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Class Jj 
 
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 Copyright N°. 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 
 
A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
THE WARTBURG 
 FROM THE THURINGIAN FOREST. 
 
A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 BY 
 FREDERICK A. BISBEE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 THE MURRAY PRESS 
 
 1911 
 

 Copyright, 1911, 
 
 BY 
 
 MELVIN S. NASH 
 
 J 
 
 S 
 
 THE MURRAY PRESS 
 
 359 Boylston St. 
 Boston 
 
 ©CLA28t>457 
 
Dedication 
 S0 iMfl Seat $x\mb 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The meeting of the World Congress of Free 
 Christianity and Religious Progress in Berlin 
 during the summer of 1910 drew together 
 more than two thousand delegates from nearly 
 every part of the world. More than sixty 
 different religious sects and thirty different 
 nationalities were represented. Add to these 
 great numbers nearly as many more attendants 
 from Berlin and vicinity, and the magnitude 
 and dignity of the occasion will be appreci- 
 ated. 
 
 This great multitude assembled in the in- 
 terests of human freedom and religious prog- 
 ress; some of the most eminent teachers and 
 religious leaders of the world participated, and 
 a new era of the fellowship of the spirit in 
 universal brotherhood was inaugurated. The 
 story of the Congress has already been re- 
 hearsed by the press, and the proceedings in 
 detail are published in several large volumes, 
 in both German and English. 
 
 To attend this Congress, a party of nearly 
 two hundred Americans sailed from Boston 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll PREFACE 
 
 on the Devonian, and other steamers early in 
 July, and in addition to the visit to Berlin, 
 made an extended tour of Europe, covering 
 England, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Hun- 
 gary, France and Italy, enjoying unique social 
 and literary privileges. 
 
 This was a rather exceptional group of 
 tourists; there were twelve different religious 
 denominations represented in the Devonian 
 party; there were ministers, college professors, 
 teachers, authors, artists, students, lawyers, 
 physicians, merchants and farmers. This book 
 is the story of some of their experiences along 
 the way. 
 
 To such a journey there is, of course, a seri- 
 ous purpose, which deserves and has received 
 appropriate consideration. But there is also 
 another side, the " human side," which is not 
 less important than the "proceedings of the 
 meeting." In these sketches will be found the 
 "human side," touched with light and shade, 
 just as it always is, at home or abroad, — but 
 a little more of light than of shade. 
 
 The only reason for giving to these informal 
 records this permanent form is the assurance 
 of some who have read them, that while the 
 journey was over well-trodden paths, familiar 
 to all through experience or reading, the pur- 
 
PKEFACE IX 
 
 pose of the writer to see things from a new- 
 point of view, and to tell in a new way what he 
 saw, has been measurably accomplished, and 
 it is thought the book will have a reminiscent 
 value to all who have been over the route, 
 and an inspirational value to some who have 
 not. 
 
 The author disclaims any purpose to instruct 
 in geography, history, art or literature, but 
 while never allowing his imagination to be 
 hampered by facts, he has kept as near the 
 truth as was convenient. He has tried to tell 
 as simply and pleasantly as possible the story 
 of a delightful flight, with delightful compan- 
 ions, through a delightful summer. 
 
 F. A. B. 
 
 Boston, Mass., 1911. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Flight of the Angels 1 
 
 Which carries them across the Ocean. 
 
 II. Over on the Other Side 16 
 
 The Angels are cordially welcomed, and con- 
 sider the Religious Situation. 
 
 III. The Angels Sight-seeing 29 
 
 In Chester, Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon. 
 
 IV. The Angels continue to see Things 44 
 
 At Kenilworth and Oxford. 
 
 V. The Angels in London 52 
 
 Eat, drink and are merry. 
 
 VI. Ik moet een Slaapkamer hebben .... 67 
 
 Revealing an Incident of the Angels' Inva- 
 sion of Holland. 
 
 VII. In the Land of the Wooden Shoe . . 78 
 
 Also of the Windmill, the Canal, and 
 Several Other Things. 
 
 VIII. The Temptation of the Angels 88 
 
 Which befell them in Cologne and on the 
 Rhine. 
 
 IX. The Angels on a Spree 102 
 
 Being a Brief of their Stay in Berlin. 
 
 X. The Angels and the Kaiser 114 
 
 From the Angels' Point of View. 
 
 XL In the Steps of Luther 125 
 
 Following the Reformer through Witten- 
 berg and Weimar to Eisenach. 
 
 XII. On the Heights with Luther 136 
 
 Finding Refuge with him in the Old Castle 
 of the Wartburg. 
 
 xi 
 
Xll 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEK PAGE 
 
 XIII. At Oberammergau 150 
 
 The Angels observe the Natives and in- 
 dulge in a Few Thoughts. 
 
 XIV. The Passion Play 161 
 
 A Serious Account and Interpretation. 
 
 XV. Down from the Heights 175 
 
 Lingering for a Few Last Observations, the 
 Angels descend to the Earth at Munich. 
 
 XVI. The Angels in Switzerland 188 
 
 Have their Fill of Scenery, — to say nothing 
 of Other Things. 
 
 XVII. The Land of William Tell 198 
 
 Proves to be the World in Miniature. 
 
 XVIII. On Top of the Earth 210 
 
 When the Angels had the World at their 
 Feet. 
 
 XIX. The Greatest Bore on Earth 221 
 
 Through which a Group of the Angels pass 
 to do Italy. 
 
 XX. Milanese 232 
 
 One Lone Angel wishes he had studied Es- 
 peranto, but all find Much to Interest in 
 Milan. 
 
 XXI. On the Rialto 246 
 
 The Strange Adventures which befell an 
 Angel under the Guidance of Launcelot 
 Gobbo. 
 
 XXII. Round about Venice 280 
 
 Democratic Angels in the Palaces of Princes. 
 
 XXIII. The Unfolding of Italy 275 
 
 In which Four Angels adventure into 
 Florence and Southern Italy. 
 
 XXIV. All Roads lead to Rome 290 
 
 And even the Angels get there at last. 
 
 XXV. Being in Rome 304 
 
 The Angels do as the Romans did not. 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXVI. Round about Rome 318 
 
 Following in the Footsteps of the Famous. 
 
 XXVII. Naples the Beautiful 334 
 
 Where Weeds and Flowers grow from the 
 same Dirt. 
 
 XXVIII. Up Vesuvius 344 
 
 The Angels again seek the Heights to look 
 into the Depths. 
 
 XXIX. The Return Flight 355 
 
 Across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. 
 
A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 
 
 WHICH CARRIES THEM ACROSS THE OCEAN 
 
 10 one would have taken them for 
 Angels as they came on board of 
 the Devonian at the East Boston 
 dock, on the thirteenth of July, 
 just before the hour of sailing for the World's 
 Congress of Religious Liberals to be held in 
 Berlin, and incidentally to "do" more or less 
 of Europe. Angels according to all authori- 
 ties, ancient and modern, do not travel with 
 suit cases, steamer rugs, flowers, chocolates, 
 fruits and other impedimenta, and still farther, 
 Angels are popularly supposed to voyage 
 aerially rather than aqueously; but in spite 
 of appearances, I am disposed to contend that 
 the one hundred and forty passengers on the 
 Devonian were Angels, in that they were 
 messengers of light and good will among men; 
 
 l 
 
2 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 and if it were true that the wings and crowns 
 and palm branches were so elemental as to be 
 invisible at the start, and if as they developed 
 some of them got a bit bedraggled with the 
 dust and soil of earth and things earthy, yet 
 I doubt if any ship ever carried a passenger 
 list any more worthy, on the whole, to be 
 recorded in the Book of Life. 
 
 GOOD-BY TO THE ANGELS. 
 
 And that was a reason for no little appre- 
 hension on my part as to what we were to do for 
 ten days shut up with such a deadly monotony 
 of goodness! Sailors are a superstitious lot; they 
 fear nothing so much as a cargo of ministers, 
 and here they could not throw a marlinspike 
 without hitting at least one, and those who 
 were not ordained might be classed as " near- 
 ministers, " so it is not surprising that there 
 was more or less of gloom on the faces of the 
 
THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 6 
 
 crew, and shadowy portent in the hearts of 
 some of the less regenerate among the passen- 
 gers. 
 
 But the ship got away in good shape, and 
 before the voyage was two days old it was 
 manifest that there was sufficient savor of 
 common everyday human nature to keep the 
 Devonian on a horizontal rather than a perpen- 
 dicular course. In fact we presently discov- 
 ered that there is a great deal of human nature 
 even among the best class of angels! 
 
 As one of the angelic host I found the very 
 human quality of laziness developing to an 
 abnormal degree. I had started out with a 
 very beautiful book, — a loose-leaf book, so I 
 could add to its size if occasion required, — to 
 hold the daily journal I was to keep for the 
 benefit of my friends and possible readers, and 
 with a conscientious determination to keep up 
 with the procession of events; and now, on a 
 steamer going home, two months later, as I 
 look upon that book as it lies before me, I see 
 its pure white pages unsullied by a word from 
 my pen. It is a good book, bound in real 
 russia leather, and I fancy it will last me all 
 my life! But it has revealed something to me, 
 which I have long suspected, that recordable 
 events in this modern life which the newspaper 
 
4 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 dominates, are limited to those which contain 
 at least a suggestion of evil, so what was one 
 to do for "copy" when traveling with Angels? 
 It was a poor outlook for a lazy man. Then 
 there was another reason why my beautiful 
 book is still untarnished by my observations; 
 
 ON THE DECK OF THE DEVONIAN. 
 
 I stilled my conscience on the way over by 
 the thought that I needed a real rest for a few 
 days, and the promise that when we got on 
 the other side I would catch up with my work, 
 only to discover that while on the ship I had 
 time but no disposition; over there, I had 
 the disposition but no time! The powers that 
 arranged our program from the moment we 
 landed in Liverpool, seemed to think that they 
 were entering the whole group in a gigantic 
 Marathon race through the British Islands and 
 Europe, and I learned that though under 
 
THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 5 
 
 favorable circumstances, he who runs may 
 read, — he cannot write. 
 
