad to try their bit of English or to help us with our bits of Italian. Like the Germans, they take an interest in their fellow travelers, but are a little burdened with a sense of polite conventions. A whole compartment full of American women, not very young, but very jolly, is to them a show that they had not paid for when they bought their tickets ; and they are divided between a sense of awe at anything so unusual and a strong desire to ask us whether we live in Chicago and know their — I was about to say dago — friends. But I must be cautious in my use of that term, for I hear the Italians use the same most scorn- fully to designate their lowest class. I presume they have brought it back from across the water. This Florence that we are going to, the Flowery City, with the lily for its symbol and a name derived, they say, from the flowery fields in which it was built, may well queen it as the lily of Northern Italy. Beautiful for situation among swelling hills, on both sides of the Arno; distinguished by its cathedral and palaces, its museums of sculpture and painting, and its cunning artificers; proud of its history of brave Republican days, of great artists and poets, even of powerful tyrants — it offers us all the satisfactions of brain and eye that we should need for a six months' sojourn. We'll just take up our sifting process — - 4 2 3 EIGHT LANDS IN Travel Made Easy for People of Limited Powers — and get ready for the essentials. The cathedral, with its great campanile and its baptistery of the famous bronze doors ; and the old Franciscan and Dominican churches of Santa Croce and Sta. Maria Novella ; these three, in any case. The great picture galleries of the Uffizi and the Pitti, noting the Pitti also as a palace, and with it as many other palaces as we can. The Convent of San Marco, associated with Savonarola and Fra Angelico ; the Academia or Belle Arti with its old paintings and its collection of Michael Angelo statues and casts; the Bargello, with its national museum ; the Sacristy of San Lorenzo, with Michael Angelo's Day and Night, Dawn and Twilight; the Palazzo Vecchio, if we have time; a tram ride up to the terrace on the hills south of the river, and to San Miniato; another to the hill town of Fiesole ; — about here we shall have to stop. But with that list before us we can become familiar with the most important names, at least, and have the great pleasure of marking off each place after visit- ing it. Of the history of Florence and that part of Tuscany that acknowledged its rule, we will note only a few facts. From being a duchy under the Carolingian emperors it became by gift of the last duchess a pos- session of the Pope, and was thenceforth of Guelph sympathies, although practically independent. Dante, the greatest citizen of his time, was banished about the year 1300 for urging allegiance to the Ghibelline party — the emperors. About a century later the powerful but unprincipled Medici family succeeded in being elected to the leading positions, and became. for three hundred years, the real rulers. Some of them, especially Cosimo, called Pater Patriae, and his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, were great 424 EIGHT WEEKS patrons of art. One of the Medici became Pope, be- trayed Florence into the power of the Emperor, Charles V., and got his own nephew appointed as first duke, so that under the later Medici Florence was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and under the rule of the emperors — later of Napoleon, of Spain, of Austria; until in i860 it became a part of the Kingdom of Italy. Dante was its greatest poet, Cimabue and Giotto, his contemporaries, its first great painters — the last also sculptor and architect. After them followed Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, the della Robbia with their glazed reliefs in terra cotta, Andrea del Sarto, Michael Angelo, sculptor and architect as well, and many others. Its greatest religious teacher was Savonarola, about the time of the discovery of Amer- ica ; its greatest secular writer, Macchiavelli, a few years later, and a century after him, Galileo, banished from Pisa, spent his old age here and here is buried. If we found Venice a handful, what shall we do with Florence? Rejoice in all we have learned of it before coming here ; make a beginning with good courage; give thanks that there have been more good and great lives in the world than our little powers can take in; and resolve to continue our acquaintance with this wonderful city in the future as occasion shall permit. What salutary effects upon our powers would you expect from our living in the marble halls of a villa? When we saw this address on our list of lodgings we tried to picture to ourselves the sylvan surroundings that awaited us. When our two cabs, with no hesita- tion drove up to this good looking city house, we guessed there might be a mistake; but the door stood an inch ajar, which we understood to be the courteous thing in boarding houses during melting weather 425 EIGHT LANDS IN such as this, and a porter within was all smiles to meet us. There were the marble stairs winding up to the second story — the balustrade, however, a wooden imitation with a thin marble slab on the hand rail ; there was a wainscoting all in white against walls of crimson ; there were copies of great masters on the walls. As we followed long and nar- row corridors to our rooms past little inconsequential- looking doors, as though they entered convent cells, our heels clicked over tiled floors, and we had a charming feeling of being in a new land. The rooms are large when once we are in them; large windows can be opened wide by means of the double sash that swings against the thick walls ; and when they are closed, solid shutters inside of them make it possible to keep out light and heat. We have reached Florence in a heated term, and our only chance for comfortable rooms will be by cooling off at night and then shutting the cold air in before the sun starts up its big furnace. In the rear our villa opens into a lovely garden, all its own. with palms and ferns and roses, and sundry glass-fronted libraries and drawing-rooms give upon it, much as though they were intended to make the most of the heat it might accumulate. In fact, a Florentine pen- sion looks to the cool seasons for its patronage, sends its inhabitants to Switzerland or England for summer delights, and takes August for its general month of repairs. The masons are now at work in our hall, as I can see by step-ladders and mortar-pails ; and it is because this is out of season that we find plenty of rooms at moderate prices. We shall have an oppor- tunity to watch the interesting process of repairing and freshening up in a building where a nail or a screw would seek employment in vain. When we first attained to living in old convents and modern villas 426 EIGHT WEEKS My Lady Bright Eyes began looking for fire-escapes; but she and we have learned that a solid structure of brick and mortar with tiled floors is a better safety assurance than a coil of rope by the window or an iron ladder outside. The owner and manager of this villa has his own table in the dining room, near his guests, and is served from the same dishes,— which is a paternalism out- shining that of Venice. He gives us points about trams and museums, puts his good library at our dis- posal, and delivers art criticisms and travel talks as occasion may present. Besides all these virtues he has one for which he deserves little credit, but for which most of our company bless him — he is an Englishman and the English language is his native tongue ; we can all say to him what we choose instead of having to say what we can; and we amaze our- selves with the number of things we can understand. My Lady Practical long ago announced, apropos to foreigners and foreign languages, that "she felt as though she were in a cage" ; and I think that we had all come to feel that communication by word of mouth was a kind of artificial process, too difficult to be gen- erally indulged in, and perhaps a little wicked — at least, not intended by nature as a regular dependence. Two trams start near our hotel ; and as the city is well cut by these electric lines, we hope to see it rapidly and well. We have already walked out to the barrier just beyond us — that is, the low stone parapet that takes the place of a city wall, and have looked across to one of the fairest views in Italy, so says mine host, and we can well believe him; for such a suc- cession of lovely hills as rises from this Arno valley, culminating in Fiesole with its villas and church towers, is not to be despised in any land. We have been in no large city so cradled among 427 EIGHT LANDS 'IN the hills as Florence. With these heights rising both to north and south, and the River Arno cutting it in two ; it strongly reminds one of Dresden ; and when you consider also the art advantages that belong to both places, you may well say that this city is the Dresden of Italy, or that the other is the Florence of Germany. But, alas for our evening stroll to the barrier, and back through the barrier park! There lay something ashen white, soft and heavy over the grass, the shrubs, the very leaves of the trees. It was the same thing that lay inches deep in the road, and made the little rivulet Mugnone below the barrier look like an elongated mud-puddle. It is a dry time in Florence; no rain for weeks, but daily expected, of course; the Arno so low that watering of the streets has been prohibited, and all the springs running dry, to the con- sternation of men and beasts. You know it is a sad thing to live in a rainy zone, as you may have hap- pened to do in summer vacations, and it is a lovely thing to have your home in the sunshine; but I have set down this in my note-book : "Perpetual sunshine must expect perpetual dust — unless perhaps it be upon the sea." At one of the city's sights we took our first look as we left the station last evening — the Church of Sta. Maria Novella. It was not very attractive on short acquaintance. To-morrow we shall probably see the cathedral and Santa Croce; and, just as I might think best to say a few words to you about a friend to whom I was introducing you, so it is only fair to these new churches to tell you a little of their origin, and of the good points for which I want you to know them. For new to us this style of churches certainly is ; and we who have been educating ourselves to an 428 EIGHT WEEKS appreciation of York and Cologne, or of the nearer St. Mark's, will look in vain for most of their striking beauties. First, then, we are now in the cradle of Chris- tian churches, Italy, and must remember that their original architecture was that of use rather than beauty; and that the type established by the earliest places of worship naturally had a sacredness for after generations that precluded radical changes. What, then, was the type, and what its origin? Basilicas, the tribunals and city halls of Rome, literally "royal buildings" — consisting of nave and aisles sep- arated by pillars, and in the rear a semi-circular, raised apse for the seat of the judges. The nave may or may not have been roofed — a court with covered porches on each side being a very usable place of meeting in warm countries. Such basilicas the Chris- tians appropriated when allowed by Constantine's new laws to have places of worship, or imitated ; roofing the nave, however, enlarging the raised platform to make room for an altar and also for those participat- ing clergy who constituted the choir. If then we go up to San Miniato on the southern hills, or to Fiesole in the north, we shall be able to see charming old churches like these, with polished rafters overhead, old mosaics adorning the apse, a crypt or burial place under the high altar. A solemn, restful, beautiful- church, you will say, but very simple on the outside ; for— In the next place, architectural decoration had to take time to grow, the great faqade having been no part of the half-unroofed Roman court, and no towers having belonged to it. The first bell towers, or cam- panili, were built beside the church, and it was left to the Romanesque builders of Germany and France 429 EIGHT LANDS IN to discover that tower and church might be so com- bined as to far surpass the two structures when stand- ing apart. In Giotto's Campanile we shall see to-mor- row how great and splendid a thing a tower may be. In Venice the mass that was rising slowly in the Piazza gave no promise of beauty; but when finished would command your admiration by evident strength, and by the chaste simplicity of its ornamented sum- mit ; but here — well, wait and see. Again, and finally, the material at hand was that same indestructible brick and mortar that the Romans had used so long, and which they had been accustomed to turn to marble by covering it with thin slabs of this material and adding marble pillars and cornices. So the early church builders did the same ; and not having yet evolved the idea of decorated portals and outside galleries of saints, they broke up the blank white of the surface — a trying thing in a southern sun — by sections and panels of colored marbles, green or black, and gradually evolved a scheme of polychromatic decoration which we have never seen before. The mosaic work within was repeated on a larger scale and in set patterns without ; large mosaics were introduced under the gables, fine mosaic pictures were worked out in cunning patterns in the casings of the doors. After the Gothic of the north sent down its ideas about pointed arches and large windows, solid stone work and buttresses, the Italians still preferred to hold to their incrusted walls ; to use their saints but charily for outside guardians. Milan, you see, with its two thousand statues and pinnacles unnumbered, is an importation from the north, and has nothing to do with Italian styles. To-morrow, then, when we go to church, we will allow ourselves to give some of our thoughts to the 43° EIGHT WEEKS house as well as to the worship, having our authority from the elaborate description of the walls and gates and choice stones of the New Jerusalem. Good night, and pleasant dreams. M. 43i EIGHT LAXDS IN XLVII— CHURCH-GOING IN FLORENCE. Florence, Sunday, Aug. 15. Beloved farazvays: You have no means of protesting when I head one of my letters with an imaginary map ; but — advantage of being so distant — you can skip it all and I be none the wiser. Therefore having, from the very outset sounded the praises of skipping, I feel no compunctions at what I put in. and you none at what you leave out. The smaller part of Florence lies on the south side of the Arno, and the only thing we shall visit there will be the Pitti Palace and the heights of San Miniato. This river of a few hundred feet in width varies in color from a yellowish gray or green to the yellow pure and simple of its present muddy estate. It is bordered with handsome quays known as the Lun- garno this-and-that, and spanned by half a dozen bridges, four of which are centuries old. One of them, the Ponte Yecchio. bears a double row of shops which have belonged to the goldsmiths since they were erected in the Fourteenth Century; which again bear on their backs a picture gallery, the connecting cor- ridor between the UfHzi on the north shore and the Pitti Palace on the south. Near the river, on the north side, the core of the city is the Piazza della Signoria or Square of the Lords of the People, who were the same as the 432 EIGHT WEEKS "Priori," the presidents of the industrial guilds; for at the time when this name of Priori became preval- ent, in the Thirteenth Century, the ruling power had passed from the hands of the nobles, the "Grandi," to that of the manufacturers and to their leaders, the "Capitano del Popolo" (leader of the national guard) and the "Gonfaloniere della Giustizia" (banner- bearer of justice), who was president of the Priori. The exercise of judicial power was put into the hands of a foreigner chosen for six months or a year, and called the "Podesta." At the southeast of the Piazza della Signoria stands V^Iazzj- Vtcckio 433 EIGHT LANDS IN that noble square fortress with the lofty machicolated tower so conspicuous in all photographs of Florence, the Palazzo Vecchio; and close to it toward the river, is the Loggia dei Lanzi, also familiar in photograph, a large open portico where several fine marbles of the Cinque Cento and later artists furnish a free sculpture gallery, summer and winter. Between these two a court runs down to the quay, on either side of which are the "Uffizi," or offices, the upper stories of which are occupied by the picture gallery of that name. In the square stand the great Neptune fountain, and a statue of a Duke Cosimo. When you see him you know at once that he was not the great Cosimo, the dukes belonging to the later time, although he emu- lated his ancestor in patronizing art, and was the founder of the Academy of Fine Arts. But the best known thing about this famous square lives only in history — the great burnings that have taken place here ; the burning of the Pyramid of Vanities at the in- stigation of the powerful preacher, Savonarola, and, in the next year, 1498, the burning of himself and two of his monks. A street running north from this piazza has at the right the cathedral and campanile, and at its left the baptistery — a great triangle of glories, enough to make Florence famous if it had no other treasures. From this place most of the tram lines diverge, one follows the broad "viali," or avenues — that circle the city in the place of the old fortifications. This tram we took this morning from our hotel in the north, and followed east and south past the old gates and new parks, and the English cemetery, where lies the dust of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, till we reached the river and turned into the Piazza of Santa Croce. After the somewhat discouraging account that I have given you of Italian architecture we stood pre- 434 EIGHT WEEKS pared to be disappointed, and consequently were dis- appointed in the opposite direction. The facade of the church looked grand and beautiful in its panels of white and black and its three decorated gables over nave and aisles. It is a fine, proud statue of Dante that stands laurel-crowned in the piazza ; but -in turn- ing his face to the city he turns his back to the church ; and I am not sure that he would not have preferred the opposite position. Santa Croce is the Westminster Abbey of Florence, but not so crowded, and the tombs are set against the walls — not out in the aisles. So as we sat with the worshipers and lifted up our hearts with theirs, we were aware of the great men whose bodies rested be- side us ; Michael Angelo, Macchiavelli, Rossini at the right, besides