 All of which is a roundabout way of saying 
 that instead of giving a categorical account of 
 this marvelously unique summer in Europe 
 with a flock of Angels, as per daily record in 
 my unwritten journal, I propose to chatter 
 about the trip as it comes to mind, just as we 
 all shall talk it over with the folks at home, 
 without any regard for continuity, but trying 
 as best I can, under natural limitations, to 
 keep in sight of the truth! 
 
 Of course the goal of it all was the Congress 
 of Religions at Berlin, and I have a special 
 department of my mind and heart stored with 
 memories of that, which I shall try to give 
 " on the side/' so that those who want simply 
 to get a glimpse of that event, need not follow 
 us in all our flights, and need not wait for it 
 until we get there in the course of our some- 
 what erratic course. 
 
 How naturally one drops into the conven- 
 tional and almost necessary phrase in writing 
 of a journey abroad! Every possible variation 
 of language has been employed in describing 
 the departure of the ship, and life on board, 
 and one has but to say "ditto" and it is all 
 said; and this year it is peculiarly out of place 
 
6 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 to try to tell anybody about going to Europe, 
 for, from all appearances abroad, everybody 
 in America was in Europe, either actually or 
 vicariously! But, after all, our own trip was 
 unique. Since the sailing of the Mayflower 
 for America we believe the Devonian is the 
 first ship to carry a passenger list made up 
 exclusively of those seeking Religious Liberty, 
 though not like our distinguished predecessors, 
 fleeing from religious restraint and persecution. 
 Rather were we carrying the good news of our 
 freedom to those who on a like mission, were 
 
 UNDER THE AWNING ON THE 'DEVONIAN. 
 
 hastening from other lands to bring us greet- 
 ing and encouragement. 
 
 So the American group which sailed on the 
 Devonian was peculiar. It was made up of 
 representatives of twelve different sects, but 
 with one common purpose, to find the points 
 of agreement and begin the mobilizing of the 
 
THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 7 
 
 forces of righteousness for a great world-move- 
 ment. 
 
 It was a noble conception, and the feeling 
 as I draw near the close of the tour is that it 
 was nobly carried out. The archangel of our 
 group, if I may so distinguish the man who 
 more than all others contributed to its triumph, 
 deserves and receives all credit for the masterly 
 consummation of a world-purpose for Liberal 
 Religion. I do not propose in this chronicle 
 to introduce names any more than is necessary, 
 for the thing is so much bigger than the people 
 in it, but I cannot forbear at this time, making 
 fitting recognition of the work of Rev. Dr. 
 Wendte, who, though representing but one of 
 the denominations included, had a vision of a 
 world-movement in which the representatives 
 of every liberal and liberalizing force in the 
 religious world should come together, not to 
 lose themselves in each other, but to strengthen 
 themselves for a contribution to a common pur- 
 pose, larger than any one. And his vision was 
 so nearly realized that others have seen it in 
 its glory, and its future is bright with promise. 
 Facing almost insurmountable difficulties and 
 misunderstandings, he has succeeded in bring- 
 ing into line forces which will yet have much 
 to do with shaping the world's religious good, 
 which is inclusive of all good. 
 
s 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 SHUFFLE BOARD. 
 
 But I am anticipating the Congress itself 
 while we are yet on the ship. And yet how 
 could I do anything else, for the voyage from 
 Boston to Liverpool was a prototype of the 
 Congress itself. There we were representing so 
 many different sects, yet living in perfect har- 
 mony, worshiping 
 together, playing to- 
 gether, working to- 
 gether in the unity 
 of the spirit and the 
 bonds of peace. 
 
 The memory of 
 those days on the 
 steamer will be cher- 
 ished by every one who knew their charm. 
 There were no outsiders, we were as one family 
 of congenial spirits. Formal introductions were 
 hardly necessary, for we were all on a com- 
 mon mission, and so we came together in a 
 wholly informal way. Several religious services 
 were held, conducted by Unitarian, Baptist, 
 Universalist, Christian and Friends, and they 
 were services which would have surprised many 
 of those who disconnect Liberalism from fervor. 
 Those who preached to us, caught the full spirit 
 of Christian fellowship and led us into the true 
 spirit of worship. 
 
THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 9 
 
 Then there were the evenings of entertain- 
 ment when with song and story the hours were 
 made glad. And not to be forgotten the 
 Athletic Field Day, — though I never did quite 
 understand why it was not the Athletic Deck 
 Day! — when all the young people — and none 
 were old that day — contended in all sorts of 
 races and contests, with all the enthusiasm, 
 if not the skill of professionals. It was just 
 good fun, and the parson will preach the 
 better, the professor will teach the better, and 
 the student will learn the more, because of the 
 letting go. 
 
 But I must not linger over the pleasant de- 
 tails, which will linger long in all our hearts, 
 lest we never arrive in the Promised Land. 
 There was one thing we missed to my ever- 
 lasting regret. I had always longed to see a 
 seasick angel. I was in the state of mind of the 
 boy who stood anxiously watching the minis- 
 ter tacking down a carpet, who just wanted to 
 hear what a minister would say when he hit 
 his finger a good crack! It is easy enough being 
 angelic when conditions are favorable, but how 
 would a real angel endure seasickness? Would 
 he, could he — or she — live up to the char- 
 acter, or would human nature triumph? But 
 alas, I am not to know, at least not yet, 
 
10 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 perhaps never, for over there where the angelic 
 population is more numerous, there is said to 
 be "no more sea." 
 
 In spite of the forebodings of the sailors, 
 never was there a fairer or quicker voyage for 
 the Devonian; save for a few days of mild fog, 
 and a bit of a roll off the Irish coast, we had 
 a smooth sea, and fair winds all the way, and 
 sailed into Liverpool a day ahead of our 
 scheduled time, to find a cordial Reception 
 Committee of Liberals awaiting us, with a 
 welcome whose generous cordiality touched our 
 hearts and filled the treasury of our memory. 
 
 But I cannot leave our memorable voyage 
 without an observation or two, or more it may 
 be. It matters not how carefully chosen a 
 passenger list may be, the ship is bound to be 
 the world in miniature, on which are enacted 
 the same comedies and tragedies which are 
 played on the larger stage. All the virtues and 
 all the vices, all the strength and all the weak- 
 ness of humanity are found even in a company 
 of angels! Light and darkness chase each 
 other across a deck as sunlight and cloud- 
 shadow flit across a valley. Not that we had 
 any tragedies, and none too much of comedy, 
 but the same elements which go to make up 
 an everyday life at home were there, — gener- 
 
THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 11 
 
 osity and selfishness, modesty and arrogance, 
 though tfulness and thoughtlessness, selfish pride 
 and self-respect, Christian courtesy and base 
 forge tfulness. Humanized angels and angelic 
 humans, the exclusives and the inclusives, — 
 yes, we were all there, as we are everywhere, 
 no matter where we are. The first-class look 
 down on the second, the second look down on 
 the steerage, the steerage is sorry for those who 
 stay at home, and, to complete the circle, the 
 stay-at-homes pity the first-class who must 
 hunt the world over to find the pleasure they 
 should know at home! None so high but 
 there are others higher, none so low but there 
 are others lower. "0 why should the spirit 
 of mortal be proud?" Yet some of us were 
 wise and others foolish, and the wise confounded 
 us with their foolishness, and the foolish 
 amazed us with their wisdom. The savant 
 trips us with his knowledge, while a little child 
 shall lead us. Yet we pity and patronize one 
 another! Down in the hold of the ship were 
 a dozen or more young men; they were not 
 allowed to come on deck, we could only see 
 them and talk with them through the hatch. 
 They were a lot of college boys — two Tufts 
 men among them; they were taking care of 
 the cattle to pay their way over; they were the 
 
12 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 most popular men on the boat. Every pas- 
 senger respected them for doing their dirty 
 work in a manly way and for a purpose. They 
 knew a great deal; they could read Latin and 
 toy with geometrical problems. But they 
 could not come on deck, while the boss herds- 
 man, who would never know as much in his 
 whole life as they knew in a minute, paced the 
 deck and kept them below — but then he knew 
 cattle; he probably pitied the "ignorance" of 
 those "college cubs!" 
 
 And I could not avoid the thought that as 
 in any heaven to which we may attain, we are 
 like the old Scotchman, — we were all there by 
 grace and not by merit. It is true that some 
 had worked hard and earned the actual money 
 to be expended on the trip, and yet not one of 
 us but was there because of the sacrifice of 
 money or time, or convenience or pleasure, or 
 love of some others, who were back there in our 
 homes or churches making it possible for us to 
 enjoy the unique opportunity of a tour of 
 Europe, and the meeting with perhaps the most 
 distinguished group of world-leaders of the age. 
 This was true probably of every one of us; 
 through the sacrifice of others we were being 
 filled with joy. But particularly was this so 
 of the ministers, and in a right manly way did 
 
THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 13 
 
 they acknowledge their obligation. Hardly a 
 minister was with us whose voyage had not 
 been made possible by the generosity and 
 thoughtfulness of one or more friends, as well 
 as by the sacrifices of those nearer, who changed 
 all their summer plans, or gave up cherished 
 hopes in the interest of the cause they would 
 serve. 
 
 But the generous devotion of individuals and 
 churches that, for instance, made it possible 
 for the Church to be fittingly represented and 
 take its proper place in the world's religious 
 work, deserves especial mention. The age is 
 full of opportunities for generous deeds. The 
 calls to those who have means are incessant, 
 but in the way of a really large missionary 
 vision there are few opportunities richer in 
 promise than this opening of the door for a 
 Church to enter' upon a world-service. We 
 have lived perhaps too much in and for our- 
 selves. There is a new age for the Church which 
 begins to think and act in this field which is the 
 world. There is a new age for the minister 
 who has been enabled to get out of his narrow 
 environment and see life from a new stand- 
 point. He should be a bigger and a better man 
 and minister, or bigger and better in whatever 
 field he labors. All honor to the friends and 
 
14 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 churches who have thus met an opportunity, 
 and I am sure that of that group of fortunate 
 voyagers not one but will at least make the 
 effort to make the investment pay a good 
 return. 
 
 We never know our resources until they are 
 tested; those disciples of old who were worried 
 about how the multitude was to be fed when 
 there was nothing in sight, were not unlike the 
 rest of us at almost any time and in any place. 
 We are so fearful that there will not be enough 
 to go round, simply because there is so little 
 in sight. Five thousand to feed and only a 
 few loaves and small fishes! There was a 
 humble illustration of the same thing on the 
 Devonian when some one cried out, "How 
 shall we entertain when there is no talent?" 
 and then there came the same gracious spirit 
 which spoke to the disciples and the multitude, 
 and simply said there is enough, if each will 
 do his part, and the program of good things was 
 so long that much had to be gathered up for 
 the next Congress three years hence, — that 
 nothing be lost. 
 
 The miracle of unselfishness, — when we bring 
 forth the bread of laughter or of life, which we 
 have been hiding for our own use, and behold ! 
 there is enough for all, and more than enough. 
 
THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 
 
 15 
 
 And the ship is the world. There are great 
 multitudes who are to be fed, and the good 
 God hath provided enough for all. As soon as 
 the Christ-spirit gets into the hearts of men and 
 they stop hoarding and hiding, and bring forth 
 their little or much, laying it at his feet; then 
 all are fed. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 THE ANGELS ARE CORDIALLY WELCOMED AND 
 CONSIDER THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION 
 
 T seemed to us that it would be im- 
 possible to keep up the pace set by 
 the Liverpool friends, under the lead 
 of the fine organization of Liberals of 
 Liverpool and Manchester. We had just about 
 time to adjust our clothing to shore duty, when 
 we were taken in charge for a whirlwind of hos- 
 pitality. The reception at the Royal Institute 
 brought us into delightful personal relations with 
 our hosts, and through the addresses of welcome 
 we learned that we were the finest people in the 
 world, and then our speakers in response showed 
 that our English hosts were finer than the finest! 
 Sunday was a busy day for the ministers. 
 Every one preached once and generally twice. 
 All the Unitarian churches in Liverpool and 
 Manchester, and one Congregationalist, tendered 
 their pulpits, and though it was the vacation sea- 
 son with them as with us in America, large con- 
 gregations were in attendance. 
 
 16 
 
OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 17 
 
 It was our first experience in preaching in 
 Great Britain, and we were all impressed with 
 the different atmosphere pervading the churches. 
 In Unitarian quite as much as in the Congrega- 
 tional churches there is a more marked spirit of 
 reverence than we find in our churches at home. 
 There may not be any more religion, but there 
 is a different way of showing it; perhaps it is 
 better — but anyway, it is different. There is 
 
 WALKER ART GALLERY, LIVERPOOL. 
 
 a real spirit of reverence for the house of God; 
 no matter who is to preach or what form the 
 service is to take, when the members of the con- 
 gregation enter the church, apparently they be- 
 gin to worship; that is, they do not wait until 
 the service begins before bringing their minds, 
 and usually their bodies, into an attitude of 
 worship. They have come into a sacred place, 
 and bear themselves fittingly. It was not a ses- 
 sion of a social club, until interrupted by the 
 
18 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 music. It was not, apparently, a gossip-ex- 
 change. Each family — and mostly, they came 
 as families — as it entered the building went 
 quietly and decorously to the pew, knelt or 
 bowed devoutly in prayer, and then sat still and 
 waited. There was no talking, no visiting from, 
 pew to pew. It seemed, whether it was really so 
 or not, it seemed that the people had come to 
 worship, and the minister did not feel that he 
 must first call the minds of his flock from their 
 wanderings before he could lead them in worship. 
 
 The service generally was much more elabo- 
 rate, even ritualistic, than we were accustomed 
 to. While the Unitarians of England are not 
 one whit behind us in liberality, and Congrega- 
 tionalists seem to be beyond us in breadth of 
 theological view, all recognize the value of a 
 richer service than the plain form we use; in 
 fact, some modification of the Book of Common 
 Prayer is in almost universal use. 
 
 In the great Unitarian Cathedral Church, as it 
 is called, in Ullet Road, where the able Dr. Odgers 
 is the successful pastor, the beautiful building in 
 all its arrangements and fittings conforms to 
 the spirit of more formal worship. There is a 
 full ritualistic service including the processional 
 of the vested choir, and one feels in the midst 
 of such ecclesiastical dignity as is embodied in 
 
OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 19 
 
 the noble buildings that anything less would be 
 inadequate and out of place. Here, too, the 
 ministers all wear gowns together with the col- 
 ored hoods indicating their degrees, and I con- 
 fess that amid such surroundings one would 
 hardly feel decent in ordinary clothes. When 
 Dr. Hunter of Glasgow, was in America, on his 
 memorable tour, many looked upon his gown and 
 Doctor's hood with wonder, but in England the 
 wonder is when they are not worn. Perhaps 
 academic degrees mean more over there, where 
 the bestowal of them has not been so abused, 
 and perhaps in America it is quite as foolish 
 pride which refuses to wear the insignia of an 
 honor justly won, as the pride which flaunts 
 it unworthily. After all, the law of the fitness 
 of things is the one to obey. 
 
 I should like to write a great deal about the 
 whole religious situation in Great Britain, for 
 it is intensely interesting. In the brief time 
 we were there, I learned a great deal, but I 
 want to be sure that some of the things I 
 learned are so before I transmit them to any 
 one else. I have an impression that my 
 knowledge is not ripe yet. Perhaps I might 
 introduce a few "observations/' and hold con- 
 clusions until a later date. 
 
 There is no doubt about there being very 
 
20 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 decided changes going on, but while the changes 
 are in the same direction as those in our own 
 country, they are of a different character, be- 
 cause they start from a different point and move 
 through different conditions. We have re- 
 cently had it illustrated in America how a 
 church firmly established by a couple of cen- 
 turies of life in accepted Orthodoxy, can change 
 its long, and long-established creed to the 
 simplest and most modern statement that it 
 "believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, " and there 
 is no excitement, no trial for heresy, and but 
 a passing moment of interest. But that sort 
 of thing cannot be done in England. There is 
 no doubt but that members of the Congrega- 
 tional church over there are quite as liberal 
 and progressive as any of the American repre- 
 sentatives of that denomination. As one talks 
 with individuals he must be impressed with 
 the large-minded scholarship which has thrown 
 off the mental restraints of the old theological 
 positions and thinks in modern terms regard- 
 ing religious conditions. At the same time, 
 however, there is also the impression of a power- 
 ful traditional and ecclesiastical restraint. It 
 is a fact that nearly every church in Great 
 Britain is so endowed in the support of the old 
 Westminster Confession of Faith that any two 
 
OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 21 
 
 or three people in it can make no end of trouble 
 for a minister who with his following seeks a 
 broader way. There is no place for argument; 
 the liberal-minded must get out and leave the 
 property behind if the conservative minority 
 says so. It is a question, and a serious one, as 
 to what can be done without violating the civil 
 or the moral law. These men are thoroughly 
 conscientious in wanting a change, and in 
 wanting it by the right method. 
 
 And another factor in the religious problem 
 is one we can hardly appreciate on this side 
 of the water, where we have not lived long 
 enough to feel the power of tradition. When 
 we want a change, we look ahead, and if it 
 seems best we make it. When they want a 
 change, they look back to see if it can be 
 justified in any way. We may think this is 
 foolish; as a matter of fact, it is an element 
 of power. Changes are not made in a hurry, 
 and are only made as the people grow into them. 
 They do not pick their fruit of religious progress 
 over there until it is ripe, and as a conse- 
 quence they do not have so much religious 
 dyspepsia as we do, as a consequence of gather- 
 ing ours while it is yet very green. 
 
 But the situation is that there is very great 
 theological restlessness in the churches of Great 
 
22 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 Britain; this indicates the presence of life which 
 erelong will find the true expression. 
 
 The Universalist Church of America will be 
 particularly interested in these new develop- 
 ments, for the evidence is almost universal and 
 convincing that the whole trend of theological 
 thinking is towards the great fundamental 
 affirmations of that Church. We are not to 
 flatter ourselves that presently we are to see 
 developed a new Church over there, and I 
 question whether it is desirable to start another 
 sect with which to complicate the situation; 
 but I see this without the shadow of a doubt, 
 that as surely as the theological current con- 
 tinues to set in the present direction, it will 
 land the Congregationalist and many of the 
 other churches squarely on the Universalist 
 affirmations as the only sure foundation upon 
 which to build the Christian Church of the 
 future. The matter of readjustment of prop- 
 erty and traditional form of expression will 
 take care of itself, if some hot-headed people 
 do not confound the whole situation with too 
 much impetuosity. 
 
 It will naturally be asked, Where does the 
 Unitarian Church of England come in? And 
 in sincere sympathy with our brethren over 
 the sea who have made such a long and heroic 
 
OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 23 
 
 struggle for religious freedom, we can see that 
 their work is still to go on, but in meeting the 
 present theological need of Great Britain the 
 Unitarian Church is weak in two particulars. 
 First, in the sense in which the word is used in 
 England, it is not theologically "Christian." 
 Do not misunderstand me here. I know the 
 Christian spirit and motive which have con- 
 trolled and still do control this great Church, 
 and I give it glad honor for all that it has done 
 in freeing the name Christian from theological 
 incubus; but when centuries have firmly fixed 
 the place of Christ in the redemptive scheme for 
 humanity, it is not to be changed in the twink- 
 ling of an eye. That is, there are many scholars 
 and preachers, as well as laymen, who do not be- 
 lieve in the Trinity, but who invariably bow the 
 head at the mention of the second person in the 
 Trinity. They do it because generations and 
 generations before them did it, and when they 
 changed their mind they did not change their 
 custom, but instead sought an academic justi- 
 fication for the act. 
 
 "The Christ" has a large and enduring place 
 in the worship of Great Britain which the 
 "human Jesus " cannot usurp. So in the matter 
 of emphasis in Christology the Unitarians are 
 handicapped. Even though many may accept 
 
24 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the Unitarian position, they are not going to 
 acknowledge it when they can get practically 
 the same thing in their old churches and under 
 the old name. 
 
 The fact remains that with all the growing 
 liberality in theology in Great Britain, the 
 great mass of ministers and people are yet 
 and will remain Christocentric in their think- 
 ing and allegiance. 
 