an empty tomb to Dante, buried in 435 EIGHT LANDS IN Ravenna, where he died in exile ; Galileo at the left ; and near us the marble pulpit of Majano, carved with scenes from the life of St. Francis. This church was begun by the Franciscan orders within the cen- tury in which their great leader died (1294) and, nat- urally, is filled with memorials of him, but also of John the Baptist, who is the patron saint of the city. After the service was over we went up into the transepts and choir and took long looks at the fres- coes by Giotto which cover the walls of two chapels, in one illustrating the lives of the two St. Johns, in the other the life of St. Francis of Assisi. These are great works of one of the greatest of early painters; and we may perhaps be thankful for a coat of white- wash that covered them for many years, preserving them for the appreciation of an art-loving time. You may go back to these as often as you can, and will every time find more in them and grow more fond of them. At the cathedral we found our greatest attractions on the outside. This group of three keeps one in a perpetual state of amazement. There is no doubt about the beauty of the exteriors. Statuary and bas- reliefs add their richness to tbe marble paneling, gal- leries and cornices, traceried windows, Gothic door- ways, and a great wealth of fine mosaic. The baptistery, the oldest of the three, was begun about the year 1 100, before any Gothic tendencies had appeared in architecture. It was the original Cathe- dral, and was called the Church of John the Baptist. In three of its eight sides are huge folding doors of bronze, which are the best thing you can imagine with their panels setting forth Bible scenes and the fram- ing of these a natural history of flowers and fruits and birds. These were made in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. The southern door is the oldest, 436 EIGHT~WEEKS made by Andrea Pisano — some say from designs by Giotto. It is delightful in the simple, candid way in which the Bible stories are told in groups of low relief, never more than three or four figures in a group. In 1401 the making of the second door was offered in competition to the artists of the day and won by Ghi- berti over his elder rivals. With youthful modesty he followed his predecessor closely in the shape of the panels and style of the reliefs. For the third door there was no competition; and Ghiberti, confident in his maturer powers, planned and carried out the rich designs and picturesque reliefs, almost overstepping the bounds of sculpture, which resulted in those east- ern doors, declared by Michael Angelo worthy to be the gates of Paradise. Within, surrounded by pillars, galleries, and mosaics, and under a dome of ninety feet in diameter, all the children in Florence are baptized, numbering some 4,000 a year. So almost any afternoon you stand a chance of seeing a pretty collection of them wrapped tight in swaddling clothes and veiled with lace, in the arms of nurses and accompanied by inter- ested sponsors. The cathedral was begun in the same year as Santa Croce, and by the some architect ; so I think we should put down his name to add our share to his multiple honors — Arnolfo di Cambio. In the next century ihe main part was carried on and the campanile was built, this by the great Giotto ; in the next the great dome was set up by Brunelleschi — the dome that made Michael Angelo anxious to outdo it in St. Peter's ; and not till the Nineteenth Century was the facade finished after a competition in designs by the best artists of the land. The interior of the cathedral is not greatly impres- sive except for its size and coolness. Its dome is a 437 EIGHT LANDS IN 438 EIGHT WEEKS marvel. Think of some room or series of rooms you know that give you a length of 133 feet; swing this diameter around for your circle, fling up the great vault, and then lift the whole thing on high until it reaches a point of 300 feet; add a lantern of fifty feet above this, and you have wherewith to remember Brunelleschi's Dome. But when you begin your study of Giotto's Tower, then you will be ready to despair. Every panel below demands study for its bas-reliefs of trades, profes- sions, daily life; above these are niches with saints; then Gothic windows with carved settings, loftier and loftier as they rise, so that those up in the region of church-steeple height may not seem dwarfed as you look at them ; and above all a rich and heavy cornice. This is the tower of towers for chaste and elaborate beauty. After all this you can imagine that the torrid mid- day had come — that every tram we tried to take was bound for the wrong place — that there was a grand opportunity for studying maps and choosing shady sides of streets — that there was despair when we en- tered one where the sun poured straight down the centre — that some of us thought some others did not show their ordinary good sense as guides — and that when we reached our hotel we were rejoiced to find that blessed front door ajar. We had been thinking with longing of the palms of our garden. What a perfect hotbed it was ! We had meditated letter- writing in the library and garden corridor. How they steamed and burned! Our final resource was a good, hot lunch with plenty of ice in the water coolers, and then an afternoon in our dark, dark bedrooms with the wooden shutters just admitting light enough to write the home letters. But when, later in the afternoon, I found the curly-headed bell-boy in his 439 EIGHT LANDS IN woolen suit asleep in his sentry box in the hall, and tried to draw from him the fact that the day was too hot for comfort, "troppo caldo, troppo, caldo," I could get nothing but "No, no, Signora," and a scorn- ful laugh. Good night, and cooling breezes to you through your cottage windows. M. 440 EIGHT WEEKS XLVIII— FLORENTINE ART. Florence, August 16-17. Dear people: Did you ever hear of the small boy who prayed short — "Dear God, please bless me, and do everything for everybody that needs to be done for them; for Jesus' sake, amen"? "That's the way I pray, mother, when I pray short." Well, this is a "hot spell," and a "dry time," and I shall "pray short." We've taken that fine tram ride across the river, winding up by long curves to the Piazzale, or terrace, Michael Angelo, resting our light-dazzled eyes on dark cypresses and dull-green olives along the way; we have then climbed up to that quiet church of San Miniato which I referred to in my remarks on basilicas, and explored the adjoin- ing cemetery. Italians set great store by their cem- eteries — I can hardly say by their burial places in gen- eral, for the poor have to be hustled together in com- mon pits, or else buried in temporary, close-set graves, which are emptied after some thirty years and used over again, the bones left from the former burial in quicklime being stored away in some assigned vault. But the show cemeteries are for the rich, and are such a mass of marble walls, marble-covered vaults, marble temples, marble stairs and terraces, marble angels, and marble men and women in marble broadcloths and laces, as reminds one of the old Romans, who made their tombs by the Via Appia a kind of accom- paniment to their promenades. We have also sped up to lovely Fiesole by another 441 EIGHT LANDS IN electric tram ; and after an exploration of the cathe- dral's interior, and admiration of its old round pillars, we went on to the ancient Roman theatre in the hill- side, uncovered from concealing earth and rubbish, some years ago; sat on the curved seats, penetrated to a strange little chapel with a pagan altar, looked down on some huge Etruscan walls under those of Roman building and, beside them, on three small children of the land who sang a catch by which to dance — one girl in red picking up her skirt with bal- let effect, the little one holding hers to catch the soldi. "Un soldo, Signora; prego, Signora. Signora, Signora, un soldo, un soldo" — "a penny, please, lady, a penny !" After this we bought straw hats and straw bags of the country people's weaving; refused more appeals for soldi, and caught our tram in time to find that one of us had left a guide-book among the ruins of the theatre. The result — an additional walk among reminders of the past and some curious thoughts about the combination — a Roman theatre, Etruscan walls, a dancing maiden, a Baedeker's guide-book. After this came a wild career down the old paved road with a thought of crossing somewhere the more grad- ual slope of the tramway; beautiful changing views of the towers and roofs of Florence seen between hillside villas and over vine-covered walls ; water- melon at a certain roadside inn, the melon so abundant and tempting at fruit stalls and market carts, — so rare on hotel tables ; and last, tram number two, and a cool ride home to a late dinner, with this entry in some- body's notebook : "The best of cut-offs made on foot seldom overtakes the slowest of electric trams." In the mornings we have gone on with churches and museums. Santa Maria Novella, not so very far from us, grows better looking on acquaintance ; has a court walled in with marble that is rather fascinat- 442 EIGHT WE.EKS ing, especially when one can't find out which gate to try for entrance, and of which policeman to get cor- rect information about hours of closing. "It is certainly open, Signora. It is not yet noon, and the church is open." Perhaps it was, but we had to go at another hour to find it so. Once inside, however, all our trouble was repaid, and we wanted to spend the rest of our sojourn there. The Dominicans and Franciscans were as great rivals as their founders had been friends. Following the example set by these, the Franciscans found their mission primarily in the preaching and practice of love and mercy, affected poverty in every way, wore the brown robe girded with a rope, and were the trusted friends of the poor; while the Dominicans looked well after education, produced great thinkers and writers, greatest of them all St. Thomas Aquinas, whose Institutes of Theology are still a standard in the Roman Catholic Church, and were generally patronized by the rich. Well, this Dominican church, begun some fifteen years before Santa Croce, had the wealth of the aris- tocracy of Florence to advance its building and furnish its decorations. It has much more elegance of marble pillars and gilded chapels than the other; and also a store of ancient paintings that, if possible, excels those. We thought nothing could outdo those walls covered by the brush of Giotto with his well- conceived historic and domestic scenes. But here we have two transepts that are unique ; both lifted up above the level of the nave and approached by lateral flights of steps ; and one contains, what do you think ? — that veritable old Madonna by Cimabue, Giotto's teacher, the Madonna with the Byzantine face and stiff hands, the conventional Madonna on a throne up- held by lovely and loving angels — a little hand pres- 443 EIGHT LANDS IN sure from each, as though this, from an angel, were a better support than stone or steel ; that Madonna, I say, which was shown in the studio as a great favor to a visiting king, and afterwards conveyed in pomp to its permanent home in the church. All the city took holiday, and so great were the shouts of joy in the quarter where the artist lived that it was christ- ened the "Borgo Allegri." We can distinctly see the creases between the boards on which the. picture is painted; its colors are very dark, but still distinguishable after 600 years. We are glad that we came in the morning when the light is good, and that we have this transept to ourselves except for two scholarly Germans, who are quietly admiring. For certainly Cimabue's Madonna is to be admired. When you consider the Byzantine models that were his starting point, the staring eyes, emaciated fea- tures, and the stiff hands which it was almost sacrilege to vary, you wonder at the quiet dignity he has con- trived to introduce, and at the touch of love and ad- miration given by his angels. Just the immensity of that colossal queen and her colossal throne are a thing to impress one, and to show the thoughts that were in the mind of the painter. It was he who found the little Giotto making pictures on stones while he tended his sheep, took him to his studio, and educated him to accomplish what his master had dreamed of. As we cross to the other transept we go into the choir and view another double set of frescoes, the fin- est of Ghirlandajo's works ; and he is a great painter just before the Cinque Cento. Here again John the Baptist demands one whole wall, the Virgin Mary the opposite; and it makes one feel as though on a visit to the days of the Christian Era to be looking into the home scenes of Saint Anne and Saint Elizabeth. 444 EIGHT WEEKS And now for the north transept and the great Orcagna. Above the window facing you are angels blowing long trumpets to call the dead to judgment; for that you will have to depend mostly on pho- tograph, because the light blinds instead of helping you. On the right and left walls are immense repre- sentations of the Inferno and the Paradiso, reaching from wainscoting to vault. No one could study the former except he were interested as a medical student is in a dissecting room ; for what art can there ever be in depicting as realistically as possible the suffer- ings of the lost? That is what Bernardo Orcagna did, Giotto's pupil, thinking, I suppose, to do God service and win a fine salary by frightening sinners into the kingdom. I am sure he was a poor sleeper, for when he did not lie awake at night thinking up his devils and flames and boiling pots, he must have been frightened awake by the terror of those that he had already conjured into frescoes. His brother Andrea, however, treated the opposite theme, and how wonderfully he thought it out ! Our Lord and His Mother enthroned in the middle, and below them two archangels — these four colossal ; and on both sides rows and rows of the glorified, each with harp or lute or viol, each with haloed head, many of them with faces turned to the Christ, some looking out into the world; a few angel forms near the thrones blowing upon their long trumpets ; and then in the foreground below a throng of the redeemed, who have just come up from their graves, have not yet received their aureoles, and are greeting one another with bliss and surprise upon their faces. Andrea must have been a saintly man to do it ; but do you think he had a human bit of satisfaction in thinking how his brother's horrors would compel tender souls to turn to him for consolation? 445 EIGHT LANDS IN And now from this full feast we are conducted by a ministering monk through a gate into a cloister, and from there to a second, then down some steps into the "Spanish Chapel," which is a third full-fledged ex- hibition of frescoes. St. Dominic was from Spain, so the chapel in his especial honor bears this Spanish name ; and the cloister by which it is reached, having been decorated with a series of scenes in greenish gray, goes by the name of the Green Cloister. In Dresden there is a Green Vault. These two sound a little alike; but there is a mighty difference between that green-tapestried treasury of diamonds and bric- a-brac and this old cloister with the faded forms of beauty. In the Spanish Chapel you will see on one side St. Thomas Aquinas among prophets, angels and saints, with all the Christian Virtues in female loveli- ness below him; opposite, the Church Militant and Triumphant ; in the middle, great saints and little men coming in procession to the heaven-high gate where Peter holds the keys ; above, the glories of Heaven ; below, the lambs of the flock snugly laid up on a table while the Dominicans, as spotted dogs, drive off the heretic wolves. This last was a grand joke with the order, a play upon their name as meaning the Lord's dogs — Domini canes. On the other walls are the Crucifixion and the "Preaching to the Souls in Prison." This last is a favorite theme with the old painters, representing Christ descended into Hell and bringing up thence loyal souls who had been awaiting from Old Testament times the coming of their Redeemer. If you are as fortunate as we were, you will find in this chapel a delightful American woman just full of the symbolic meanings on these four walls, and more than happy to spill over some of her superabundance into your empty vessels. If you have an hour left before that ever-impending 446 EIGHT WEEKS lunch, you may make your way to San Lorenzo and see two remarkable chapels in its crypt; the first all colored marbles, inlaid floors, gilded tombs to do honor to the Medicean dukes ; the second, severely simple in white and gray, with two tombs to earlier Medici which alone would have established Michael Angelo's fame — his "Day and Night," "Morning and Evening" ; strong men rousing themselves to action, strong women sink- ing into sleep. Do you know the charming story about this dead asleep woman, Night? When the statue was put on exhibition a contemporary poet attached this pretty compliment to it: La notte che tu vedi in si dolci atti Dormire, fu da un Angelo scolpita. In questo sasso, e perche dorme ha vita, Destala, se no'l credi, e parleratti. Night, whom you see in these soft attitudes Asleep, was by an Angel sculptured In this stone, and because she sleeps she has life. Touch her, if you do not believe it, and she will speak to you. But the sculptor, who was eating out his soul fcr grief of his land betrayed and its liberties sold, wrote this stanza in return : Grato mi e'l sonno e piu l'esser di sasso, Mentre che'l danno e la vergogna dura. Non veder, non sentir mi e gran ventura. Pero non me destar ; deh ! parla basso. Grateful to me is sleep, still more so to be of stone While ruin and shame endure. Not to see, not to feel is to me great good fortune ; Therefore touch me not ; I pray you, speak low ! 