 The second serious handicap for the Liberal 
 Church at this time is that it is not affirma- 
 tive. People who are changing their faith, and 
 who, in a way, are in the air, want some real 
 and positive place in which to alight; they 
 do not want to remain in the air. And the 
 church without affirmations and convictions on 
 the great elemental doctrines of the Christian 
 religion will never call the people to its service 
 from the other churches. For they will at 
 once say, What is the use of seeking nega- 
 tions? We have more now of those things than 
 we can manage. People in the condition of 
 those in England to-day are asking, not what 
 do you disbelieve, but what do you believe? 
 They want religious convictions, not contra- 
 dictions; they want faith, not doubt; they 
 want affirmations, not speculations. That 
 form of faith alone can save the situation 
 
OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 25 
 
 which is first of all Christian, then positive, 
 then liberal. 
 
 I could go on and write a volume upon this 
 subject, for it is so fruitful in suggestion, and I 
 expect to have more to say about it on future 
 occasions, but must leave it now with one 
 other brief reference. 
 
 The eyes of all England and a considerable 
 portion of the world have been turned upon 
 Dr. Campbell and his City Temple in London, 
 as the most conspicuous illustration of the 
 actual religious situation. We expected that 
 Dr. Campbell would receive our party at the 
 City Temple, and later travel with us to Berlin 
 as one of the speakers at the Congress, but a 
 serious indisposition prevented both, but no 
 one interested in the religious situation need 
 lack for information about Dr. Campbell and 
 his work. Just how reliable it is, may be a 
 question, but almost any one in London can 
 give "information. " We received a great deal, 
 which we propose digesting before we reach a 
 final conclusion. We need not wait, however, 
 to know that at the City Temple the labora- 
 tory method is being employed in trying to clear 
 matters up. And Dr. Campbell is not one to 
 be afraid of experiments. We remember well 
 how orthodox he was in America a few years 
 
26 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 ago, on the Atonement, and how readily he 
 departed from it all on his return home, and 
 the story of his kaleidoscopic career since that 
 time is to be read with patience only when we 
 realize that it was all experimental. There is 
 one remarkable thing, however, in connection 
 with his work. It has been our privilege to see 
 every week one of his sermons, and in connec- 
 tion with it one of his public prayers, and we 
 have noted that while the sermons might have 
 made a coat of many colors, his prayers have 
 been a garment without a seam, so true and 
 steadily have they held to the spirit and letter 
 of the Master it was his sincere desire and 
 purpose to serve. 
 
 Dr. Campbell is a man of rare power, and 
 when he finds himself, he will be, or at least may 
 be, the dominant religious force in England. He 
 passed through all the conventional steps of 
 religious progress. First he revolted against 
 the old faiths, and particularly against the 
 old words; he was of the iconoclastic tribe, and 
 people were anxiously wondering where he 
 would land. It was easy enough to destroy, as 
 every reformer has found, but what is to be 
 built on the foundation cleared? 
 
 He was soon made to realize the fate of all 
 religious reformers; he made disciples rapidly, 
 
OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 27 
 
 from many of which he prayed afterwards to 
 be delivered. Every crank in the kingdom 
 cried out, "Lo, here is my chance!" And 
 presently Dr. Campbell found himself the cen- 
 ter of several political and social as well as 
 religious movements. He had a notion, — or at 
 least he thought it wise to try an experiment, — 
 that all these different phases of thought and 
 life might be made into one organization. He 
 knew they could not be held in any existing 
 church and so he organized the "Progressive 
 Liberal League," and it rapidly spread over 
 the country. It had as an auxiliary and a 
 most powerful one, a newspaper called The 
 Christian Commonwealth, which, under the 
 skillful management of a "born editor," spread 
 the tidings, and presently there was a new 
 denomination, built on very broad lines, which 
 appealed particularly to those unidentified with 
 the Christian Church. Then there being some 
 criticism, Dr. Campbell appealed to the Congre- 
 gational Union, raising the issue as to whether 
 or not he was still a Congregationalist in good 
 standing. The Union very cleverly decided 
 that there was no issue; that no one had ques- 
 tioned officially the standing of the minister, 
 and it could not be questioned excepting in his 
 own church. Then came the next, and it may 
 
28 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 be final, venture. Dr. Campbell, finding that 
 there were so many strange and unaccountable 
 and uncontrollable elements in his new or- 
 ganization, and realizing that the essential 
 thing in a religion was to be religious, and in 
 the Christian religion was to be Christian, 
 changed the name and the nature of his new 
 sect to the "Progressive Christian League," 
 and invited those who did not want to come 
 under the name " Christian" to get out. 
 Thus he has made himself and his church good 
 with the Congregational Union, and will have 
 accomplished with a good deal of noise what 
 many others will accomplish quietly, broadened 
 his faith within the Church itself, and related 
 his Church to the present life as well as to the 
 hereafter. 
 
 So we can see progress is being made in 
 improving the religious situation in Great 
 Britain, and this illustration is not given as the 
 cause of the change so much as the consequence. 
 The real forces producing this growth are the 
 quiet and thoughtful and scholarly ministers 
 who are preaching the broad and liberal Chris- 
 tianity of which Dr. John Hunter has recently 
 given America so fine an example. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 
 IN CHESTER, WARWICK AND STRATFORD-ON-AVON 
 
 HERE is among our acquaintances a 
 woman of rare worth and charming 
 vision, who loves this world and 
 wants to see it, and who rejoices in 
 the faith that when she becomes an angel she 
 will then be able to see it all — without having 
 to pay railroad fares or hotel bills. This delec- 
 table vision was realized by our group of Lib- 
 eral Religious "Angels." We traveled through 
 England, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy 
 and France, stopping at the best hotels, riding 
 in the best carriages, having the best guides 
 and seeing nearly everything and never being 
 asked to pay a cent. It comes to mind now 
 in an indefinite sort of way that before we 
 started from home we did deposit a pretty 
 good sized check with that master company of 
 tourists' agents, Thomas Cook and Son. But 
 during the time we were abroad we were like 
 the angels, free from the very disagreeable 
 
 29 
 
30 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 duty of buying tickets, looking after luggage, or 
 paying hotel bills and "tips." 
 
 Sometime I shall have to answer the ques- 
 tion as to my opinion of the "personally con- 
 ducted tour, " and I may as well do it now 
 while it is fresh in my mind. I have heard 
 all sorts of things said about and against the 
 
 ST. JOHN'S CHURCH RUINS, CHESTER. 
 
 "brutal tourist agent," who gets our money 
 and we — get left. I have received a good 
 many warnings against the leader of this 
 band, the Thomas Cook and Son. I have had 
 considerable experience with this sort of travel- 
 ing, as well as much that was independent, 
 before this last summer, and while I recognize 
 all the possible and actual defects of the system, 
 
THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 31 
 
 I believe that in our present stage of develop- 
 ment it is the easiest and best and most 
 economical way to see the world. It may as 
 well be recognized at once that "Thomas Cook 
 and Son, Tourist Agents," is one of the great 
 monopolies of the world. It has as highly 
 organized a system as the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany or the Meat Trust. Theoretically, we are 
 down on the whole bunch, but we still burn the 
 oil and eat the meat, and if we want to travel 
 with enjoyment and freedom from care, and 
 with fair treatment, we travel with Cook. 
 This is not an advertisement, but an answer 
 to the questions of our friends. From the 
 time the arrangements were taken up by Mr. 
 Thorpe, Cook's agent in Boston, we were 
 impressed with his skill in the arranging of 
 details and his uniform courtesy in dealing with 
 his people. He was our human encyclopedia. 
 When you think of it, it is a very remarkable 
 thing to take care of two hundred people for 
 two months, look after their tickets, luggage, 
 hotels, guides, carriage drives, and so plan 
 everything that the best of everything shall 
 be seen in the best way. 
 
 Of course, with so many, it is impossible that 
 every one shall have the best room at the 
 hotels or a seat in the first carriage all the 
 
32 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 time, but looking over the trip, I am convinced 
 that the thing averaged up pretty well; I had 
 poor rooms and best rooms, but the average 
 was good. And I got all I paid for. The 
 trouble with all these personally conducted 
 tours is that we tourists do not like to stick 
 to our part of the contract, and as soon as we 
 make a variation from it the trouble begins. 
 It is just as in building a house; when we begin 
 to put in the "extras" we start trouble. 
 Though the company affords every facility for 
 variations, it is hard for the individual to see 
 why he cannot shift from one road to another 
 and one hotel to another, when his accommo- 
 dations have been reserved for months and 
 must be paid for by some one. Our con- 
 clusion is that for those having only a given 
 amount of money and knowing what they 
 want to see, if they will make out that itinerary 
 and stick to it, especially if it carries them 
 through countries where the language is foreign, 
 they will see more and see it better and with less 
 friction if they press down the check and let 
 the tourist company do the rest. Of course 
 there were irritating things along the way; of 
 course even among angels there are fault- 
 finders. It is trying beyond measure not to 
 get mail when you expect it, — and if there 
 
THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 33 
 
 is reason for criticism anywhere upon the 
 "system," it is in its management of mail; 
 of course one guide to twenty-five or thirty 
 people spreads him out pretty thin; but after 
 all, as we look it over in memory, we believe 
 we saw more, saw it better and with far more 
 comfort than those who fought, wept and 
 prayed their way alone among unfamiliar 
 paths. This great corporation has a grip on 
 the most of the world's pathways, but its tolls 
 are moderate, and you will get all you pay for; 
 — why should we ask for more? 
 
 When we arrived in Liverpool, a day before 
 we were expected, our couriers were on the 
 landing stage to meet us, and 
 had our rooms engaged at the 
 hotels, where we were all made 
 very comfortable. We were left 
 to do as we chose until Mon- 
 day morning, when the real land our guide. 
 journey began. The "Angels" 
 spent the two days at their disposal in Liverpool 
 seeing the sights of the city and in getting used 
 to English money. On Sunday I was one of 
 two "Angels" having the exceptional privilege 
 of being a guest in three different English 
 homes. In the morning we went down the 
 Mersey River to Clereville, one of the beautiful 
 
34 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 suburbs of Liverpool, where I was invited 
 to preach in the Crosby Congregationalist 
 Church. I found a beautiful church building 
 with all the modern equipments for doing 
 practical work, and at the head of it the 
 Rev. T. H. Martin, M.A., a relative of the 
 Rev. Dr. John Hunter, and one in ardent 
 sympathy with the Liberal Gospel Dr. Hunter 
 preaches. A man of real scholarship and de- 
 vout spirit, he conducted the beautiful service 
 in such a way as to lead us all into the spirit 
 of worship. My American sermon found a 
 most cordial reception. At the conclusion of the 
 service we were taken to luncheon in a beauti- 
 ful and typical English home, where we were 
 made to feel the reality and the charm of 
 English hospitality. In the afternoon we took 
 tea at the home of Dr. Odgers, the pastor of 
 the Ullet Road Unitarian Church, and enjoyed 
 another phase of English life; and in the evening 
 after the service at the "Cathedral Church," 
 of which I have already written, we were the 
 guests at dinner at the fine house of Mr. 
 Sydney Jones, who will be remembered by 
 every one of the "Angels" for his unremitting 
 courtesy. 
 
 A special train took us from Birkenhead, just 
 across the Mersey from Liverpool, through to 
 
THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 35 
 
 London, with stops at Chester, Warwick and 
 Oxford. It was the first experience of many 
 of the "Angels" in European railroad travel, 
 and the novelty of the compartment cars 
 excited much comment. It was not a fair 
 test of them, for we had the whole train, and 
 there were no strangers to intrude upon us, 
 and through the corridors we could shift about 
 as we chose, so that presently congenial groups 
 were seated facing each other in such a manner 
 as to suggest at once to the frivolous the game 
 of "bean porridge hot/' 
 
 Now I do not propose turning myself into a 
 "Baedeker" on this journey. Of course we all 
 had these famous guidebooks in our hands all 
 the way, and I have mine beside me now, but 
 what is the use? We arrived in Chester, the 
 famous old Roman city, in the early forenoon, 
 and by copying a few pages I can tell you all 
 about it, — when its walls were built, and how 
 much of them remains. I can give you a 
 pretty good notion of just how big the cathe- 
 dral is; how much it measures this way and how 
 much it measures that; when this part was built 
 and that part was builded; who designed it 
 and who built different parts of it. I can tell 
 you how old some of the old walls are, approxi- 
 mately, and if I should miss the exact date by 
 
36 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 three or four hundred years, there are mighty 
 few even of those who were there who would 
 know the difference. I knew all those things 
 the day we were there, for I had them all in 
 the book right in my hand; but to tell the 
 truth, I have done what most people have done, 
 forgotten all the figures and just remember 
 the delightful impressions the old, old city and 
 the old, old cathedral stamped upon my mind 
 and heart. I went into the noble building, and 
 it is noble! It almost walls in the great out- 
 of-doors, and makes one ashamed to lift his 
 tiny voice amidst its vastness. A service goes 
 on in one pact while sight-seers roam through 
 other parts, and neither disturbs the other. 
 We have come across the ocean, we, a body of 
 people fully up to the average of intelligence 
 of our time, to look upon and admire and 
 wonder at the work of those people of a 
 thousand years ago, whom we pity for their 
 ignorance and lack of opportunity. They had 
 no great colleges in those days for the people, 
 no "correspondence schools of architecture" 
 even. Yet they had enough to eat and 
 enough to wear and enough to enjoy, and 
 we with our thousand years of added wisdom 
 come and sit at their feet to learn how to 
 build. 
 
THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 
 
 37 
 
 OLD WALL, CHESTER. 
 
 And then there is that old wall; but then that 
 is not so very old, and seems almost frivolous, 
 dating back only about six - — —. -. w ~& ~-..^ 
 hundred years. But it is 
 such a substantial thing. I 
 don't know of anything I 
 ever saw that could compare 
 with it unless it is that old 
 stone wall up in Worcester 
 County, Massachusetts, that 
 our sturdy old forefathers 
 built, not for the sake of the 
 wall but to get rid of the 
 stone. Perhaps a thousand years from now 
 modern Chinese civilization will come over to 
 America to study that wall, if long before that 
 time we have not ground up the stone to 
 macadamize our roads. 
 
 We all liked Chester, even if it did rain, and 
 just as soon as we had done our full duty 
 of seeing the sights and thinking we would 
 remember how many feet long the cathedral 
 is and how many feet high the wall is, we 
 escaped from our guides and plunged into the 
 real Chester hunting for Chesire cats with 
 the smile which won't come off, and Cheshire 
 cheese with the taste which lingers on your 
 tongue as love's young dream lingers in the 
 
38 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 heart. We found both, and came away from 
 the old town, and I have watched it, as Alice 
 watched the cat — fading, fading away, until 
 historic facts and figures have all gone — but 
 the smile remains. 
 
 Warwick was our stopping place and point 
 of departure to see the Shakespeare country. 
 
 OLD HOUSES IN WARWICK. 
 
 So large a company could not be accommo- 
 dated in the small town, and so some were 
 apportioned to Leamington for the night, and 
 the rest of us were scattered about in the va- 
 
THE ANGELS SIGHTSEEING 39 
 
 rious small hotels, the Warwick Arms and the 
 "Woolpack" receiving most of us. These 
 English hotels have a charm all their own, 
 aside from their names, which are historic. 
 The proprietors have recognized the asset of 
 old things, and so we walk through crooked 
 hallways, over uneven floors and into crooked 
 rooms, to find comfortable and modern beds 
 fitted into antique bedsteads, and excellent 
 food served, in some measure, in antique dishes, 
 and presently we find our minds conformed and 
 our sympathies sympathetic, till, forgetting who 
 we are and where we came from, we wander 
 through the scenes made familiar by our read- 
 ing, and find them peopled with that myste- 
 rious and fascinating group which the masters 
 of English story created and perpetuated. 
 
 Warwick itself is an interesting old town on 
 the banks of the Avon, which in legend at 
 least goes back almost to the beginning of the 
 Christian era. There are perhaps twelve thou- 
 sand inhabitants living there now, or rather 
 passing through, as for more than a thousand 
 years men have come and gone, some leaving 
 their impression, but more coming and going, 
 as we, careless and curious "Angels" from 
 America, passed through and are already for- 
 gotten. 
 
40 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 Of course Warwick Castle is the point of 
 interest, and to most of us it was the first of 
 the real old castles which we were to come 
 near; and it was no disappointment. Its walls, 
 and court and towers and great halls, and old 
 armors, and fine pictures and tapestries, and 
 the old soldier who led us about and talked of 
 all these things as of his own children, made it 
 all seem as if we were dreaming and had been 
 carried back through the centuries to dwell 
 with the heroes of old. It was in the rooms 
 of Warwick Castle that we came in contact 
 with the first of the paintings of the Old 
 Masters, of which we were later to see so many 
 that the names of those who made their lasting 
 mark on the ages were to become almost a 
 confusion. But within and without, the best 
 of all, that which will remain longest, because 
 it rises so clearly through the confusion of 
 memory, was the view of the old castle itself 
 from the bridge over the Avon, as its walls 
 and towers and buttresses rose in glorious 
 dignity and beauty from the caressing forest, 
 the embodiment of English song and story. 
 
 Perhaps in the years to come the "Angels" 
 may find a rare fascination in the freedom of 
 flying, but as our wings are as yet elemental, 
 we found the coaching trip from Warwick to 
 
THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 41 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon most satisfying to our crude 
 souls. Some day we shall have good roads in 
 America, but not yet; we must grow several 
 hundreds of years older. We are trying to 
 make some, but after speeding miles over the 
 roads of England, with their smooth surface 
 and hedged borders and panoramic beauty, 
 we are convinced that they only grow, and with 
 us it will be centuries before they are ripe. 
 
 ANNE HATHAWAY S COTTAGE. 
 
 There is nothing new to say about the home 
 of Shakespeare; it has all been said over and 
 over again. And yet how it was renewed to us 
 as we rolled through it and out beyond to Anne 
 Hathaway's cottage, back to the church where 
 the man who made it all lies buried, past the 
 schoolhouse where perhaps he learned how to 
 write if not to think, to the house in which 
 
42 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 he was born, and there lingering among the 
 relics which a world's devotion has gathered, 
 and walking in the garden where in childhood he 
 played, we all found a new and very real Shakes- 
 peare, which the commonplace people who to- 
 day are bartering him for their own living, 
 could not sell us, nor could they keep from us. 
 There is a phase of Shakespeare's greatness 
 which appealed to me there on the banks of the 
 Avon, and that was his power to make others 
 great. Would plain history ever have given 
 such lasting eminence to that great procession 
 of characters which he marshaled in an ever- 
 lasting pageant? And there in the old town 
 how many little lives are yet clinging to his 
 
 memory in the hope of be- 
 ing drawn into public view! 
 The little children who cry 
 out for pennies for their bits 
 of lavender, at the door of 
 Anne Hathaway's cottage, 
 are not so very different 
 from the man of great wealth 
 who raises a monument there 
 that his name may be swept 
 
 SELLING LAVENDER. J * 
 
 along for a few years by the 
 eddy that real glory creates in the stream of 
 life. Shakespeare may not have supported his 
 
THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 43 
 
 own family any too well when he was respon- 
 sible for them, but think of the thousands in 
 that village who are now living upon him, and 
 the hundreds of thousands who through the 
 years in some way, directly or indirectly, have 
 drawn their substance from him. Verily he 
 was great! 
 
 In the room where tradition says he was 
 born, the windows and walls are covered 
 literally with the names of those who have 
 come to connect themselves with him and pay 
 him tribute. The authorities will not let any 
 one write a name there now; even the " Angels" 
 had to be content with putting their signatures 
 in a big book! It is not good form to scribble 
 your name about nowadays; only the vulgar 
 do such things, — and yet we found there upon 
 the walls the names of Tennyson, Thackeray, 
 Walter Scott, Byron and others. 
 