447 EIGHT LANDS IN After this visit you must go to the Belle Arti and see the sculptor's colossal David, the one that for three centuries stood as warden at the Palazzo Vec- chio portal — now housed under the cupola of a mu- seum with all Michael Angelo's other creations, slaves, pietas, Moses, set up around him in plaster casts. This David goes by the name of "II Gigante." Prob- ably you know the tale of his origin ; how the great master — then a youth in his twenties — cut this young athlete from a block of marble that had been rejected on account of its unavailable shape. Most sculptors, I have been told, after making their finished model in clay, set their skilled workmen to clipping cautiously away until the rough figure appears and then do the last careful cutting themselves. Not so Michael Angelo. He looked at that huge, unshapely block till he saw within it a strong young man like himself, with sling in hand and scorn, and trust, and courage in his face; and then he took his chisel and mallet and re- leased the imprisoned hero. While you are at the Belle Arti you will also go in among the old, old painters long enough to see an- other of Cimabue's Madonnas on a different throne, and Fabriano's worshipping Magi in gilded crowns and cloaks, and some choice Filippo Lippis and Angel- icos and Botticellis. But I think it is, on the whole, better to study these ancients after you have learned to love those whose standards are a little nearer our own. You may remember that the two great galleries still lie before us; and if to-morrow we can make a journey through them, we shall be ready to take our leave of Florence, — as I now do for the night from you. M. 448 EIGHT WEEKS XLIX— FIRENZE LA BELLA. Florence, August 18. Dear and overcrowded friends: I confess that Florence ought not to be visited at a season when the middle of the day must be spent within doors. We hardly more than make a beginning of our sight-seeing by noon ; and towards night, what can one do but haunt the shops and cool off in the trams? This morning, however, we will walk the whole length of the two great galleries and see what we may. I have mentioned before the great names to be noted here; and so far as they are unfamiliar to you, I recommend a method I have found useful in the past. Get from an art history or some reliable friend a catchword or two for the characteristics of each artist, and stick to that word till your own observation corroborates it, or changes and adds to it. Thus I remember how "musical angels" helped me out with Fra Angelico, "fluttering drapery" with Botticelli, and various other terms which I have now forgotten, with other painters. Next, if I may give advice, try to love a painter for the superior qualities which he has, instead of spending your whole time in trying to account for those which he has not. Most of them are not beyond criticism ; but most of them can also do some one thing better than any of their fellows, and immeasurably better than you or I could do it. With some it is coloring, with others, grouping; with 449 EIGHT LANDS IN this one texture, and softness of flesh; with that one anatomy, splendid motion; here you find remarkably good perspective, there fine bits of landscape in the backgrounds; — for most of these Florentine paintings are figure pieces; landscape as a main theme has not yet found its place. In Fra Angelico's figures there is always devotion and music ; we know that he offered a prayer before beginning each picture, and I think he must have sung a hymn while at his work, so rhyth- mic and melodic are his angels. In Botticelli's people you feel the deepest sincerity and unconsciousness of self ; if their draperies flutter and their hair crimps, that is none of their devising. But here we are, at the Uffizi, with its tremendous stairs to climb — a lift, however, if you are willing to pay for it — its long corridors, and its score of halls, the walls hung solid with paintings, the floors well occupied with statues. You would better not omit any double-starred halls, however doubtful you are of their attractions; for you will be sorry when you go home to confess to having overlooked the Venus de Medici, Andrea del Sarto's Madonnas, or the mar- ble group of Niobe and her children. Be sure to see the Madonna by Fra Angelico in the gold frame set with angels. However much you may disapprove the Mary herself and the doll-like child, you can't pass by those heavenly musicians against the gold back- ground of the frame whom you will be meeting again in copy all over the world. Now follow the corridor of sketches and engravings along the Lungarno, over the old bridge, and up and down stairs till you find yourself in the Pitti Palace. Here you have only some 600 paintings to look at, but, alas ! all masterpieces, so they say ; and the palace halls in which they are set up, a study in themselves. You'll meet many old friends here — the Madonna of 45° EIGHT WEEKS the Chair, Raphael's Popes, Titian's Flora, the Ma- donna of the Grand Duke, and others. If you happen to remember that Marie de Medici, whom we saw in great display by Rubens in the Louvre, came from here to be queen of France, and that the first opera ever composed was performed here at her wedding; it will not make this mountain of squared stones less interesting. Perhaps, too, you can get a look at the beautiful Boboli Gardens in the rear, which are open only at certain times. Now if we glance over our list, I think we find only the Bargello and San Marco left. The former was in old days the residence of the Podesta, and has been converted into a National Museum. This term signi- fies, as we have learned in other countries, a collection of works of home production. But what else than this are most of the galleries of the city? So many and so great are the Florentine artists that they leave little room for outsiders. In this Bargello, besides the quaint old court and staircase, there are the faint frescoes of the time of Dante, representing a procession of the worthies of that date by their contemporary, Giotto; and in the halls are sculptures by Donatello and by Ghiberti, who made the bronze doors of the baptistery ; the bronze Mercury by John of Bologna, which poises on tiptoe ready to do the errands of the gods; and colored busts, terra cotta reliefs, wax models. San Marco is but a few blocks from our hotel, and we slip it in after our noon-day rest. But no, — the porter says it is dosed. "Chiuso ! Why certainly not till four o'clock !" "Chiuso, Signora, at fifteen hours and forty-five !" "But it is only fifteen hours thirty, now, and we shall have no other opportunity ! We depart to-morrow, Signore, and we will go very quickly, if you will let us in ; a little quarter of an 45i EIGHT LANDS IN hour, Signore. Is it not so?" And how we speed along those sombre corridors to Savonarola's cell at the end, where, as Prior, he ruled the brotherhood and reached out to rule the city-republic; where, alas, he endured days of humiliation and discouragement, and bowed before this crucifix before going to his martyr death! How eagerly we glance in at cell after cell where Fra Angelico and his pupils painted one fresco each for every Dominican monk — a crucifixion often- est of all, to keep the thoughts of the brothers on sin and death and self-renunciation; but sometimes a prayer in the Garden, with the sleeping disciples, a silent warning against the weakness of the flesh; sometimes a Mary with hands upon her breast, receiv- ing a crown from her glorified son ; and once a Trans- figuration so spiritual in its simplicity that one ques- tions whether it is not the greatest of all treatments of this mystical theme. Against an oval of light, like a great aureole, stands Our Lord with arms out- stretched, his down-hanging robe adding to the great whiteness — no vision of the Father about him but what you can guess from the absorbed look of his face and the motionless attitude of his transfigured body ; Moses and Elias at either side like attendants fearing to disturb him, and the three disciples struck down in amazement and abasement at his feet. It is a great picture in a small compass. And what difference in character do you think it produced upon a monk to be ever looking toward a transfigured or toward a suf- fering Christ? Were there heart-burning and envy- ings at the times of allotting rooms? Or did each meek-souled brother accept his fresco as he did his daily crust of bread ? San Marco was rich in artists, for Fra Bartolommeo, almost a century later than Fra Angelico, became a monk out of devotion to Savonarola, and painted the 452 EIGHT WEEKS portrait of the Prior preserved in his cell ; and other artists put splendid works upon the walls of porch and cloisters and refectory. But all the time that we look and try to learn, friar number one is eagerly showing us the best — the real Angelicos — and skipping the works of apprentices, while friar number two is sardonically shaking his keys just behind us, and locking doors like any peni- tentiary turnkey. "Molte grazie, Signore, molte grazie ; addio, Signore" ; and with smiles, bows and coins not too small we accept our dismissal from the convent door, and take refuge for a few moments in the cool of the church before daring the blast of the afternoon sun. How familiar it has become to us, this close, cool, incense-laden air, these scattered wor- shipers on their knees, telling beads or crossing themselves at their favorite shrines ; this heavy baize or leather curtain at the door, oily from the hands of thousands ; this blind or deaf or crippled beggar who is sure to be lurking for us just outside ! All this is very unlike church-going at home ; and may it be to us and our heartstrings a suppling process, and to our eyes a surgical operation of casting out of beams. The clock strikes more than bedtime, and I am anxious to open those shutters and let in the cool, or at least cooler, night air. All other good and great things you wish to know about this city of the flowers you will find set down by writers many and enthu- siastic. To-morrow we start for Rome. Before we leave we shall see the housemaids leaning out at our re- ception hall windows and saying that it is much, much fresher — "piu fresco, Signora" — and we hope it will be true. Yours with warmest love, M. 453 EIGHT LANDS IN A curious toy, carven in ivory And set in velvet of the Apennines ; Bridges, like clasps, across a flood of gold, Mosaic towers, castles of costly stones; Then roses all around, ablush zvith joy; Gray olive groves, and vines, and cypresses Against the rocks of old Fie sole; And great names up and down the streets; And up and down the centuries, great names, great names. 454 EIGHT WEEKS L— FROM FLORENCE TO ROME. August 19th. Now which will you choose, Beloved, when three ways lie before you from the great city to the great- est ? from the city of the lily to the city of the eagle ? from the valley among the Apennines to the seven hills on the Campagna, from the glories of the Re- naissance to the ruins of the classic, from Florence the beautiful to Rome the ruler of the world? Which way shall we take that will lead us with prepared- ness of mind? "All roads lead to Rome." "How is that?" I asked, as a child, and how that is, and what it means, I never appreciated till I began to realize the grasp which the capital held on every part of its empire by means of its military roads. They were always ready to send conquering legions afar or to bring slaves and tribute home. The deep-laid, firm-set road was, through the ages, what to us are our railroads, our telegraphs, and our steamship lines. In every city of Italy that we pass through there is some part of the history that touches Rome, depends upon Rome, causes us to look up to Rome ; and in every one some trace of the Roman road that used to be the permanent, outward bond of union. And now we, too, are bound for Rome ; and although some of us may claim that St. Peter's is the great attraction or that the Vatican gal- leries outshine for us all the fallen pomps, we know well enough that it is the ruins of the past that we 455 EIGHT LANDS IN must see, whatever we may omit, and that great Rome the fallen is our goal. Already in this rumbling train I hear My Lady Practical crooning to herself, — "This Rome that sat on her seven hills, and from her throne of beauty ruled the world." By any route we must pass through the strong- holds of Etruria, coming to the Romans by way of the Etruscans ; and that is good, so more of it anon. But now consider your choice. If we turn due west we may follow the Arno down to the sea, reach Pisa, the maritime city of the west, as Venice was of the east, the fierce enemy or valued friend of the other republics, and thence through Leghorn and south be- side the Mediterranean all the way to Rome. What would you not give for just one hour to see those four dainty giants, or colossal fairies, or whatever pretty epithet you choose to apply, rise from the solid, well-swept streets of commonplace Pisa? I mean, of course, the four that stand by themselves on their ecclesiastical piazza, the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, the Baptistery, the Campo Santo. In marble that has yellowed like alabaster they lift superb among their work-a-day neighbors the classic elegance of their pillared arcades, a wonder, a dream ! Credit me, please, with several pages on Pisa skipped, for you are not to go that way, nor to see the deep-hanging candelabrum swing that set Galileo's mathematical speculations in motion, nor climb the slanting tower from which he dropped his plummets and weights in testing his new-found laws of motion. Yon shall not hear the haunting echo in the baptistery, nor guess out the old frescoes of the Campo Santo cloisters, nor look upon the sacred soil from Jerusalem ; for not so has the itinerary man decreed. But if, instead, you follow the Arno just a little way, and then turn south, you may pass through 456 EIGHT WEEKS Sienna, eminent among the hill towns, ancient seat of a school of artists, Sienna of the Mangia tower, more slender and beautiful than even that of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence ; Sienna of the marvellous cathe- dral, more lovely in its fagade than anything you will see after leaving Venice. In Sienna you would look about the city square and say, — Yes, this is worthy to he called the most beautiful piazza in Italy. In Sienna you would come to know not only the artists, but the Saints Catherine and Bernardino, so that you would not confound this Catherine of Sienna, who had visions and lived in a hermitage, and persuaded the Pope to bring back his residence from Avignon to Rome, with that earlier St. Catherine of Alexandria whom the painters represent as wedded by a ring to the infant Christ. Neither would you confound this Ber- nardino of Sienna, who wrought many miracles of mercy in central Italy and has given his name to many oratories, with those three Saint Bernards who are beloved of the Church, Bernard of the Crusades, Ber- nard of the Latin hymn, and Bernard of the Swiss hospices. But, dear cyclopedias of art and history, neither are you to go by way of high-topping Sienna. Just pack up your anticipated knowledge and lay it away in lavender ; for the itinerary man, knowing the exigencies of this tour, has booked us by the shortest route, which is called "via Terontola and Chiusi ;" and as we never heard of either of these, we anticipate a mental rest. But first, we are passing through Etruria, the Etruscan land, modern Tuscany, and must keep our eyes out for some of those twelve cities that were the confidence of their mighty builders. A wonderful people they were that came down from the plain of the Po in prehistoric times, conquered the Umbrians and kindred tribes of this part of the peninsula, estab- 457 EIGHT LANDS IN lished themselves in the strength of the hills, built with huge shapen but uncemented stones that still appear in the foundations of mafry city walls and that have acquired the name of Cyclopean because it would seem as though nothing short of the fabled strength of the Cyclops could have handled them ; were masters in the use of the arch and in the construction of sew- ers; gave the three last kings to the little city of Rome, and then, matching strength against her, found themselves beaten on their own ground and forced to enter into alliance. So advanced were they in arts ornamental, as well as useful, that Etruscan vases are prized in every museum ; so ready to utilize the prog- ress of neighboring nations that they did not despise Greek themes and styles in decoration ; but so original that they produced an iridescent glass hard to imitate, and wrote in a language that has baffled the most clever interpreters. Their tombs, also, are a strange mixture of revelations and concealments, which we might study by stopping over at Arezzo, Cortona, or any one of the "twelve cities ;" for in the necropolises near all of these are the remains of subterranean vaults, sometimes in perfect preservation, in which have been found stone caskets or terra cotta urns hold- ing the ashes of their dead; also sarcophagi with un- burned bodies and articles of dress, ornament and food, laid with the dead for their long journey. Arezzo and Cortona, then, as we pass them, mean to us not merely some devout and eager painters of a half mil- lennium ago, but doughty warriors and canny build- ers of thrice that period of time. Are we looking out on the olives and vines of poet- sung Tuscany, or on the fortresses and tombs of the cyclopean Etruscans ? Well, they are both in evidence ; for here comes first this blooming valley of the ChiantJ. oric^e, a, lake, they say, this valley that has been 458 EIGHT WEEKS turned from a swamp into a garden for maize and cabbage and salads, as well as the more poetic vine and fig tree ; and here flows, or lies, the little River Chianti that, like ourselves, is undecided which way to go ; for whereas it formerly showed allegiance to the Tiber, and sent its waters trickling to the south, it has been induced to discharge most of them through a canal into the Arno, turning back to Florence and Pisa, and so makes a continuous line of water between the start- ing point and terminus of to-day's journey. But along beside of it, on the limestone hills, we see those lofty sites that attracted the builders of strongholds ; and as we whiz by one and another ruin of a castle tower, one and another swallow-nest of a city, close built against a steep rock cliff, we feel that we begin to understand the Etruscans. Later on we come to Terontola, and find it, also, to be a not unknown land; for it marks the northwest corner of Lake Trasimenus ; and My Lady of the Veil brings out that little fountain of history that she has always on tap, to tell us how Hannibal and his thou- sands, coming down from Lombardy and the Apen- nines as we have done, had passed Arezzo and the Romans there encamped — again like ourselves, with- out stopping — had then lain low along the hills to the north of this lake, waiting, listening, and not in vain ; for the Roman Flaminius, speeding on to overtake them before they should reach Rome, fell into the trap, marched between the occupied hills and the lake, saw no bristling spears through the morning fog, heard no neighing of horses or trumpeting of ele- phants, but became suddenly aware of a great troop swooping down on his flank and rear, laid down his own life to no purpose, and left the brooks running red with the blood of his legions. Strange sights we see as we look away to the quiet lake, with peaceful 459 EIGHT LANDS IN villages running down to its banks, and fishermen's