 In the Memorial Theater there was a re- 
 hearsal going on of the play which had taken 
 the prize, the prize perhaps more coveted than 
 any within the reach of modern literature. 
 It was to have its first performance that night, 
 and the attention of the dramatic world was 
 centered upon it, and every "Angel" felt a 
 sense of personal pride, for it was written by an 
 American. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 
 IN KENILWORTH AND OXFORD 
 
 |ACK to Warwick and then another 
 coaching trip in the opposite direc- 
 tion to the ruins of Kenilworth, pass- 
 ing on the way Guy's Cliff Castle, 
 beautiful in itself and particularly in its set- 
 ting, but more interesting, the Guy's Cliff mill, 
 the oldest mill in constant operation in the 
 world. For hundreds and hundreds of years 
 that tireless stream has been turning the wheel 
 and beneath those low rafters the stones have 
 been grinding the corn to feed the swarm of 
 human moths which flitted into life and flitted 
 out; the brave old mill echoing the song of the 
 brook, 
 
 Men may come and men may go, 
 But I go on forever." 
 
 I like ruined old Kenilworth; the only 
 thing I do not like about it is the futile effort 
 of mere man to stay its ruin. When those 
 great towers are aweary with their centuries 
 of just standing, and lean a bit with longing 
 to get back to the earth, it is hardly fair for 
 
 44 
 
THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 45 
 
 men to chain them up and make them stand 
 there yet more centuries. Things have a 
 right to die and be buried as well as people. 
 We have seen old ruins of people, who have 
 lived as long as they wanted to, and leaned 
 longingly to the rest that remaineth; and what 
 
 BANQUET ROOM, KENILWORTH. 
 
 we have called love would not let them go, and 
 so they have lingered on. It seemed to me 
 that some of those fine old buttresses that were 
 hung up there with an iron rod were not fairly 
 treated, and they will have my sympathy when 
 sometime they wrench themselves loose and 
 come down to lie cozily in the soft grass that 
 will mother them through the ages to come. 
 
 There is probably no more perfect ruin to 
 be found than Kenil worth; there is just enough 
 of it remaining so that every part can be traced, 
 
46 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 and it wants but a bit of imagination and one 
 may sit beneath the holly trees and see those 
 rooms and courts peopled with the men and 
 women who in the long ago lived and loved, 
 suffered and died, wept and laughed, fought 
 each other and helped each other, knew pride 
 and humility, built for endurance, and lived not 
 to see the completion of their task; all parade 
 before us for a brief minute, and are gone. 
 
 It was an American, I believe, who was 
 astonished at the intelligence of the people of 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD. 
 
 France, where he found that even the little 
 children could speak French! And we like- 
 wise were astounded at the wisdom of the people 
 in the University city of Oxford, where even 
 the cab drivers were so well educated that they 
 could tell offhand a college building from a 
 
THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 47 
 
 prison! And it seemed to us at times that 
 that was a good deal of an accomplishment, for 
 mostly the colleges do not put their best 
 face to the street, and it is only after you have 
 entered the gate and stand within the quad- 
 rangle that you are impressed with the intel- 
 lectual and historic surroundings. A bird's- 
 eye view of the city — which bird's-eye view 
 I did not take from a balloon, nor yet from the 
 top of Magdalen Tower, from which point it is 
 mostly taken, but I took it from a postal card 
 which I bought at the oldest house in Oxford, 
 dating back to the thirteenth century — differs 
 — the view, not the postal card — from views 
 of other cities in that the factory chimneys are 
 replaced by towers and towers, which mark the 
 location of the unnumbered colleges which 
 from Saxon times have been growing in this 
 favorable soil. 
 
 One does not need a guidebook nor even a 
 guide in Oxford, for the cab driver knows it all. 
 I have been wondering since if much that he 
 knew was so, but at the time I wondered not 
 more at the glorious old buildings than at his 
 surprising volubility. He would take me up 
 to a blank wall with a hole in it, and tell me 
 this was such a college, then drive around the 
 square to the other side of the same wall and 
 
48 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 tell me that was another. And I could not 
 contradict him. One begins to think that all 
 colleges are alike, unless you look closely and 
 
 discover that, like 
 the people they send 
 out into the world, 
 they have character. 
 In general they are 
 built on the same 
 plan ; mostly they are 
 built about the quad- 
 rangle, have some- 
 thing that bears the 
 name of a cloister, 
 they all have a chap- 
 el of greater or less 
 magnificence, a li- 
 brary and a tower. 
 It takes something 
 besides these things 
 to make a college, 
 but they are the fea- 
 tures which are im- 
 pressed upon the passing visitor, and they 
 show the connection with the antiquity which 
 is Oxford's pride. There is one college called 
 New College, but do not fancy you will find 
 anything very modern about it, for it was 
 
 MAGDALEN TOWER, OXFORD. 
 
THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 49 
 
 founded in 1379, and there are dozens of others 
 which have come into existence since then. 
 
 It would be possible to give a list of these 
 buildings which we visited in one day's hasty- 
 tour, but the list will mean no more in this book 
 than in a guidebook. And after all, it is not 
 the buildings of this marvelous University city 
 which impress us, — though it would take more 
 adjectives than I can command to describe 
 them, — but it is the atmosphere of the place 
 where for more than a thousand years a whole 
 city has been given over to education, and the 
 mind thrills with a new sense of its power 
 amid such sympathetic surroundings. And 
 through these streets memory leads a procession 
 of the masters of human life. 
 
 I was profoundly moved. It seemed to me 
 that here all that was noblest and best and 
 greatest in manhood must have gathered; here 
 all exalted ideals should be realized, and I said 
 to the driver: "I suppose there is no such thing 
 as ignorance and poverty in Oxford." And 
 he answered: "Ignorance and poverty is it? 
 We have whole streets full of it." I told him 
 to take me through them, and he drove away 
 from the beautiful seats of learning, and not 
 so far away either, and showed me rows on 
 rows of little houses, and streets thronged with 
 
50 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 children, and he said the maximum wage of the 
 heads of these households was a pound a week, — 
 a little less than five dollars, — and one-fourth 
 of it must go for rent, and they were not sure of 
 steady work. Yes, the children had some school- 
 ing, but not much; they did not need it, for they 
 would grow up to fill their parents' places as the 
 servants of those who were higher up, or the 
 laborers who were to do what others planned. 
 
 That is, in Oxford, as all over the world, 
 there is the great law of interdependence, 
 which has not yet been recognized in the distri- 
 bution of this world's goods. There is the man 
 of great wisdom, whose teaching power com- 
 mands the attention of the world, but he can- 
 not build his own house, nor lay the walls of 
 the tower in which he meditates nor the class- 
 room in which he lectures. He cannot make 
 his own clothes; he cannot cook his own food; 
 he cannot make his own bed nor wash his own 
 shirt; he cannot harness his own horse nor drive 
 the engine which bears him on his journey; he, 
 the great man, is absolutely dependent for com- 
 fort, the pursuit of wisdom and happiness, yea, 
 for life itself, he is absolutely dependent upon 
 the poor and ignorant who must be in Oxford 
 as well as everywhere on the face of the earth. 
 And they are there to-day as they have always 
 
THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 51 
 
 been, and though the names upon the ancient 
 tablets are but those of artist and founder, the 
 walls in which they were set, whose antiquity 
 causeth us to marvel, were laid by the strong, 
 rough hands of the toiler who lived and labored 
 and died and is forgotten. There is something in 
 Oxford for every one to learn, — if he wants to. 
 The kind fortune which was guarding and 
 guiding the " Angels" on this tour through 
 England had provided a most charming experi- 
 ence with which to close our visit. Manchester 
 College is one of the latest to erect a beautiful 
 and impressive group of buildings, though its 
 founding dates back more than a century. 
 This college is dedicated "to Truth, to Liberty, 
 to Religion, " and at its head is the distinguished 
 scholar and preacher and administrator, J. 
 Estlen Carpenter, who holds a degree from 
 Tufts College. A fine reception was given to 
 the "Angels" at this college; refreshments were 
 served, a most cordial address of welcome was 
 given by Dr. Carpenter, and in the rarely 
 beautiful chapel, Professor Odgers told the 
 unique story of the life of the institution. 
 The only shadow upon this altogether delight- 
 ful occasion was caused by the necessity of has- 
 tening its close that we might catch the train 
 for London, where we were due the same night. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ANGELS IN LONDON 
 EAT, DRINK AND ARE MERRY 
 
 |ONDON is probably a long way 
 from heaven, but the "Angels" 
 can hardly expect better treatment 
 when they settle down in their 
 celestial habitation than they experienced on 
 the bank of the Thames during their all too 
 brief stay. The sun shone. This may sound 
 like exaggeration, even like a shorter and uglier 
 word, but it is true. I am rather put to it, as 
 it were, to write about London when there 
 was neither fog nor rain to find fault with; 
 not a bit of beastly weather, don't y' know, 
 while we were there. The sun came out and 
 so did the King; — even angels could ask no 
 more. I have an idea that London was enter- 
 taining the "Angels" unawares, for while it 
 seemed to us that we were being shown great 
 consideration, there were a great many people 
 in the city who did not know we were there, 
 and even yet are ignorant of the fact. You 
 see, London is really quite a big village, larger, 
 
 52 
 
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 « 
 
 H 
 H 
 
 02 
 
 M 
 H 
 
 H 
 <5 
 
 02 
 
 H 
 
 a 
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 a 
 
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54 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 I should say, in fact, than Chicago feels. And 
 one must make a large noise if he expects 
 London to listen. London does turn its head 
 with a gracious smile when two or three tourist 
 cars loaded with Americans to the brim, muzzle 
 
 HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON. 
 
 or rail — or whatever indicates that they are 
 full — squeeze through the everlasting jam of 
 vehicles, into the best places to see the sights, 
 but so soon are we forgotten. 
 