nets stretched in its waters. At Terontola a line diverges to Perugia and Assisi, where Etruscan walls and tombs again attract us, and the pictures of Perugino and his school; also the churches and haunts of St. Francis, with whose life of love we became acquainted last Sunday in Giotto's frescoes at Santa Croce. We'll just throw a greeting that way as we speed by, and say, as so often before, "Some other time." And next we are at Chiusi, which as we might have foreseen, turns out to be ancient Clusium of Lars Porsenna fame ; and soon after we are trying to decide which, among all the rock-perched fortresses to right and left, is that greatest of all, that medieval refuge of the Popes, Orvieto. This city would be famous enough if it had no distinction but its cathedral ; for Sienna and Orvieto present the two most splendid ex- amples of polychrome facades south of Venice ; and when you want an architectural treat you will look up all the illustrated books you can find about them both, and then throw on your imagination the burden of out- stripping their best presentations. But for now, as Etruscans are to the front with us, prepare yourself to imagine a city of their building on this rock long before the world had heard of popes ; and a Roman conquest of that city in which 2,000 statues were car- ried off as booty ! There are not many of our ad- vanced modern cities that would run any risk of los- ing two thousand statues in war. While following up these exciting ancient towns with our guide book, we are wondering how they ever were supported from such barren-looking soil. Such giant pyramids of rock and clay and sand — so they look — were never in our sight before. Little rills of the same yellow color trickle through the valleys 460 EIGHT WEEKS and pretend to be incipient Tibers. How can this evidence of our eyes be consistent with the historic tales we have been telling? Well, in the first place, the yellow soil belies itself; it is the real stuff from which grapes and nuts and olives get their oils and juices. In the second place, it is August just now, and a dry time at that, when Nature is taking her after-dinner nap. And, last and most important, have you marked how many of these tawny mountains are speckled with black dots to their very tops — a kind of a calico print pattern, as though it had been stamped by machinery ? That is our first plain illustration of a prodigious work that Italy has -^ jJ ( x \* vAWS J',' .''IF 461 EIGHT LANDS IN undertaken in recent years — the reclothing of all the barren land of her peninsula. Every one of these dots is a tree that has been planted for fruit or for timber, many of them in places so steep that you would think the arboriculturist must work from a balloon ; and the reason that all the ground underneath lies yellow as clay is because, after the thrifty manner of this land, the soil is commanded to produce double, trees above and grain or vegetables or grass beneath. All of that barren brass is just waiting for September rains to turn it into emerald ; and then you will begin to know how Italian cities are fed. If we were traveling now through some of the flat-lying plains of southern or eastern Italy, we should notice, as we did in Lom- bardy, how much of the land is cultivated in long, straight fields and gardens, laid out at right angles to the railroads. That means the same public institution of great agricultural works ; that fields long barren through neglect of drainage or encroachment of un- healthful swamps, have been recovered by the state and sold or leased in these sections now so conspic- uous, to the peasant farmers, who in turn have been recovered as well from a life of happy-go-lucky pov- erty to a state of diligent prosperity. Everywhere men, women and children are at work in the fields. The farmer does not aspire to the dress or the style of living of the townsman ; a simple home, a working suit for every day and something smarter for Sunday ; no head covering for the women but the ubiquitous kerchief, in white or in colors, that she- understands so well to adapt for warmth or for shade ; the children always helping in their small way ; every scrap of brush saved for fuel, and every leaf or root from the garden utilized for soups or salads — these are the things that make it possible to live on small invest- 462 EIGHT' WEEKS ments, and that furnish the "cheap labor" that is almost the only cheap thing left in Italy. For the gov- ernment, to do its great works, must lay heavy taxes, and sugar, tobacco and salt do a good deal of this revivifying of the land ; clothing and all imported wares are high, and it seems to us outsiders as though nothing but wine and vegetables were obtainable at low prices. No wonder that the beautiful vine, willing to spring from any crevice or cranny, seems to the people their one resourceful luxury, their food and drink, their appetizer and their assuager of ills. Wise men shake their heads and say : "Too much wine in Italy" — "troppo vino, troppo vino," "cio monte al capo" — that goes to the head. But it does make the hills to rejoice, this proud and laughing vine, that never is tired of well-doing, and My Lady of the Star declares that she doesn't blame those poor creatures if they love the only thing that lifts them out of their everlasting plodding. Neither does she blame them for taking their religion ready-made to hand, and for thinking that processions and images and lighted can- dles are just as much God service as Bible reading and the Ten Commandments; they are a kind and courteous people, pretty honest, too ; and they don't work off their ill-nature on their children or their beasts; so she is inclined to give them a long credit mark in her notebook, and to be pretty good to all the little Dagos, and the big ones, too, whom she may fall in with when she gets back to the western land of plenty. Whereupon, beloveds, we have passed this scorch- ing afternoon and all this serpentining whirl among the yellow mountains, and we are entering that rolling prairie known as the Campagna; the softly swelling Sabine Hills lie at our left, and My Lady in Green 463 EIGHT LANDS IN has offered a prize for the first weary traveler who shall discover a line of aqueduct arches along the hor- izon, or the dome of St. Peter's rising afar. Our good night greeting, then, from the city of the Caesars. M. 464 EIGHT WEEKS LI— THE NIOBE OF NATIONS. I dare say you'll not be surprised, dear friends, to know that the outgoing hotel mailbag was unusually heavy this morning. From many parts of Fairyland have we called to our fellows at home to look and rejoice in the bliss of our attainments; but never be- fore from such depths and heights as when we super- scribe our epistles with the name of Rome. Of course, all of our fountain pens needed filling, and we had not yet found that boon of travelers which now for two hours has enriched our handbags — dry ink; so some of us even had recourse to vile lead pencils in our zeal of correspondence. But now that we have slept on this astounding fact, that we are here, we have settled down to a practical and orderly disposal of the matter in hand. My Lady of the Guide Book tells us that for convenience of reference we will do well to assign our knowledge, as excavators do their finds, to definite collections; and she suggests the three big departments of ancient Rome, Rome of the Popes, and Rome of the Kingdom of Italy. But here again we shall need subdivisions, and ancient Rome can be taken in three parts: Rome of the Kings (753- 510 B. C), Rome of the Republic (510-28 B. C), and 465 EIGHT LANDS IN Rome of the Empire (28 B. C. to 476 A. D.). Not that she in the least expects us to carry these dates always around in our pockets, but that she considers it reasonable for every Roman visitor to know that this city was first built and ruled by kings, presumably seven in number, Romulus — a somewhat shadowy and legendary hero — being the first; that tyranny on the part of the seventh, Tarquinius Superbus, drove the young nation into republicanism, and that, after five hundred years of rule by consuls, tribunes and their fellows, these republicans killed the man whom they suspected of aspiring to a kingly crown — Julius Caesar; but allowed his able nephew, Octavius, to assume the very same monarchial power under a name that they had not learned to dread — imperator or emperor ; that with him, Octavius Augustus, began that long succession of emperors good and bad, who reigned ostensibly as the agents of a republican gov- ernment, but really as monarchs of almost unlimited power, until the time when the oncoming hordes from the north — those whom we heard of in Venice and Lombardy — deposed the last of an enervated line, and broke up Italy for centuries to come into a patchwork of duchies, counties and city republics. Of the Rome of the Popes she would have us know that from Pepin and Charlemagne, kings of the Franks, they received their first landed estates and power as temporal monarchs; that from the famous year 800 A. D. on, they claimed the right to give or to withhold the imperial crown of the new emperors of the north, and that these emperors, in turn, claimed the right of sanction to whoever was chosen by the cardinals as pope ; a charming, double-handed arrange- ment, or non-arrangement, you see, by which pope and emperor at least had a chance of always being in hot water. Under the rule of the popes, she would have 466 EIGHT WEEKS us notice that the great ruins of the mighty past, ruined during wars with invading barbarians, received so little reverence from their papal majesties that they were used instead to pave their palaces, pillar their churches, and, in general, to serve as quarries of mar- ble and sculpture — nay, even were burned into lime for cementing their bricks. But while they robbed old Rome to build Rome of the Middle Ages, these popes also acted as patrons to artists of the Renais- sance, and, in beautifying their palaces and churches, made it possible for the Michael Angelos and Raphaels to become monarchs in art. For Rome of the latest period My Lady gives us the date 1870, since which time the pope has retired to the Vatican, under protest, of course, and Rome has been the capital of the new kingdom. This period has been signalized by great activity in building, by the dividing up of old princely estates into city blocks, by great improvements of laying out corsi (boulevards) and piazzi, of embanking and bridging the Tiber and, most of all, of establishing a regular system of preserving the public ruins such as the forums, arches, baths and Colosseum, and of carrying on excavations where practicable. At this point came our carriage to take us for a first general drive about the city, and later I will report to you what we are doing and what we are proposing to omit. My Lady of the Guide Book has a pet scheme for locating the Seven Hills of Rome, and declares that with it in mind we can quickly know Rome like our everyday pockets ; which, considering that women no longer have pockets, may be true. She does not, how- ever, use this scheme tyrannically, like a Nero, but al- lows me to put it in for the help of the like minded. 467 EIGHT LANDS IN First, then, draw the Tiber like an uncertain letter S flowing to the south, and eventually southwest to the sea. Right against its eastern curve, where lies the one island of the river — the island which the an- cients walled at the southeast to look like the prow of a ship, and adorned with a statue of the physician god /Esculapius and his serpent (look up all that pretty story in your most gossipy history of Rome), oppo- site this island put the first and most important hill, which Romulus is fabled to have walled with those squared stones that you can still see at the base of its ruins — the Palatine, easily remembered from the pal- aces that gave it its name, and still visited for the sake of the ruins of the later royal dwellings, the palaces of the Caesars. Our history is well enough in hand now, is it not, so that we at once put these quadrate walls and their palaces in the times of the kings, six and seven centuries before Christ, and the palaces of the Caesars, in the times of the emperors, from the Chris- tian era on — these emperors having all prided them- selves in the name of the first of their line. Against four sides of this Palatine Hill, and in this order, northwest, southwest, southeast, northeast, place the hills that end with the sound of the letter n, and mark them Ca, A, Ce, E — that is Capitoline, Av- entine, Celian, Esquiline. In the space north of the last crowd in two wedge-shaped hills, 'the Viminal and the Ouirinal, and leave a little room between them and the Tiber for the ancient Campus Martius, or drill ground, where now lies a large part of the business section of the city. From the Capitoline draw a line southeast beside the Palatine to mark the position of the Forum. Of these all, the first remembers itself, as our con- tinental friends say, without difficulty, and the Cap- itoline, where stood the Capitol, looking from its pre- 468 EIGHT WEEKS cipitous cliff the length of the Forum, does likewise. Never mind the rest, unless you happen to be a teacher of Roman history and must; except for the Quirinal, which is the seat of the king's palace of to-day and is therefore used to designate the royal power — the government. When you wall in these seven hills with that structure of stone and brick that zigzags for eight miles from Tiber to Tiber, about fifty feet in height, and set with some 300 towers, you have essen- tially the same city that has existed since the times of the early emperors, except for the big triangular district west of the Tiber that long ago took in Mt. Janiculum, that vantage ground for Etruscan ene- mies, or any others approaching from the west. With Janiculum walled, it was comparatively easy to defend the few ancient bridges over the Tiber. This section is now known as Trastevere — across the Tiber. The earliest wall was the so-called Wall of Romulus, around the Palatine; the next the so-called Servian Wall, from one of the Etruscan kings, which took in parts only of the seven hills; the next the Aurelian Wall, which has been continued, destroyed, and re- stored, to this day. But one great section remained for the popes to add — Mons Vaticanus, northwest of the Tiber, made sacred by the grave of St. Peter and the church erected over it, and early provided with the immense Papal Palace (only 11,000 rooms, they claim), to which the pope now confines himself as a protest against the rule of a king in Rome. When the Quirinal decrees, that means the king; when the Vatican, that means the pope ; and if you who have never been here have a clear idea that the whole re- gion of St. Peter's and the Vatican lies away off across the river from the ancient city, near to Nero's awful circus which he lighted with the burning bodies of Christian martyrs, you will be in advance of many a 469 EIGHT LANDS' IN tourist who has driven about in cabs and tram cars on the very spot. Down through the old Campus Martius runs the Corso, and by recent changes it is being opened through to the Capitol, so that there may be a worthy approach from the modern city to the ruins of the past. Across it, in a down curve from west to east, runs a new corso, Vittorio Emanuele, which has let the light into quarters that used to be too crowded for comfort or health, and has sent a goodly sprinkling of trees and parks across the middle city. This is what Rome is working for at present, to revive the park-like effects that used to belong to imperial gar- dens and to medieval villas ; to erect modern buildings worthy the companionship of ancient temple ruins; to lay out handsome drives beside the well-walled Tiber ; to develop in the suburbs a city of broad spaces and handsome streets, while guarding as her choicest treasure the ancient forums and arches, temples and baths, that never will be repeated or equaled. Last evening we looked out from our hotel upon a square full of modern luxury. An immense fountain splashed its hundred streams to cool the air; colon- naded buildings curved to enclose the piazza. Two orchestras were discoursing classic music just out of one another's hearing; a crowd of well-dressed people sat at restaurant tables in the open, or thronged up and down the streets ; electric lights shone on all sides, and two by two the red eyes of cabs blinked in a long row, waiting for the little shower that should suddenly make them in demand. We looked down on this from a spacious roof garden where palms, japonicas, jasmine and roses seemed sociably at home. It was the luxury of the Caesars put at the disposal of every citizen. Once more, as on the eve of so many other 470 EIGHT WEEKS anticipated treats, we were seized with a small panic for fear Rome would not be Rome. But it was, all right. At the breakfast table no one was surprised that My Lady of the Star announced her determination to turn her chariot first toward the Roman Forum ; nor that seven other women proposed to accompany her. We quickly discovered which of the electric trams starting from our "piazza" might be considered the stellar chariot aforesaid, and at once began our Roman education in the art of politely de- clining the services of cabmen, of noting with ap- proval the driver who could speak English, and of entering into successful bouts with the ten small boys and their ten thousand postal cards that waited for us as we waited for the tram. Against such swarming attacks we tried various weapons — the refusal cour- teous, the refusal emphatic, the pretense of deafness, the examination of the cards, and the deliberate exam- ination of the neighboring hotels, trams, street signs, and our fascinating fountain; also, the purchase from a single vendor, while all the others began reducing their prices — twenty for a lira, fifty for a lira, two hundred for a lira, till we knew that they were offer- ing their wares at out-and-out loss. Finally My Lady in Blue solved the problem by investing in two com- plete sets, and explaining, with the help of our com- bined Italian, that this was final and that we were henceforth to be left in peace. Even those conscience- less peddlers saw the justice of the case, and turned their solicitations elsewhere. Through streets like those of any other close-built city we buzzed along, were dropped at the corner of Via Alessandrina, took a few uncertain steps to the left, and there beheld it before us, desolate, yet fre- quented; in ruins, yet carefully guarded; gray and 471 EIGHT LANDS IN scarred and proud as we had seen it so often in pho- tograph, arches here, pillars yonder, small columns of brickwork everywhere, with broken bits of statuary huddled around them, or a general's bust perched