 I looked up all the figures about the city, 
 the distance around it, the area covered in 
 square miles, the number of streets and their 
 
THE ANGELS IN LONDON 55 
 
 miles in length, and a lot of other things. I 
 was going to write them all down in my 
 Journal; but, you remember, I never wrote the 
 Journal, and now I have forgotten them all. 
 I can only say, " See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 article, London." There are a great many 
 things in that article that I have forgotten. And 
 besides, they are copyrighted; still further, I do 
 recall now, they are not up to date. I think 
 a correspondent writing letters home from a 
 foreign shore should give things as they are. 
 Now London Bridge has always had a great 
 fascination for me ever since I used to sing 
 with the other small children that it was 
 "falling down," and the things that held my 
 horrified interest were the "spiked heads of 
 malefactors exposed to all winds and weathers 
 upon the battlements." I have crossed the 
 bridge several times and not a spiked head did 
 I see. No doubt among the multitude which 
 surged back and forth there were plenty of 
 malefactors, — of great wealth or great poverty, 
 — but I was keenly disappointed not to see 
 a single head set in gory splendor on a spike 
 on the battlements. I did see a good many 
 women with long spikes thrust through their 
 hats, — and heads apparently, — but that did 
 not satisfy my historic sense and my craving for 
 
56 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 horrors. Even Madam Tussaud's waxworks 
 and the delicate instruments of torture pre- 
 served in the Tower of London are but poor 
 substitutes for a genuine " spiked head on the 
 battlement exposed to all winds and weathers." 
 
 The aerie where the "Angels" roosted during 
 our stay in London was called the St. Ermins 
 Hotel, in Westminster. I confess to no little 
 embarrassment at times in writing about this 
 flock of " Angels." I do not know just how 
 far I can safely pursue my figure, but angels 
 suggest wings, and wings suggest birds, so I 
 think "roosting" will not inadequately describe 
 the stopping of the whole covey, excepting my- 
 self; like Lord Dundreary's robin, I flocked all 
 by myself. 
 
 Among the conspicuous forces in London 
 making for larger religious liberty and larger 
 religious service for human good the Rev. Dr. 
 W. Evans Darby is to be counted. Dr. Darby 
 is a Congregationalist minister who has given 
 his life to the cause of International Peace, and 
 is the efficient secretary of the English Peace 
 Society, and one of the most effective speakers 
 on this great theme in the world. His book 
 entitled "Beneath Bow Bells" is made up of 
 a series of lectures in which he establishes the 
 peace plea on the sure foundation of elemental 
 
THE ANGELS IN LONDON 57 
 
 Christian principles. Dr. Darby has been 
 prominently connected with the City Temple, 
 and is one of the leaders of that religious 
 liberality which, being Christian, is the hope of 
 the Christian Church in Great Britain. He is 
 thoroughly convinced that the faith of the Uni- 
 versalist Church of America is the ultimate 
 goal of the theological unrest of England. It 
 was his desire to bring about closer relations 
 between the English and American Liberals 
 that led to the writer's being made his guest and 
 a temporary member, while in London, of the 
 National Liberal Club, and that was the reason 
 why I "flocked by myself." 
 
 I cannot forbear expressing at this time my 
 appreciation of the honor and pleasure as well 
 as the opportunity thus afforded. The club- 
 house is a magnificent building situated on 
 Whitehall Place and the Thames Embankment, 
 not far from the House of Parliament, and it 
 is difficult to find a more comprehensive and 
 delightful view than I enjoyed from my win- 
 dows, extending from the House of Parliament 
 to St. Paul's, including the whole sweep of the 
 Thames from Westminster Bridge to the Tower 
 of London. The first President of the Club 
 was the Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, and it in- 
 cludes in its membership nearly every promi- 
 
58 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 nent Liberal throughout the Kingdom. Here 
 it was my privilege to entertain a group of 
 British clergymen representing several denom- 
 inations, whom Dr. Darby desired to have meet 
 several American ministers. 
 
 While I was enjoying the luxury of Club 
 life, the rest of the " Angels" were seeing the 
 sights by the Cook direct and rapid method, 
 
 THE THAMES FROM THE NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB 
 
 which, when one has but little time and less 
 money, is the best method. It was my second 
 visit to London, and so clearly was the great 
 city impressed upon my mind by my former 
 
THE ANGELS IN LONDON 
 
 59 
 
 visit, that I had a sense of freedom to choose 
 some of the special features which are never 
 exhausted in one or many visits. But instinc- 
 
 THE MONUMENT, LONDON. 
 
 tively I turned to certain things I wanted to 
 see again, rather than to seek for novelties. 
 And in all of London there is nothing that gets 
 hold of me so impressively as St. Paul's. Why 
 this is I cannot tell. It is not the bigness, 
 
60 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 though it is almost beyond measurement by 
 the eye; it is not its beauty, for aside from the 
 magnificent sweep of its larger lines it is not 
 beautiful; it is not its memorials, for they can- 
 not compare with those of Westminster. I 
 think it must be just the sense of age and dig- 
 nity and historic purpose of the place. 
 
 When one stands in St. Paul's he is standing 
 on ground which for almost if not quite two 
 thousand years has been occupied as a place 
 of worship. And around it has clustered every- 
 thing in the form of human life, from the prim- 
 itive natives of Britain whose crude altar was 
 superseded by the Roman temple to Diana, 
 that in turn by a Saxon church, built by Ethel- 
 bert, King of Kent, through the centuries when 
 fire fought with man for the possession of the 
 place, and each time man built better than 
 before, until just two hundred years ago the 
 finishing stone was laid which completed the 
 present magnificent pile. I have been quoting 
 here, just to try to find out why I like St. 
 Paul's; and I want to quote one thing more: — 
 the total sum of money expended to complete 
 this great cathedral is given as seven hundred 
 and thirty-six thousand seven hundred and 
 fifty-two pounds, two shillings and three and 
 one-fourth pence ! — because I shall never be 
 
THE ANGELS IN LONDON 61 
 
 satisfied until I know what that one-fourth 
 pence was spent for! 
 
 But what a significant record, and how a 
 world's history is typified in the story of these 
 two thousand years of human progress ! Around 
 this place of worship races and peoples and na- 
 tions have risen and fallen, come and gone, each 
 pausing to worship, each rising a little higher 
 than the one preceding, and now about this 
 great monument to the craving of the souls of 
 men surges the life of the greatest city of the 
 world; and some day it, too, will pass on its 
 way, and a new and yet more wonderful civili- 
 zation will come to worship in possibly a yet 
 more wonderful temple. 
 
 Charles Dickens made England and particu- 
 larly London for most Americans. We may not 
 be up on our English history, but when we get 
 into old London and catch the names of the 
 streets made familiar by his books, there is such 
 a comforting sense of homeyness and of hav- 
 ing been there before, that the city's material 
 greatness and romantic history fade away, and 
 we wander with the dear old friends through 
 Dickensonia. For a boastfully practical peo- 
 ple, we are an imaginative and emotional lot. 
 We of course want to know all we can and 
 see all we can of the wonders we have come 
 
62 A. SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 three thousand miles to see, and yet, for the 
 pure pleasure of it, the heart- thrill of enjoy- 
 ment, it is better to buy a pair of gloves in 
 Cheapside and a book in Fleet Street. But 
 the trouble is that old London is passing as is 
 everything else; the names of the old streets 
 remain, but the taxi is driving away the old 
 cabman, and the motor bus is putting the 
 horses and their drivers out of business. Of 
 course it is all better; we can go faster and with 
 far more comfort, but it is not the London we 
 dreamed about, and when we go down and are 
 shot through the "tube" under the historic 
 and sacred ground, we might as well be in 
 commonplace New York. 
 
 Of course we came, as all tourists do, to see 
 London, but we had an advantage over all the 
 others in the opportunity of coming into close 
 touch with some of the people. We were 
 entertained right royally. The welcome which 
 was ours as we landed in Liverpool we did not 
 think could be equaled anywhere else, and lo, 
 in London it was larger, even if no better. The 
 Liberals of the city were indefatigable in their 
 attentions to our welfare. On two afternoons, 
 in the historic Essex Hall, tea was served, the 
 Women's Social Club acting as hostess, which 
 gave an opportunity to meet personally our 
 
THE ANGELS IN LONDON 63 
 
 English friends and get a little touch of real 
 English life. But the function which was the 
 climax of our visit to England came on Satur- 
 day night, when the grand banquet was given 
 by the Laymen's Club at the Holborn Restau- 
 rant. We were subjected to many forms of 
 entertainment during our triumphal journey 
 through Europe, but I can think of nothing 
 which exceeded the good taste, the good 
 management and the social success of this 
 dinner tendered to us by the men of the 
 Unitarian Church of London. The place in 
 which it was held is notable in the city, — a 
 magnificent hall built especially for a banquet- 
 ing room, and being decorated, when the tables 
 were spread presented a scene which of the 
 kind can have few superiors. 
 
 As each guest arrived he was given the 
 beautifully printed menu and order of exercises, 
 and also a large folded sheet on one side of 
 which was printed an alphabetical list of the 
 four hundred guests, and on the other a diagram 
 of the tables with the location of each one, so 
 that it was possible from our places at the 
 table to locate any one we desired, and be- 
 come acquainted with all our neighbors. The 
 dinner itself was of excellent quality and justi- 
 fied the warning that we had received, that the 
 
64 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 English people know what to eat as well as 
 how to eat. Perhaps it is sufficient to say 
 there was something besides "Angel" cake. 
 
 A feature of this banquet which excited the 
 interest of the Americans was the presence of 
 a functionary who "goes with the hall," a 
 large and very impressive man, with a large 
 voice, who stands behind the chairman, com- 
 mands attention, makes all announcements, 
 relieving the presiding officer of all care and 
 securing what is often difficult to secure in so 
 large a company, uninterruped interest. When 
 the command thunders forth above the con- 
 fusion, "Silence, please, to the President," 
 or "Silence, please, to the toast; the toast is, 
 'to His Majesty the King!'" even the voluble 
 American would not presume to break the 
 responsive quiet. 
 
 Then we had, of course, speeches and 
 speeches, excellent in character, rising to the 
 occasion, which was the speeding on their 
 way of a great company of disciples of reli- 
 gious liberty going to meet other disciples from 
 other lands. Mr. R. M. Montgomery, A.M., 
 president of .the club, was most gracious in 
 his words of welcome, and other Englishmen 
 touched the chords of national and religious 
 fraternity. The responses from America were 
 
THE ANGELS IN LONDON 65 
 
 made by the Rev. Dr. T. R. Slicer of New 
 York, the Rev. J. Harry Holden of Massa- 
 chusetts, and the Rev. Dr. Chas. W. Wendte, 
 the secretary of the Congress. 
 