on top; large paving stones worn from chariots we never saw; a well curb, an inscription, a foundation of a temple — all the history of Rome, it might be, written in stone and brick and mortar — waiting, waiting — for what ? Telling always of the past ; no future, unless it be the future of warning, to us who build better than we defend, to us who rejoice in our strength and forget our weakness. We have seen ruins before ; in England, Paris, Hei- delberg, Milan ; choice ruins, valued higher than many times their ground space covered with modern architecture; but never before have we found ruins as the centre and glory of a wealthy city ; ruins fifteen feet below the city level, protected by a strong barrier against incautious carts and pedestrians, and just lying open to the sun and rain — unhealed wounds, maimed giants, dead heroes. It is great, and it is pitiful. It is glorious, too, as though the dignity, the sense of having done well, of having played one's part and not repined, called out to us to have courage. What great works of building have not been inspired by such as these? What paintings and what poems have re- ceived from them their supreme beauty.' What mat- ters it to be a wreck, seemingly, if one can from gen- eration to generation raise the standard of all those who look on? And, with these reverend thoughts in our eight minds, we stood in the little office by the descending stair awaiting our tickets, when — an outcry — two bulging eyes and a rush from the ticket man — a child on the pavement, a cab horse on his haunches with cab driver shouting; something red by the child's head; 472 EIGHT WEEKS is it blood? Of course My Lady Bright Eyes was the first to take in the situation, to catch up the little child and mother it to her breast; and suddenly there was a crowd, the breathless child began to cry in pro- test at being mothered by the wrong person ; the brother clamored his right to comfort the little sister ; everybody explained in Italian, in English, in ges- tures ; just a tip of the pushcart, and little sister spilled on the ground; a cabman whirling around the corner had pulled his horse to his haunches with miraculous presence of mind ; we were all well, nobody was hurt, and with her red ribbon pulled right about my baby's neck, she was returned to the happy brother. But for a few minutes all the interest in fallen Rome had been diverted to one downfall of little Italy. Pretty well adjusted, that fine machinery within us, that can respond so quickly to the mighty voice of the ages or to the cry of the little child. We went down into the depths and wandered about for an hour or two without seeming to have made much advance in our knowledge of the place. When you take in hand the Forum, decide whether you will give days to it, and set every old building in its authenticated site, or whether you will admire and wonder, and then come away. Intermediate ground is difficult to hold. Whichever you decide upon, try to get an idea of a city's centre — a place for holding assemblies and carrying on trade, for worshiping the gods and honoring the nation's heroes, and shut your eyes occasionally to see the pillars lifted, the basilicas arise, the House of the Vestal Virgins stretching out its convent walls, the statues standing at the corners, and more statues of men and gods and chariots on high upon the temples. Then, when you have this original and best beloved Roman Forum before you, and its Via Sacra winding out under the Arch of Titus 473 EIGHT LANDS IN toward the Colosseum on the left and the triple Arch of Constantine on the right — imagine this limited piazza, only some 500 feet in length, grown too crowded for the city's use, and add to it by L's and annexes the forums of Julius and Augustus, of Nerva and Trajan, just as our modern cities add square to square, and fill these, too, with basilicas and arches and statues till you have a semi-circle of forums sweeping east and north and back against the Cap- itoline Hill. On the other side of the original forum build up the Palatine in marble; for all its present brick work, so indestructible in winter storms, was once faced with marble, pillared in marble, and sculp- tured in marble; and then you have enough for one morning's labor, and one morning's satisfaction. Of course, you and we can't go over all the ruins of the city in this same way. The drive after lunch has given us a good idea of the beauty of the city as a whole, of its hilly character which has survived the century-long filling up of valleys by heaps of ruins, of the fertile gardens and parks of the suburbs, of the splendor of St. Peter's dome rising above all the struc- tures of the city, of the beauty of this little yellow river and its bridges, of the soft lights that hang over the Campagna and make visionlike the Sabine and the Alban Hills. We know that there are Baths of Cara- calla which show the immense skeleton of what was once the provision for bathing as a fine art; statues now all gone, mosaics waving up and down in the sunken floor, but division walls still marking the hot and cold chambers, showing water conduits and hot- air passages, promenades and grounds for athletic sports. These give an idea of what Rome furnished when five such bathing establishments — thermae — were open to her citizens. We also have had pointed out to us half a dozen different theatres and circuses 474 EIGHT WEEKS besides the Colosseum ; we have seen most of the eight obelisks and all but one of the six arches ; have passed the tomb of Augustus — now an open-air the- atre, and that of Caius Cestius, the pyramid by the gate of St. Paul, and, of course, the largest of all, that of Hadrian — now the Castle of St. Angelo. If we drive out on the Via Appia we shall see the other round tomb which we know so well in photograph, that of Cecilia Metella. But probably we shall divide our forces after this. My Lady Practical and My Lady Persistent will make a pilgrimage among these ruined tombs of the Cam- pagna and thread their way with lanterns through some of the corridors and chapels of the Catacombs. These lie in several suburbs of the city, and are a study in themselves with their niches — emptied of bones to furnish relics for modern churches, and stripped of inscriptions to enrich museums — but still eloquent of the courage, endurance and peace of the early Christians. No general belief in a power that 475 EIGHT LANDS IN works for righteousness was theirs, no dim longings for a purification through endless incarnations; no trust in elaborate ritual or in monastic scourgings ; but a childlike faith in the Good Shepherd, in the God of Daniel and of Jonah ; in the rest of the grave and the triumph of the Resurrection. All this can be read from the crude pictures of the early centuries. This was the faith that made them ready for martyrdom; this was the striking excellence that caused invading Goths and Lombards to covet their bones as they did the gold of Roman palaces, and that caused Pope Bon- iface, when he converted the Pantheon temple into a church, to place twenty-eight wagon loads of holy bones under its altar! "Rest in peace," "Rest in the Lord," had been the best that mourning friends could wish for their dead. But, to witness widespread for the Lord, to inspire to Christian heroism in thousands of shrines, to give hope of salvation to sin-sick souls, to reveal the early faith to an age of agnosticism — that is the mission that has fallen to them instead. A strange contrast our friends who drive out on the Appian Way will find between the Roman wayside tombs, eloquent of the past and of the love of kindred, and the hidden Christian niches, eloquent of the hopes of the future. My Lady of the Star will look up more about the baths, and especially tell us how the huge Thermae, erected by Diocletian, had a church and a convent aft- erwards put up in and from their ruins ; how the con- vent has latterly become a museum, and the old curve of the enclosing walls has given the shape to our beautiful fountain-centred square and to the curving hotel fronts upon it. Then we shall understand better why certain uncouth masonry is kept standing just across the way beside yonder dainty park. 476 EIGHT WEEKS I think it will be fair to put the burden of elaborat- ing those big tombs on the Guide Book Lady. She will delight to tell us how the mausoleum of Augustus, a marble tower without and green terraces within, was used first for that young Marcellus of whom Virgil sings, "Give lilies with full hands" ; and how, when the mighty Augustus himself was carried there, his widow Livia watched the burning of his body for five days, sitting with bare feet and disheveled hair among the Senators. She will also find out the height and immensity of the Tomb of Hadrian ; how it was adorned with three colonnades of pillars and rows of statues ; who was the first emperor to be buried there, and who the last; and how, standing just outside the city walls, it became a convenient fortress in the wars with the Goths, so that its statues were hurled down by the hundred on whichever party happened to be the besiegers; also, how it got its name of St. Angelo when Gregory the Great had a vision of an angel standing upon it to stay the plague ; and how, still later, by a covered way between it and the Vatican, it became an angel of defense for the popes residing there. She may also tell us how the Pyramid of Ces- tius was standing in the days of St. Paul, and how he must certainly have looked upon it, as we do now, when he went out to his death through the gate that now bears his name. We all took a brief look during our drive at the Colosseum and the Pantheon. The former was built by Vespasian and Titus, twelve thousand Jews, taken captive at the destruction of Jerusalem, laboring upon it. We thought we knew it by photograph, without and within ; but what a difference in our acquaintance after sitting a few moments on those stone seats where Romans used to spread their cushions! We touched 477 EIGHT LANDS IN the marble wainscoting that descended into the arena, we looked out at the blue through arches that were once a background for the 80,000 spectators; we had explained to us the great awning that used to be drawn above for protection from sun and rain; we could almost hear the roaring of lions in the ruined cellars, and see the emperor in his carpeted royal box turn his thumbs down in refusal of mercy while the Vestal Virgins in their veils and all the populace, tier on tier, thundered their applause. This largest theatre of the world, and St. Peter's, and the Square of St. Mark's are not very different in their length and breadth, although of three very unlike shapes. The huge travertine blocks that formed the outside are full of holes where the iron clamps originally securing them were stolen away in the Middle Ages. In the centuries of the Renaissance not only were marble mouldings and statues from the top and the niches appropriated by the more modern build- ers, but at least three palaces and a harbor were con- structed from materials here obtained. The dignified Palazzo di Venezia, the residence of the Austrian Em- bassy, is made of Colosseum stone. We had also a few moments in the Pantheon, the most perfect ancient building that survives in Rome — one great, round hall, a little larger than St. Peter's dome, with altars and tombs set round, and all the light and air coming in at the round opening over- head; a simple bit of majesty, it seems; but elaborate enough it proves when you look into its construction and history. The walls are twenty feet thick, with cabinets and winding stairs hidden within them ; the roof, now covered with lead, was at one time a very mine of bronze and gold to adorn Constantinople, build the baldachino of St. Peter's and found cannon 478 EIGHT WEEKS for St. Angelo. The martyrs' bones aforementioned were buried under its altar in the seventh century, the great memorial feast of the church, All Saints' Day, being instituted at that time. The festivals of Whit- sunday were at one time observed there with children dropping rose petals through the great round eye to symbolize the outpouring of the Spirit of Grace. Shrines and tombs have followed one another in the niches — Mars and Venus and Caesar giving place to the Virgin Mary and Raphael and Victor Emmanuel. Very impressive, when we understand its significance, is the low flooring of the mighty pillared porch, and of the interior, for it shows how many centuries of gradual accumulation from ruining and upbuilding this city has undergone since Marcus Agrippa set this temple of the gods five steps above the level of his day. To-morrow we shall visit St. Peter's and begin Rome of the popes, especially of the popes of the Renaissance. So you may expect about a thousand years to steal by between to-day's letter and to-mor- row's, and the odd years you cannot account for oth- erwise you may set down to shopping. Roman silks are very attractive, especially those striped blankets of raw silk that the Italians call coperte. Roman gloves are not to be despised; Roman mosaics are cheap and pretty, being made, like those we saw at Venice, of innumerable bits of glass fitted together in a bed of cement, unlike Florentine mosaics, which are figures of colored stone or shell set into a background of black marble. Roman pearls are also irresistible, and the more so after one has seen their beginning in irregular bits punched out of alabaster slabs and bored through the centre, and has been told what a vast dif- ference there is between a certain outer coating, rain- 479 EIGHT LANDS IN bow-hued, ravishing and frail, and this other, "See me now rap it against the counter," that can bear heat and hard usage unhurt, and that costs just twice as much as the cheaper. After which the prudent among us buy the second, and the poor the first. Good night, dear friends, and have an eye out for the dome of domes, which is St. Peter's. M. 480 EIGHT WEEKS LII— THE MOTHER OF CHURCHES. Rome, Aug. 21-23. And you and we expected, dear friends, to have our morning dreams rilled with church bells, with the chanting of early matins, and the splash of the foun- tains on the piazza of St. Peter's. Instead of which we awoke to the sound of the fall of Rome. A thun- dering, a rumbling, and the down-crushing of mortar and brick; a pounding, a crunching, and down, down, down, tumbling to the depths ; so it continued from the first peep of day till the broad glare of breakfast time. I think that Rome was likewise falling in the dawn of yesterday; but we were too tired from our journey to listen to such slight interruptions, espe- cially as they fitted in perfectly with what we had come to see. To-day, however, when we are ready to rebuild the fallen city and set up cathedrals upon its debris, we protest a little against this rising-bell. At first we think it some kind of a midnight orgy, or war of the elements ; wider awake, we connect it with that universal repairing and rebuilding just next door that greets the tourist who is out of season; a little later, as day fairly shines in at our windows, we realize what energy it implies to tear down masonry by half- light while the streets are unoccupied and dust-clouds can be endured, and what a tremendous self-restraint to do it without shouting. For here comes the traffic that belongs to early morn — rumbling carts from the Campagna drawn by long-horned white oxen with jan- 481 EIGHT LANDS IN gling bells ; donkey carry-alls overflowing- with gar- den products and gardeners; contadini of both sexes with blankets and bundles on their heads ; cab drivers meeting early trains, pushcarts loaded with boxes, flower women making ready to besiege your eyes and ears and noses; and every living thing, from donkey to child, every creature except the white oxen, lifting up its voice in salutation. If it had not been for the fall of Rome you might have been still asleep in bed, and have missed this everyday gala procession. So says My Lady Practical, with her usual good humor. In visiting the churches of Rome you begin, of course, with the greatest on earth; but you realize that it is but one of five patriarchal churches that were, in the early days of Christian Rome, presided over by the pope, and of which all Christians on earth were considered to be members — St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, St. Paul's Outside the Walls, and San Lorenzo Outside the Walls. Add to these San Sebastiano and Santa Croce in Gerusa- lemme, and you have the Seven Pilgrimage Churches of Rome, to have visited which constituted the full duty of a medieval pilgrim. To be consistent, I should say San Pietro, San Giovanni, and the rest ; or else Anglicize St. Lawrence, Holy Cross, and the others. But some of these names have become so familiar in their English forms that the Italian would be an af- fectation. Of these, St. John Lateran was the first to be the seat of a bishop, having been so established by Constantine; and it bears the choice inscription, "Of all the churches of the city and the earth, mother and head" — Omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput. St. Paul's and St. Peter's mark the graves of apostles ; San Lorenzo the grave of an early mar- tyr; Sta. Maria Maggiore was built on a site revealed by a miracle; San Sebastiano and Santa Croce stand 482 EIGHT WEEKS above well-known catacombs. All of these date back to the century of Constantine — the Fourth — that is, in their original structures. If Constantine, first Christian emperor, founder of churches in west and east, is not a familiar figure on your historical chart, put him down as five hundred years earlier than Charlemagne, reigning during the first third of the three hundreds ; and remember his mother, St. Helena, whom we first came across as a collector of relics when we were talking about the bones of the three kings in Cologne. The St. Peter's of Constantine, in which Charle- magne and many succeeding emperors received their crowns, was a five-aisled basilica, and having fallen into decay, it was replaced in the fifteenth and six- teenth centuries by the present Renaissance struc- ture. Under various popes, various architects and many changes of plan, it came to its present form. The dome was early decided upon as a distinctive feature, and it was the pride of Michael Angelo to "lift the Pantheon in air," to reproduce Brunelles- chi's dome of Florence by "a sister, larger, per- haps, but not more beautiful." But it was a con- stantly disputed point whether it was better to set this dome upon a Greek cross — that is, of four equal arms — or upon a Latin cross, which would make the nave twice as long as choir or transepts. Bramante, and after him Michael Angelo, urged the Greek cross, that by this means the entering worshiper might find himself at once looking up to the vast dome and feel- ing its dominating power; but other architects urged the advantage of the great size of the longer nave, desiring to build the largest church of Christendom; and perhaps they had a little dislike that anything called Greek should take precedence over the Latin; however it was, the final architects were directed to 483 'EIGHT LANDS IN advance the nave to its present point and add to it a spacious portico ; as a result of which one approaching the church from in front finds the dome dropping out of sight behind the huge fagade — a most disappointing sensation after having learned to look for it from every vantage point of the city. Except for this, what better approach could one desire than by the huge encircling colonnades that lead in shadow past the scorching piazza, the splashing fountains, and the great obelisk? Four rows of columns in each colon- nade, and every one an ornament to its race ; above them an entablature adorned with marble saints ; through this approach we walked a quarter of a mile this morning, coming slowly to the great steps, remem- bering how yonder obelisk had stood upon the spina or central wall of Nero's circus, just outside these pil- lars, during those butchering sports that were his delight ; an uninscribed obelisk, which is a rare thing ; no tales of Egyptian Pharoahs, nor of Caligula and Nero; no record of the emperors who have walked new-crowned in its shadow. If a simple, bloodless story might for once be carved upon such a milepost of the ages it would be a pretty thing to read there the tale of the hosts that stood silent when it was being set up on this new site ; of the awful hush while ma- chinery pulled in vain to draw it upright on its ped- estal; of the sailor who risked his life by shouting, "Wet the ropes" — those were days when death pen- alties were flung around recklessly ; of the success that followed his wise advise, and the prize bestowed upon him besides — whatever boon he might ask ; to which he responded with the modest request that to his native village the privilege should be granted of pro- viding the palm branches for St. Peter's on every year's Palm Sunday. So near the boundaries of 484 EIGHT WEEKS Nero's circus, blank obelisk, you have at least one untarnished memory. That St. Peter's, of all churches, should be the one to face the east, is a constant wonder, but it is also a strong argument in favor of its being what it has always claimed, the burial place of the Apostle. Here, just outside the bounds of the circus, a church or chapel has stood from time immemorial, claiming to be the burial place of the Apostle Peter. Here Con- stantine so located his beautiful basilica that the sacred grave should lie under its altar. Here Pope Nicholas V began his great new church, enclosing with its choir and transepts those of its predecessor; and here, for many centuries, the devout have lifted up thanksgiving for the life and death of the Galilean fisherman. But we have reached the spacious flight of steps, the five outer doors, the entrance portico with St. Peter in his little ship in ancient mosaic above our heads, before us are the five immense inner doors, the Porta Santa at the right, walled up since 1900, till another jubilee year shall come ; the central one repro- ducing the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery. These are the inlaid marble floors of the great interior, this the porphyry slab on which emperors were crowned; away off yonder we can espy the sitting statue of St. Peter, where worshipers reach up to kiss his feet ; yes — we are certainly inside the greatest of naves, and all the little men and women look small and far away in comparison with the colossal saints that stand in colossal niches against all these colossal columns, My Lady in Blue says that St. Peter's is all that it has claimed to be. My Lady Persistent says that the vastness, the color, the richness are altogether satisfying. We wander about from aisle to transept, 485 EIGHT LANDS IN from the marble steps that lead down to the grave below to the twisted columns of bronze and gold over the high altar; we spell out the frieze in mosaics that runs about the dome, "Tu es Petrus," etc., we wonder at the choice paintings on the panels of each pier — copies of Raphael's Transfiguration and other master- pieces reproduced in mosaic ; we pace off quietly the diameter of the dome to make ourselves believe that it is 138 feet across, and that it rises four hundred feet above our heads ; we walk all the way around one of the four central piers that support it in an attempt to realize that it is as large as neighbor Jenkins' house at home — sixty feet on each side ; yes, inside that one pillar could stretch out his double parlors, central hall, dining room and library ; last of all, we ask our- selves if it is true that the largest ship afloat could be housed in this interior and its main mast scarcely overtop the bronze baldachino ; that the square of St. Mark's does not occupy so much ground space; in fact, that this whole church is just as great and glo- rious as heart of man could desire. Did you ever read Mme. de Stael's description in Corinne, and how the church has a climate of its own, never warm in summer nor cold in winter? It has, I admit, the weakness of all Renaissance buildings — the perfect proportions which are its pride are also its undoing. The height is immense, like the width and the length ; the architraves and gables correspond ; even the saints and cherubs must be more than colossal. Consequently what possible standard of comparison remains, unless it be a few hundred of us little mortals? In a Gothic portal you can guess at its vastness from the number of life-size saints that it shelters ; but on a Renais- sance front one Goliath of a statue in a cave of a niche makes you half believe the whole thing to be ordinary. Wouldn't you rather, on the whole, be one 426 EIGHT WEEKS of a host of small saints in the adorning of the great temple, than to be one huge and lonely archangel, dwarfing the whole structure by the size of your wings? Well, those are the feelings of some honest people about the Renaissance in church architecture; and if they seem to you intolerably heretical, let them alone. From St. Peter's we went around to the back door for admission to the Vatican museum. The Vatican Palace is to St. Peter's what the rectory at home is to the church ; but why at all times its best show rooms for sculpture must be reached from the rear, or why, in this particular month of August, the pic- ture galleries as well may not be entered from their usual nights of endless steps, but must be sought out through a labyrinth of backdoor corridors, the Rev- erend Resident of the Vatican may know, but I do not. Evidently a half mile of unshaded pavement on foot could not be thought of, and so the line of cab drivers knew ; they could hardly believe their eager eyes when our leader beckoned two of them to come to our help. We were their prey then, and an hour later at our return, and they used on us all the cunning, extortion- ist tricks that lurk in cabmen's caps and develop in burning suns. The galleries, too ; they had, alas ! a climate of their own — that climate that warms in sum- mer and cools in winter, but never, never, by any mis- take of caretaking custodians, admits a breath of fresh air. If you should feel at the end of the glorious halls of sculpture as we did all the way through, I would not blame you for confounding Laocoon with Ariadne and the Olympian Zeus with Canova's Box- ers. But take a day when you are quite fresh, carry some vials of double oxygen with you, and learn to know all the white beauties — Amazons and Cupids, Vestas and Minervas, prancing chariot steeds and 487 EIGHT LANDS IN mourning figures pacing about the sarcophagi; the hall of animals, too, and the portrait busts; athletes and warriors, Muses and Apollo from Olympus, and quiet classic authors in their study chairs. If you are wise you will choose another day for the Sistine Chapel, with its faded frescoes, the Stanze adorned by Raphael with great allegorical paintings, and the picture gallery well stocked with easel pic- tures and altar pieces, and leading to the room of rooms where stands Raphael's Transfiguration. This Christ, uplifted, by the vision of the Father, above the clouds of this world and above the worshiping Moses and Elias and the dazzled three who have ac- companied Him to the mount, the animated group of disciples down below in the foreground, eager to heal the world's woes and unequal to their task ; the hands that point upward to their helper and ours ; what is it all but an epitome of the Christian faith? A noble swan song for the artist who died so young ; the paint having hardly dried before the great altar piece was carried in his funeral procession. All of these rooms will repay you for a careful study. Don't be discouraged if at first glance they disappoint you. Even your best friends don't always look as attractive as you know them to be; and pic- tures depend much upon light, surroundings, and the state of the spectator. Frescoes are hard to enjoy on a dull day; easel pictures are always at their worst when crowded in among a hundred others of con- trasted colors and themes. To know a painting you must give your time and thought to it; and all that we could do to-day was to learn what there was to be learned. Our pilgrimage has not extended to all of the seven churches, but we have a pretty good idea where they lie, all outside the walls except Santa Maria Maggiore, 488 EIGHT WEEKS which is on the summit of the Esquiline, and St. John Lateran, farther to the southeast near the wall. Of the interior of Sta. Maria Maggiore it is easy to carry a mental picture, because it is such a perfect specimen of the old basilica, with two rows of pol- ished pillars, a rich apse in the rear, and a coffered ceiling covered with the first gold brought from South America to Spain, a thank offering from Ferdinand and Isabella. The name, Saint Mary Major, implies what is true that it is the largest of the thirty-nine Roman churches dedicated to the Virgin ; but its other names — St. Mary of the Snows, St. Mary of the Man- ger, and the Basilica of Liberius, with their attend- ant legends, I leave you to look out by yourselves, because some one looking over my shoulder declares that this letter is growing unconscionably long. St. John Lateran was once a basilica, too, and a mighty 489 EIGHT LANDS IN one with double aisles; but in a restoration of the Renaissance period the architects deliberately enclosed its chaste pillars in paneled piers, turned its ceiling and ornaments into those suitable to a Renaissance church, and erected a fagade of colossal pillars, colos- sal gable and cornice, and colossal saints above — Re- naissance at its best. But of all these five it is St. Paul's Outside the Walls that always is more beautiful than one can re- member or imagine. No doubt has ever been cast upon the traditional site of St. Paul's execution and burial, and none of us could be left behind on the afternoon excursion by tram to this church on the Campagna. The sunset lights were beginning to grow golden above the heavy walls that border the road, and behind the little inns and shops and rustic homes; the contadini coming back from a day in the city with their untiring donkeys and patient oxen; the women with white kerchiefs folded over their hair; the curly- headed, big-eyed children, all ready to furnish an art- ist with cupids or angels — made pretty pictures as we passed ; and it was pleasant to think of the worn body of the great Apostle laid to rest in country space and quiet. But why should this great church be built and rebuilt, and adorned more and more so far from wor- shipers? This was our practical, twentieth century question. And what would you do, then, to mark the grave of the greatest man of all Christendom ? Where devout friends long cherished a little oratory, and splendor-loving Constantine erected this basilica, you would, perhaps, let the old mosaics fall into ruin, use the pillars for some practical orphan asylum, and erect a granite slab to mark the grave ? Well, not so do the worshipers who buy alabaster boxes. And perhaps we will reserve judgment till we have entered. This pillared porch at the north transept is none too beau- 490 EIGHT WEEKS tiful, at least, and the fagade to the west, facing the river, and being finished in an atrium, will scarcely rival the colonnades and arcades that once extended all the way to the city walls. Entering the transept we find ourselves in the midst of that satisfying rich- ness that comes from colored marbles and mosaics well arranged and so spaced as to give a feeling of rest and largeness. As we advance to look more closely we are suddenly aware that we are not view- ing the church at all, that all this is but apse and transepts, and that the great nave and double aisles shining from the sunset lights above, reflecting from the polished mosaics underfoot, is reaching out at our right, a forest of granite columns, and above them popes of all the ages in the coloring of their pontifical robes, portrait after portrait in fine mosaic all up and down the nave and aisles and following on around the transepts. Can you think of a more glorious tomb to erect to Saint Paul — pillars in the house of God, granite from the Simplon, alabaster from Egypt, mal- achite from Russia, and all gifts of veneration? Por- traits of great men wrought each by adding stone to stone with care and taste and deftness? Well, if any of you feel that this is doing too much for the man who has built sanctuaries, polished pillars, and set precious stones for all Christendom, or if you think that perhaps Paul the Protagonist, who ran with pa- tience the great race set before him, would think this an unbecoming tribute from the lesser athletes in his train, I can tell you for your relief that the engineers of the new canal which is to make Rome a seaport propose to have it join the Tiber near the Church of St. Paul ; and traffic may again turn so steadily this way that great St. Paul's Outside the Walls will be needed as a daily meeting house, as well as for a tomb for the Apostle. 49 1 EIGHT LANDS IN These five patriarchal churches are presided over by- pope or cardinals, and have each its jubilee door, which is opened only on jubilee years — once in a half or quarter century. To wall up a door for the sake of tearing down the mortar once in twenty-five years, especially when three or four other doors are in con- stant use at its side, seems to some of us as inex- plicable as a great church in a wilderness ; but perhaps if we should, have a chance some day to be present at the ceremony where the call of a cardinal, "Open up to me the Gates of Righteousness," had its response from the hammers of the masons and the shouts of the people, we might see more in it. We'll hold our decision in abeyance. And now there remains for us to climb the Cap- itoline Hill by the broad footpath slope, with Marcus Aurelius on his gallant steed at the top, and the wolf's den and little growling cubs in the park at the left; to look in at its two wonderful collections of Satyrs and Amazons, dying Gauls and Venuses, portrait busts of emperors, and the old, old statue of the wolf with Romulus and Remus, that have been waiting for us all these years. When we have also climbed the Spanish staircase at the other end of the city and seen the view of St. Peter's from the park on the Pincian Hill, when we have visited the Borghese gardens just beyond the Porta del Popolo, with their splendid col- lections of statuary and paintings, and their groves of live oaks and pines ; when we have had a look at Michael Angelo's Moses in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, and at the Mamertine Prisons under the Capitol, we shall be ready to drop our little coins into the Fountain of Trevi and say, as the Italians do, "a. revederla" — "till I see you again." But if you reproach us with some dozens of unseen sights we shall take it meekly. If you ask why we 492 EIGHT WEEKS have never mentioned the abounding fountains all over the city, the water in plenty for cooling the streets even through dry weather, the admirable Ro- man custom of closing shops from twelve to two through the heated term, and of swinging awnings down to the ground over the sidewalks of the shop- ping districts, and why we have not even put down the name of Sunday nor told you where we went to church — to all these questions we shall not take time to give you a reply; but we shall beg of you, when you do better than we, to be sure to take a day for Tivoli, summer resort of the ancient aristocracy, lovely home of rocks and temples and fountains. You've seen composite photographs made of an array of different faces photographed successively upon one plate. Rome is to us a succession of faces quite beyond our power of reducing to a simple type. We knew it to be great, and it is greater than we knew. Here is the composite, or the slightest hint of the composite that goes with us as we take train to Naples. Good night, and good rest after strenuous days. M. A mighty lion crouched beside the Tiber And laid his pazu upon the broad champagne, Which burst in myriad flowers beneath his sovereign eye. A queen built palaces upon her seven hills, And trailed her silks along their marble floors. Smiling on barbarous nations cringing at her gates. A shouting crowd thronged up the Sacred Way, Legions and eagles, kings and galley slaves, To climb the Capitol Hill and offer spoils to Jove. 493 EIGHT LANDS IN Two athletes wrestled for a crown of state Until they drenched the streets with sweat and gore, Hurling dozmi marble gods and pillars of old Nile. A train of saints with garments dyed in blood, 'Twixt caves of earth and dens of savage beasts, Saw Heaven's gates unfold and chanting entered in. A pope enthroned himself in Peter's chair, Hung crimson banners in his gilded dome, And dropped his ban and blessing on a kneeling world. A peasant gathered grapes from ruined villas, And lamps and carvings from an emperor's grave, To sell to curious strangers in the market place. Old Rome, old Rome, old Rome, 494 EIGHT WEEKS LIII— ON THE HOME STRETCH. lirt tfp Camjggjia- En Route to Naples. Tuesday, Aug. 24. "Praise day at night, and life at the end," saith the old English proverb, and we, beloved, packing our suit-cases for the last continental journey, feel war- ranted in writing down our seven Beatitudes. 1. Blessed be the Itinerary Man, who has never routed us out to take an early train, has never failed of correct time tables, and has never missed of advis- ing hotels of our intended arrival. 2. Blessed be those twenty-five hotels that have fur- nished us with excellent beds, excellent meals, and attentive service. We feel inclined even to pardon their hen's-feather and wool pillows, though still giv- 495 EIGHT LANDS IN ing thanks that on the western continent the race of geese has not run out. 3. Blessed be the railways, steamboats, diligences and auto-buses by the score and score, that have roared and bounced and shaken us safely to our many goals ; and may their din and agitation steadily decline and their ventilation take on increase of vigor. 4. As the keystone of our arch — Blessed be that loving Providence that has enriched our lives by these two months of Old World travel. 5. Blessed be the kindly people of seven lands who have treated us as their kindred, with courtesy, hon- esty, and interest in our welfare; and may we and ours be half as thoughtful for the strangers within our gates. 6. Blessed be the weather — king's weather, queen's weather, president's weather — that has never spoiled for us one important day, nor seriously incommoded any journey. 7. Blessed be You and blessed be We — You who have provided us with the choicest and most longed for possession of our journey — our home letters ; and We — though we say it who should not — who have proved good travelers and good friends. May you follow our example on that happy day when you fol- low in our footprints. About here there are several pairs of eyes, a little misty, looking out for a last sight of St. Peter's ; and first there comes up close beside us the noble arches of the Claudian and Marcian Aqueducts, which have been water bearers for Rome since before the Chris- tian era. For more than fifty miles a refreshing flood still flows down from the Sabine Mountains to burst into beauty in the fountain of our hotel piazza. Those are the Sabine Mountains at our left — a spur of the Apennines, and we shall soon pass between them and 496 EIGHT WEEKS the volcanic Alban Mountains at our right. In these last lie those gems of crater lakes, Albano and Nemi, which you are to see when you come. Further on we pass Palestrina, high on its airy hill — Roman Preneste — with a medieval castle built in the arms of a vast, semi-circular temple of Fortune. This little, dirty town could tell you big tales, from the times of the Cyclopean stones in its ancient walk, to the days of its sixteenth-century son, Giovanni of Palestrina, com- poser and director of the choir of St. Peter's. Now you may rest your brains for an hour or two till we come to Monte Cassino, and send your thoughts wool-gathering over aqueducts and fallen temples, and church choirs; to which, if you add our own recent beatitudes, I should not wonder to hear you saying over that little rhyme that My Lady of the Veil some- times brings out from her repertoire: "Little birds sit on the telegraph wires And chitter and flitter, and fold their wings; Perhaps they think that for them and their sires Stretched always on purpose those wonderful strings. And perhaps the Thought that the world inspires Did plan for the birds among other things." And why must we wake from our dreams to look at that abrupt hill of Monte Cassino, with some very solid buildings on its crest, not to be compared for picturesqueness with a dozen other battlemented cas- tles we have passed? Because here the great St. Benedict founded the first great convent of Christendom as a cradle and home for the order of monks which he had instituted. St. Francis and St. Dominic, of the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries, we learned to know in Florence; 497 EIGHT LANDS IN and we have passed near the graves of both of them — St. Dominic in Bologna, and St. Francis in Assisi. But seven hundred years before, a little antedating the coming of St. Augustine to England, St. Benedict had decided that there was better work for ardent souls than living in hermitages ; had founded the order called by his name, an order bound to the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and had given them their work of advancing agriculture as well as learning. Look him up in your legends of the monas- tic orders, or your encyclopedia — his sacred cave at Subiaco; his cooperation with his sister, Sta. Sco- lastica, in founding her convent for women ; their last meeting for prayer during the thunder storm, and their burial, only a few days apart, in the crypt of this convent. Then, if you are not in terror of getting two saints mixed, bring Thomas Aquinas down here, just after the days of our Saints Francis and Dominic — bring him from a princely castle and an imperial family, near Aquino, which we passed while you were asleep, and give him his education in this monastic school. A silent, shy lad he, whom the boys nick- named Bos, Bovis — the Ox. But one of his teachers says that this Ox will yet make Europe listen to his words. And so it proves; for learning and for char- acter he has long been known as the Pater Angelicus. He is associated with no home of his own because he was always needed at the right hand of the pope — in Rome or Orvieto or some other papal city ; and in this twentieth century Pope Pius X quotes his words as authority. Do you remember how we saw St. Thomas Aquinas sitting on high above all the Christian virtues in the Spanish chapel in Florence? Now you may go on with your nap, if you choose, while I have a talk with our eight Suit-cases. This is positively the last appearance of those brave fellow- 498 EIGHT WEEKS travelers. Not one of them has called for more than slight repairs, not one has refused to close and clasp, and to lie level and respectable in the overhead racks. As we give them a chance to speak for themselves on this home stretch they favor us with the following report of utilities and cumbrances: "Not much use, mesdames, for that spic-span new alarm clock, set only once during the journey, and then refusing to tinkle. Very little call for that small flatiron; no time for pressing out wrinkles; just broke the bottle of alcohol in the end and soaked all its neighbors, That fascinating case of scissors wasn't much more useful than any twenty-five cent pair, and got pretty badly worn in the packing. The shoe pol- ish just gave a chance to use those spare moments that didn't exist, and defrauded the 'boots' of his per- quisites. We have our doubts about somebody's rug; we never saw it do any good except wrap around a pillow and make a light package heavy. Hot-water bag and medicine cases and mustard pastes? Yes, they come handy once in a while, and soothed your spirits enough to pay for their carriage. Stationery? The ink and pens were in constant use ; but paper we noticed you liked to take from the hotels, and could always get it. Note books and guide books? You never had too many of either till it came to the car- rying, and then, alas ! The little tea ball and tea, with lemons and some lumps of sugar looked silly for peo- ple having "pension" everywhere ; but we were sur- prised to see how often they cheered up fainting spir- its. Your silver spoons, fruit knives and aluminum cups were light to carry and often in demand; and we think those two or three candles occasionally came into play. Your tiny sewing cases just made us envious, they were so like us reduced to a finer pat- tern. Your map of Europe? No, you never had it, 499 EIGHT LANDS IN but you wished you had; and that was more reason- able than that cyclopedia and dictionary that one of you was always longing for. The tube of paste went into a decline from much lending, and so did the ball of twine. Your overshoes in their little black bags lay unused almost all the summer; but it might have been just the opposite if Mother Nature had wept instead of smiling. Your rain-cloaks were oftener pat- ronized, for they could be wraps or dressing gowns on occasion. We never heard any of you regret hav- ing brought leggings and under jackets, although they were badly neglected in Italy ; there the thin white shirtwaists came to the front that we had carried so long without mussing. We were awfully careful of your Sunday silks, besides, for we could see that you felt wonderfully set up when you put them on, though nobody else discovered the change. As for the under- clothing, you did not need quite all you took along, because you found laundresses so clever; but in gen- eral you packed pretty well ; and all the advice we can give for another time is to have all the light and little bags your hearts desire, and of different colors, so as to know at a glance which is handkerchiefs and which time tables. But when it comes to money bags, put a little less bulk into the bag and considerable more into the money." And after this long speech our gentlemen felt so vain that they could hardly be kept on their shelves, and one did leap recklessly down into our midst, to the discomfiture of hats, knees and shoulders. You would like, perhaps, to know our own opinion of our hand baggage after two months' travel. For rapid journeys like our own we found it wholly ade- quate, and demanding far less time, trouble and ex- pense than trunks would have done. It was too ^eavy for us to handle, but with a porter secured to put it 500 EIGHT WEEKS aboard, it was never objected to as overweight. It must be put upon the racks ; that was the only stipula- tion. I think I see the double-topped peak of Vesuvius at last, which the cheery, communicative German of the savant type has been pointing out for a half hour past. "See Naples and die," saith the proverb, which few people desire to follow ; but with us it is "See Naples and part" ; for the large majority set sail on Saturday for home, and a few of us stay sadly, happily behind. For the two months of the summer our only regret has been that we could not bring our home and all you best friends with us; and now we'll be just regret- ting the opposite thing — that we can't take Europe back with us. Never a joy that can't find some loop- hole for a sorrow ; and mostly the reverse is also true. That we may use the loopholes well is a reasonable good night wish as we glide into the great city of southern Italy. Sincerely, M. 50i EIGHT LANDS IN LIV— SEE NAPLES AND DIE. AMSbU QUao. lb Did you ever hear of a great man who came from the south of Italy? Or any great movement — except it be the eruptions of Vesuvius and the earthquakes of Sicily ? To be sure, I don't wish to get into a quarrel with the people of the land, and just at the end of our journey; but I look in vain for any such greatness. Is it the fault of the climate, enervating, easy of pro- duction in the necessities of life? or of the constantly changing dynasties that have discouraged all begin- nings of national existence? Perhaps a little of both, and partly, too, because this end of the boot lies so exposed to many seas and so attractive that it can hardly escape a call from every power that passes by. In the years of Greek supremacy so many of that nation settled here that the land was known as Magna Grecia; and after it had been conquered by the Ro- 502 EIGHT WEEKS mans in the third century B. C, the Greek language and customs still prevailed. After the fall of Rome it was the battleground for Goths and Lombards, Greeks and Moors. Then came the Normans, about the time that they were conquering England, Robert and Rogers Guiscard being as well known here as William the Norman in Great Britain. Next followed Hohenstauffens, and the House of Anjou, with the awful massacre of their masters in Sicily, known as the Sicilian Vespers (1282) ; and after this Spanish viceroys and Austrian viceroys, the rule of Spanish Bourbons over the "Two Sicilies," Napoleon and his brother and brother-in-law, more Bourbons, and then, at last, the one hero for their salvation — Garibaldi, who landed in Sicily with his one thousand "red shirts" in i860, was greeted with acclamation, led a victorious march to the north, at Naples joined Victor Emanuel and his Piedmontese troops, and with them soon won Naples for the new kingdom of Italy. I wonder whether you find a growing pleasure, in each Italian city we visit, in bringing its history up to that triumphant day when it joins with the other long di- vided members of the family in the new household of the kingdom of Italy. Semi-centennials are pre- vailing in these days, and they make us glad, like the anniversaries of our own country. As there are few great men or deeds to study here, so there are few works of art to admire outside those of the National Museum. We can give ourselves mostly to the beauties of Nature, which are not few. Here lies this blue sea, dreaming, sparkling, roaring according to the mastery of the elements ; little Capri, with its double crest floating afar; yonder is Ve- suvius beyond the sickle of the crowded city, an imaginary or faintly discerned thread of smoke rising from its crater; here rise the trees of the Villa Na- 503 EIGHT LANDS IN zionale, which is the city park ; and off yonder, hidden by our hotel walls, are the hillsides of Vomero and Posilippo, with funiculars and long winding tram lines leading to their tops. For Naples is built on steep slopes, and many of the narrower streets change from walking to climbing, and from climbing to going upstairs. The main streets of the business centre are level, and often broad, with parks and tree-shaded promenades to make them lovely; and these are well supplied with tram lines. But passing through one of the older streets, as, for example, the Via Roma, formerly Via Toledo, to the National Museum, you cross a multitude of little alleys, as one might say, narrow, steep of ascent or descent, gloomy by nature, but made gay by flowers offered for sale, or by the parti-colored clothing hung from windows — a con- tinuous series of fascinating vistas. The life in these streets is also a constant entertain- ment. Such decorated donkeys — not with gala tas- sels as in Rome, but with a bunch of flowers, a green branch, or a ribbon, as though all days were holidays ; and such harnessing together of beasts of various kinds — horses and donkeys, cows and donkeys, don- keys big and little, paired as if the first object were to be ridiculous, with harnesses of every description, from the smart, broad bits that are not bits at all, but a kind of eyeglass frame clapped over a horse's nose, to a motley collection of ropes and straps. Apparently fashion and convention stand in no person's way when he or she has a load to convey through the streets. A longer stay would have acquainted us with dis- tinct types of street venders, many of whom are splen- did artists' models ; but the most attractive sights are the young men or women carrying brimming baskets of grapes upon their heads, the lining of green leaves and the overflowing clusters turning all these hand- 504 EIGHT WEEKS some young people into Bacchuses and Hebes. The really poor, however, the beggars and tramps, are a sight to make one look the other way. Not that there seems to be real distress among them, but that their whole attitude is one of being down in the slums to stay. Never a street without garbage piles waiting for collection, never a church door without its beg- gars, never a ride on a tram without a conductor test- ing coins with his teeth to find which are bad silver. And the bassi! Do you know what a "basso" is? A ground floor dwelling of one room, or possibly two, level with the street, and lighted and aired entirely from its one big door. This is the regular way of making ground floors pay. Sometimes these bassi are small shops, fitted neatly with a narrow door and 505 EIGHT LANDS IN two windows ; sometimes they are workshops and small manufactories ; but most of the time they are the homes of the poor. Now I am in a half a dozen minds what to say about them. Mostly they make me weep, but perhaps they should make me laugh, or else smile with pleasure. Always the family is as near the door as possible, or spilling over into the street ; their piazza is so much of the stone sidewalk as they venture to appropriate. A cobbler's bench, a laundress's iron- ing board, the family supper table, are pulled into the precious light ; almost always a blanket or a curtain is at the door to drop when desired; not far back a bureau with a mirror, and one or two beds, often nicely spread ; beyond that curiosity may not pene- trate ; only we know that there is no chance for a ray of light or breath of air from the rear. Pretty girls in smart blouse waists appear from these one-roomed dens ; well dressed men turn in at them, admirers lin- ger outside as though they loved to be near some- body's home. Perhaps they are the Italian idea of city cottages, and all my sympathy is wasted; but I admit to breathing freer when I am away from the sight of them. I think we agree with the coachman who took us a long drive by the shore to the west, and back over Posilippo hill, where the roadsides are 506 EIGHT WEEKS continuous stone walls enclosing charming villas. He gave us clearly to understand that Naples was a lovely place for the rich, and as for the poor — the rich did not even take the trouble to think about them. Perhaps when Naples has been its own mistress for a while it will begin to care more for its lower classes, will get rid of its false coin, educate its little beggars, make more distinction between donkeys and men, and even teach its guides and cabmen ordinary honesty. The great network of tram lines is itself an educa- tion in that virtue; for see how many hundred con- ductors must every day make exact change, be polite without gratuities, and test every coin that goes through their hands. In all the regular tradesmen, too, even the small venders, we have seen no attempt to have double prices or to carry on any bargaining; and that is certainly an advance over their reputation of years ago. Now, having at the outset made a clean sweep of all the Neapolitan offenses, let us turn our eyes to that loveliness that superabounds. Whether you drive over the Posilippo hill, where Roman patricians used to build their villas and throw off care as this Greek name implies (a pause from care), or whether you follow the west coast out to Capo, and further to Pozzuoli and Baya, you have everywhere the azure of the Mediterranean, the turquoise, the lapis lazuli, as sun and clouds may decree, for background to clam- bering vines, plastered country houses and garden walls decked just now with rows of scarlet plates which, seen nearby, prove to be tomato jam set in the sun to dry. And the colors of man's making — the plaster finishing of the houses — they are always some variation on Pozzuoli buff or Pompeiian red, with marble in its various stages, from white to gray for sills and casings. Both this buff and this red lend 507 EIGHT LANDS IN themselves extremely well to the fading of old age; any house that is not attractive from freshness is fas- cinating from its streaks of changing tints — such creams and terra cottas and faded rose, with the green of moss growth in shady places, and the transi- tion from brick to umber in the tiled roofs! Just the color of Neapolitan houses is a delight to one's eyes. And in this blue sea that is ever at hand there is always an island or a cape more pearly than the last, more precipitously surprising, and a boat coming in or a fisherman on the shore, and a sound of music here and there to make the enchantment complete. Around this west point, where your machine can take you in a summer's afternoon, gather all the stories of Vergil's tomb and Cape Misenus, Lake Avernus, and the Sibyl of Cumae, and the charms of scenery and the terrors of earthquake that belong to the islands fringing out to sea. If you skirt the coast east of Naples you are passing between Vesuvius and the Mediterranean by dead Herculaneum, by Torre del Greco built on lava streams, sending out every spring its fleet of boats for coral fisheries off the coasts of Africa, by Bosca Tre Case, trying to recover from its last overflow of lava, and by Pompeii, where you and we will stop together on the return of your ma- chine. Our machine is only cabs and trams and rail- way cars ; so we cannot accomplish quite so much, nor so independently as you will be able to do. If you wish to continue still further east there is Castella- mare, ancient Stabiae, where, at the time of the de- struction of Pompeii, Pliny had come from his fleet to watch the eruption and render help, and himself perished in the shower of ashes. It is not often one has an ancient event so graphically described by an eye witness as is the case here from the letters of the nephew Pliny. This was during the reign of the Em- 508 EIGHT WEEKS 509 EIGHT LANDS IN peror Titus, nine years after his destruction of Jeru- salem. From Castellamare your car begins on the drive par excellence, south to Sorento, around the cape and north over the hillsides to Amalfi, along the steep sides of Monte St. Angelo to landward, always the blue below, and Capri out to sea. You wind and climb up the long slopes, you dash through plastered villages with tiled roofs, you leave your conveyance long enough to climb the endless steps of the old Capuchin monastery against the rocks — now the hotel of Amalfi — to gather lemons from its pergola or take an excellent dinner on its terrace. You look up and down the staircase streets of Amalfi, and then you turn homeward over the heights of Ravello and Cava, having made such a "giro" — circular trip — as never you had in your life before. Have we done it, too? Oh, some questions are better never asked. We have been to Capri and Pompeii, and is not that glory enough for a three days' sojourn? For Capri it is just as well to take an out and out guide, agree upon an inclusive price, and then put care and fees aside. For, first, there are the shore- men who take you in small boats to the steamer ; then, when you reach the Blue Grotto, there is another bevy awaiting you to whom your party must be assigned by twos, taking account also of the size and seaworthi- ness of the boats ; and last, there are the cab drivers who carry you by twos and threes from Capri to Ana- capri; and when you have once seen an experienced Italian guide select from this motley array of old vehicles, driven single and double — arrange his price after a vociferous argument of fifteen minutes, all the tongues and fingers in motion at once — pack his ladies in and start the procession — you will not be anxious to take the job out of his hands. Yesterday was a glorious day for Capri, sunny and 5io EIGHT WEEKS still, so that the water was at its bluest, and the two hours' boat ride a pleasure. Have you ever seen a laundress drop her bluing, a little at a time, into a tank of clear water till it turned to a color of summer skies? Well, My Lady of the Stars recalls that on the St. Lawrence, in anticipation of what we were to see in these journeyings, she made the fine generaliza- tion that, all the world over, water is water and sky is sky. But she takes it all back now, as she looks down into these waters from the steamboat deck. Wave by wave, it is as cerulean as if Laundress Nature had just poured in her dyes, and we exclaim to one another for wonder. Of course, there were little boys to dive for pennies where we first set forth, and venders of fresh- scooped corals, all wet and red and weedy — which have since dried to a gloomy brown and threaten to crumble in the packing; there were plenty of finished coral necklaces, and Neapolitan mosaics and shells ; there was the ship's orchestra of cabinet organ and violins, and singers of Santa Lucia, with copies of their songs for sale; there was even a dance by one gay old singer, who laughed at his own buxomness. 5 1 * EIGHT LANDS IN So all was as it should have been, with pearly Capri ever changing shape and lifting its cliff higher and more rugged as we drew near. Some of our party protested against entrusting their lives to small boats and bandits bound for a minute black hole in a wall of rock. But tradition was against them, no sign of an oncoming storm to shut them into the cavern, and My Lady of the Guide Book had her way. On we sped toward our delight or our de- struction, each couple alarmingly unaware of the fate of the others; just enough waves to make us wonder whether we should be seasick. Two boats have shot safely out of sight before us. "Lie low, lie low, Sig- nore," calls the rower. He grasps the guiding rope above our heads to hold our boat down as our par- ticular billow wafts us in — and here we are in a part of Fairyland never seen before, the blue of the waters now become the blue of low-arched grotto walls, a great light shining in at the tiny entrance, and silver edges fringing every wavelet and every falling drop. It was only ten minutes of bewitching beauty, ten minutes never to be forgotten; and then we slid out as we had slidden in, and were safely returned to our steamer by our bandit crew, and safely landed at the Capri docks. This pearl of the Mediterranean, for which I can find no other descriptive word, is surely a pearl in the rough at near hand. Two great sum- mits rise precipitously from the waves — that nearest to the mainland almost 1,000 feet in sheer precipice, that to the west nearly twice as high. On the saddle between the two lies Capri, and on the slopes of the further peak, much higher above the sea, Anacapri. The beauty of this seagirt mountain did not escape the Romans who had pleasure palaces at Naples, and here the Emperor Tiberius retired when he had exer- cised the zeal of a tyrant as long as he desired or con- 512 EIGHT WEEKS sidered safe, left his general, Sejanus, in charge at Rome, and set himself the pleasant task of building twelve palaces for residence in the twelve months of the year, and in making them as artistic and luxurious as he and his architects could devise. The historian Suetonius claims that his taste for cruelty had to be pampered, too, and that he utilized these steepest cliffs for the execution of his pet prisoners. We may hope that it was not so, and that the ruins at various points may merely add to our pleasure by their touch of age. This touch is like the flavors of some rare grapes. We find ourselves beginning to miss something superior when we are thrown back on modern sights. A good dinner at the Hotel Quisisana, the dramatic scene with the cabmen, described above, and our cabs are off in single file along a road of gradual ascent but very solid construction, the hilly island on one side, a tree-grown, steep descent to the sea on the 513 EIGHT LANDS IN other, and a parapet of stone to make all safe. In the side of the precipitous rock before us, where it drops hundreds of feet to the sea, our driver points out a little line against the sky and signifies in Italian that it is of especial interest to us. "Do you see where we are to go?" cries My Lady Bright Eyes, with a grim tone in her voice. "I think not, my dear; at least, I sincerely hope not." "Well, watch and see." Where- upon I considered how many people had probably traveled the new road to Anacapri since it was laid out, thirty years ago; how high and strong was the parapet, in case a balky horse should decide to back; how becoming white hairs would be to some of us, and how exciting if they should turn white in one day; and then I began looking at such of the 800 spe- cies of Capri's plants as grew on the up side of our road, and such occasional treetops as peeped above the parapet opposite. We talked about the weather and the view ; you hardly need the weather at all in these parts, views being such a staple of conversation. No one was ahead of us, and we durst not look back for fear of taking fright; but we heard the interested voices of our guide and My Lady Practical in our rear, and the frequent explosions of whips cracked in the high air, without which no Italian driver is happy, and, I dare say, no Italian horse. It seems to be a kind of "all right" between man and beast. And at the end of the scheduled half hour all was right, we were at the top of the cliff among the plastered houses that looked as though carved out of its substance ; the drivers were carrying on an animated argument ; some- thing wrong, or missing, or to be explained or set right. At the first pause we would ask if we might return by another road ; at the second we would inquire for the best point of view, and in which direction to explore the little town. But there was no pause. A 514 EIGHT WEEKS sudden whirling about of every driver before we could count how many of us had arrived, or laugh or sigh over our precipitous ascent; the descent began in re- verse order, and rattle, rumble, down we went at the peril of our four old vehicles — too much noise to ask or answer — in and out beside the great rock, with the flora now at our right and the blue depth at our left ; and never a pause till our four drew up triumphant in the little square of Capri with a full hour on our hands before the departure of the steamboat. Was it a scheme of revenge for too small fees allowed by our guide? Was it the meeting of a pre- vious engagement? Was it connivance with the men of the picture-postals and the women of the coral beads to throw us into their clutches ? We cannot say, nor can we tell you whether the wind always whistles over Anacapri and blows the dust in clouds but leaves the mosquitoes undisturbed, as some of its blackeners will have it; nor whether all of its streets and people look like artists' models as they did at Capri ; but we can report the corals at the Marina Grande beautiful in all shades from deep red to creamy white, and quite too cheap when one considers those poor people cut- ting and polishing them through the winter days ; also the grapes delicious and the picture postals not half so astounding as the truth. And when we stole a look at the mirror in the steamer cabin, we discov- ered no appreciable whitening of our hair. May you be as happy as we after riding upon your high places. M. 515 EIGHT LANDS IN LV— POMPEII. Naples, Friday, Aug. 2j. This morning we went to Pompeii. How different from the island and the grotto! After all the repre- sentations we had seen of this excavated city, we had no adequate idea of its deadness. "One hour, Signora, to see all this ! But the Forum and the temples alone require an hour. You will only have time for a little part of this side of the city; a great pity, Signora, not to give two hours at least." Imagine to yourself a whole city cut in two hori- zontally, so that nothing rises above the first story; every trace of woodwork gone, no glazing, no doors, no furniture ; but frescoes here and there upon the 5i6 EIGHT WEEKS walls, and always frescoes of gayety and dancing, cupids and wreaths and floating nymphs ; a rich dash of Pompeian red or Pozzuoli yellow now and again ; here an atrium with verandas opening upon it, a ruined fountain in the court, and flowers and vines planted by the hands of the modern showman; here a TbaBa&e Sj) op &€, kitchen hearth, a public laundry with tanks placed end to end; a row of stone mills like huge hour-glasses, and everywhere the streets as narrow as little lanes, the houses close upon them, the pavement stones so 517 EIGHT LANDS IN worn and uneven that it is a laborious undertaking to walk over them. My Lady Practical decides that upon the parting threshold of Europe she will show her- self a little indulgence and be carried about in a chair. The sun beats down unpityingly. A corpse of a city, a mummy of a city, kept all these centuries to show us how the people lived ; and the rich and the poor had no better common ground than now; the "bassi" looked very much like those of Naples, and the houses of the aristocracy were shut in to selfish courts of loveliness, like the high-walled gardens we drove among three days ago. But we saw no evidence of parks or shaded streets. I think the world has ad- vanced. The museums we had not time to enter; but in the National Museum of Naples we found a large depart- ment devoted to Pompeian frescoes and bits of fabric, household utensils, bronze statuettes, vases, some blackened benches and tables, crockery and glass, and even food ready for the baker or long dried since taken from his ovens. A most interesting and depressing part of Naples, this, these memorials, so concrete, of a great destruc- tion. No desire, on our part, to climb the cone of Vesuvius and look down into its Gehenna. The best we can do is to console ourselves with the Venuses and Hercules of the lower floor of this museum, and be thankful for undying Art, which has ever been striving toward the beautiful and the ideal. Many a time have we exclaimed with a sigh, in these swift- running weeks, "Art is long, but time is fleeting." Now we feel inclined to take a glad look at the new boulevards, at the Villa Nazionale, at the abounding statues, the trees, the flowering borders, and to con- sole ourselves with the thought that if time be fleeting, still Art is long. 5i8 EIGHT WEEKS We've had many a high day to record in our diaries, but to-morrow is to be, for a certain remnant of us, a very low day. And in anticipation I will betake me early to bed, leaving with you this rhyme about our last city : NAPLES. Blue, blue, blue, the waves of the inland deep, White, white, white, the houses that climb the steep ! Dark eyes shining, love locks twining, Soft Italian speech. Fishermen haggling, shouting; children laughing, pouting, Balconies out of reach. Soft, soft, soft, a column of smoke to the sky; Red, red, red the flames that smouldering lie. Isles among the billows, ruined Roman villas, Caves zvhere Sibyls divelt; Marble gods and heroes; courts where cruel Neros Loathsome sentence dealt. Dead, dead, dead, the cities that lie in the dust; Old, old, old, the bronzes blue with rust. Frescoes faintly glozving, raiment quaintly flowing, Colors that time defy. Vintage girls a-singing, convent bells a-ringing, See Naples ere you die! 519 EIGHT LANDS IN LVI— ON THE WHARF. Naples, Saturday, Aug. 28. Two lone figures on the wharf of an ocean liner waving and waving and waving, till the big ship turns a corner down the bay, and the answering figures on the deck become a bit of its great blackness. We gratefully wrote in our little text-books last night that Bible verse that we had hoarded up for this occasion: "They went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came" ; also some of Scribe Ezra's intimate sayings about "the good hand of my God upon me." But in my own especial book I have put down the names of two little Hebrew lads of three and four thousand years ago, to be my pages before and behind. At the very outset I wrote in June the name of little Gad, Jacob's seventh son ; and to-day I have brought up my rear guard with the grandson of old Eli, baby Ichabod. And if you don't happen to remember the appropriateness of these names, just look them up, as you have kindly done so many things before. Our suit-case Bible has fine print, and yours are better. I suppose we two shall turn to shop windows for an hour of consolation before applying ourselves to the problems of the future ; but having this brave fountain pen in hand brings before me another appalling reflec- tion. All of you, beloveds, what will you now do? Will you, too, go with the six to the happy homeland, and declare that for you that is the fairy realm of all 520 EIGHT WEEKS with fairy godmothers and fairy cherubs, and fairy spectacles that turn evil into good ? Or will you tarry a while with us to drink more draughts of history and art from this great vineland of Europe? If we had our way, you should never set foot on steamer deck till we were ready to go with you. But if you resolve to go, a "buon viaggio" to you, too, and "molte, molte grazie" for all the days you have traveled with us. Sincerely, M. THE END. 521 BROADWAY PUBLISHING COS NEWEST BOOKS All Bound in Silk Cloth and Gilt. Many Illustrated Fiction The Eyes at the Window (beautifully bound, with embossed jacket) — Olivia Smith Cornelius. . . .$i .50 Next-Night Stories — C. J. Messer 1 .25 Arthur St. Clair of Old Fort Recovery— S. A. D. Whipple 1 . 50 Barnegat Yarns — F. A. Lucas 1 .00 Jean Carroll, with six illustrations — John H. Case 1 . 50 As a Soldier Would — Abner Pickering 1.50 The Nut-Cracker, and Other Human Ape Fables — C. E. Blanchard, M.D . 1 .00 Moon-Madness, and Other Fantasies — Aimee Crocker Gouraud (5th ed.) , 1 .00 Sadie, or Happy at Last — May Shepherd 1 . 50 Tweed, a Story of the Old South — S. M. Swales . . 1 . 50 The White Rose of the Miami— Mrs. E. W. Ammerman 1 . 50 The Centaurians — Biagi 1 . 50 The Reconstruction of Elinore Wood — Florenz S. Merrow 1 . 50 A Nest of Vipers — Morgan D. Jones 1 . 50 Religious Works The Disintegrating Church — Frederick William Atkinson 1 . 00 Evolution of Belief — J. W. Gordon 1 . 50 Down Hill and Up Hill — Rev. J. G. Anderson. . 2.00 A Certain Samaritan — Rev. John Richelsen 1 . 00 The Reunion of Christendom — Francis Goodman 1 . 50 What the Church Is and What It Should Be— Lafayette Swindle 1.50 A Harp of the Heart. (Poems) — Rev. Chas. Coke Woods 1 . 00 The Gospel Parables in Verse — Rev. Christopher Smith 75 Who? Whence? Where? An Essay by Pedro Batista 1 . 00 Compendium of Scriptural Truths — Marshall Smith 1.25 The Passion Play at Ober Ammergau — Esse Esto Maplestone 1 . 00 Israel Lo Ammi — Ida M. Nungasser 1 .00 A* V. ' - A 0, «■ S a * *^.. \ v « s ; v ,v\ y |Pp ^ AN* /^ ^ ^ ,0o. ^ ' ^ f , - A ' > A" k * /\ A' ; 4 ^ V oH -7*. 9 A^ s %..^ v *Jifi 0^ "^ V \V v , • %> ^ - ° ^ ^ A^' "* ->, ,^% .A- -?v w> *? * \\^Lr- ^ b o x V* 1 "% ■ : ^ c : or. 0> ~V - ,0 o ^ o> Oo. V s s^"', > .--- ' %. V* ^ ^ V V- <<• ' % ^ - .# ^ ^ xi. - ,v ,0o oo ++ $ \*°* 'V*' ^ ^ *° V •'>. y