 It was rather too near the midnight hour 
 when this happy occasion closed, for a body 
 of religious pilgrims, for I fear it was Sunday 
 morning before some of the "Angels" folded 
 their wings in slumber. But it was good 
 training for that which was to come, for we 
 were presently to learn that in Germany no 
 night is recognized excepting as a period 
 during which the human animal eats, drinks 
 and is merry. 
 
 Our Sunday in London was a very busy day 
 for those of us who had to preach and get back 
 to our stopping place, pack our trunks and be 
 ready to start for Holland in the afternoon. 
 But no one was left behind. 
 
 My own Sunday was a memorable occasion. 
 I had received the appointment to preach at 
 the Unitarian Church in Islington, which is 
 one of the historic churches of London. It 
 was there that Dr. Martineau spent the last 
 years of his life as a parishioner, after he had 
 retired from the work of the pulpit, and there 
 he had frequently preached. But it was inter- 
 esting to know that the most eminent preacher 
 
66 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 of modern times, after he had finished his own 
 work, felt that his soul needed the ministra- 
 tions of the Church, and that he was a regular 
 attendant and devout worshiper. The church 
 is not large in that land of great cathedrals, 
 but will accommodate five or six hundred, and 
 though it was the summer season, the vacation 
 season as with us, there was a fine congrega- 
 tion. The present pastor of the church is the 
 Rev. Dr. Tudor Jones, a man of rare personal 
 charm, wide experience and conspicuous abil- 
 ity. He is a Welshman, who was educated in 
 Germany and has spent much of his ministry 
 in Australia and New Zealand. He was fitted 
 for the Presbyterian ministry and served in 
 that fellowship until his own liberality drove 
 him to the more congenial company of the 
 Unitarians. He represents the type of Liberal 
 who will redeem the world. He has brought 
 from his old fellowship that which so many 
 of us Liberals lack, the real spirit of religious 
 devotion. 
 
 The time has come for our departure from 
 England, and we are going with happy antici- 
 pations, and not less happy memories of what 
 to most of us is our Mother Country, which 
 can never seem really foreign. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 
 
 REVEALING AN INCIDENT OF THE ANGELS 7 
 INVASION OF HOLLAND 
 
 DO not intend to air my foreign 
 languages in these commonplace 
 records of a commonplace journey, 
 but the above phrase, which is in 
 the very best guidebook Dutch, so perfectly 
 expresses a condition and not a theory, that I 
 am persuaded to make use of it, for being 
 freely translated these words mean in English, 
 "I want a bedroom/' and their significance 
 will appear as the tale unfolds. 
 
 Our route to Holland was via the Hook 
 of Holland. We arrived at Harwich on the 
 English coast, from which place the Channel 
 steamer sails, at about ten o'clock at night, 
 and immediately went on board the fine boat 
 which was to carry us across the dreaded 
 Channel. All our rooms were engaged, so that 
 all we had to do was to step to the purser's 
 office, give our names and get the keys or direc- 
 tions to our staterooms. Now be it known that 
 
 67 
 
68 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the management of the party had made out a 
 list of the people and printed it and sent it 
 on in advance so that the rooms could be 
 properly assigned. But unfortunately the man- 
 agement had not yet become acquainted with 
 the personnel of the group, and some serious 
 mistakes were made in the printing, so that 
 good, kind and gentle bachelors appeared in 
 the list with "Mrs." or "Miss" before their 
 names. Maidens of tender years appeared 
 with simply the initials of their names, in no 
 way indicating whether they were male or 
 female, and as for ministers, they were bunched 
 under the "Rev." with no regard to sex, age 
 or previous condition of servitude. There had 
 been reserved about seventy-five staterooms 
 for over two hundred people, which would 
 mean about three in a room, and the assign- 
 ment under the misguiding printed list, in 
 about fifteen minutes, brought about a situa- 
 tion which made me feel that this was no place 
 for "Angels," and cause some of the brethren 
 to mutter, "What would my congregation 
 say?" 
 
 Meanwhile the boat had sailed, and we were 
 making our way out into the North Sea, where 
 the whole British Navy was having its maneu- 
 vers and literally flooding the place with light 
 
IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 69 
 
 from innumerable searchlights. It was an 
 embarrassing situation. But just there the 
 angelic nature came out strong, and there was 
 an immediate demand for a cold deck and a 
 new deal. (This figure is quoted from an 
 unregenerate westerner, but suggests what 
 followed.) With slight irritation and no end 
 of laughter, a new arrangement was finally 
 consummated. We got our rooms and plunged 
 into the "horrors" of the Channel passage, 
 only to bring disappointment to me again, for 
 the night was beautiful, the sea was still, 
 the boat was steady and I had missed another 
 chance to see a seasick "Angel." 
 
 The next morning came very early, for we 
 were called at five o'clock and turned out upon 
 the dock at the Hook of Holland, and we were 
 really on a foreign shore, for a strange language 
 smote our ears, strange money tried our 
 patience, and there was a dock-hand with real 
 wooden shoes, which he was wearing without 
 a sign of self-consciousness. 
 
 The Hook of Holland is not simply a place 
 to arrive at, it is also a very good place to 
 depart from. At the railway station, we had 
 breakfast which consisted mostly of ham and 
 eggs and fun. The restaurant furnished the 
 ham and eggs and we the fun! It was the first 
 
70 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 experience of most of us in talking to foreign- 
 ers, and it was curious to note the common 
 notion that if you speak English with sufficient 
 deliberation and loudness any decent foreigner 
 will know what you mean, and if he does not 
 the first time, you speak it all over again a 
 little louder, and then if he fails to compre- 
 hend you begin to make signs. The sign 
 language is the universal speech. The only 
 trouble is that our sign for more ham and eggs 
 differs from the Dutchman's, and our sign for 
 coffee seems to have a strange resemblance to 
 his sign for beer. But sometimes we presume 
 upon the ignorance of these foreigners, as I 
 myself discovered to my shame, when, later in 
 the day, at The Hague, I went into a large store 
 and, selecting the most intelligent-looking of 
 the fair clerks, began to make signs to her, 
 wiping my nose furiously and holding out my 
 hands beseechingly, and presently she smiled 
 patronizingly, and said in perfect English, 
 "Would you like to look at some handker- 
 chiefs?" 
 
 The Hague is one of the most beautiful cities 
 in Holland, and impressed us all with its size. 
 We Americans have perhaps been thinking of 
 it from the historic point of view, which would 
 give its earlier career as a sort of pleasant re- 
 
IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMEE, HEBBEN 71 
 
 sort for royalty and its accompaniments, on the 
 outskirts of which is the famous "House in the 
 Wood," the scene of the International Peace 
 Congress. But behold, here was a city of a 
 quarter of a million inhabitants, with most 
 attractive shops to lure away our hard-earned 
 money, great wide and attractive streets, fine 
 parks, and museums of art, not to be ignored. 
 
 THE CARRIAGE PROCESSION AT THE HAGUE. 
 
 The "Angels" did not ignore it; we took 
 possession of it, to the great delight of the 
 inhabitants. We forbore to use our wings, as 
 carriages had been provided, fifty of them, and 
 we made a procession through the streets, 
 awakening unbounded enthusiasm. Some were 
 fortunate enough to have American flags, which 
 they waved constantly, bringing response from 
 every door and window. 
 
 Here we "did" our first Continental Gallery, 
 — the Royal Museum, — and began to pack 
 our minds with the names of the Old Masters. 
 
72 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 Here we found Rembrandt (particularly his 
 School of Anatomy), Rubens, Holbein, Murillo, 
 Velasquez, Van Dyck, Jan Steen and others 
 that before had been but names of mysterious, 
 almost mythical beings who had performed 
 miracles in the long ago. We did not know 
 very much about art, but in this first gallery 
 we learned why these men were both Masters 
 and great, for they had caught some of the 
 lines and coloring of creation which never 
 change while generations come and go, and 
 they had spoken intelligibly to each and every 
 one. Others paint for the day in which they 
 live and pass with the day. 
 
 That drive to the House in the Wood is 
 memorable, — through shaded roads, following 
 nearly all the way one of the little canals, and 
 returning through the Bosch, the sleepy old 
 wood, where not only the leaves but also the 
 trunks of the trees and the surface of the water 
 are all of the softest green in exquisite harmony 
 of color, and so closely are the branches of the 
 trees interlaced that it seemed like passing 
 through a shadowy bit of fairyland. To the 
 practical American that damp mossy covering 
 on the bark of the trees, and the "beautiful 
 green" scum on the waters of the canal, raised 
 some hygienic questions, and yet we saw no 
 
IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 73 
 
 healthier race than these solid and stolid 
 Hollanders. It was the Queen's birthday 
 when we were there, and all the soldiers were 
 out, and the streets were decorated in glad 
 array. And of course the people were out 
 too, so we had a chance to see them at their 
 best, and their best is very good. 
 
 The Hague will always be looked upon as 
 the nursery of international peace. Here is 
 to rise the sun of that great day when war 
 shall be no more between nations of brothers. 
 The great Palace of Peace provided by Mr. 
 Carnegie is nearing its completion, and to it 
 more and more will enlightened people drive 
 their servants — who are called rulers — to 
 serve the good instead of the evil of the 
 world. 
 
 It seemed like a verbal vacation to the 
 "Angels" to be able to say "dam" so often 
 without being rebuked by their own consciences 
 or some other pestiferous insect. Nearly every 
 place has this profane ending to its name, and 
 in conversation we at first finished each word 
 with a whistle instead of the last syllable. 
 But it is astonishing how familiarity with evil 
 leads one to embrace it; in time we got so we 
 could put most of the emphasis on the last 
 syllable of some places. 
 
74 A SUMMER FLIGHT. 
 
 What a horrible thing is this civilization we 
 are so anxious to introduce, and then we hunt 
 the round earth over to find for our enjoy- 
 ment the place where it is not! The civilized 
 Amsterdam is quite up to date, with its modern 
 
 IN AMSTERDAM. 
 
 shops and theaters, electric cars and such; and 
 who can ever care for a great city of over half 
 a million people who are doing the same things 
 in the same way every one else is doing them? 
 But uncivilized Amsterdam is altogether a dif- 
 ferent thing and altogether charming. To get 
 out in early morning when the people are coming 
 
IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 75 
 
 in to the market from the surrounding country, 
 mostly by boats through the tangle of canals, 
 and see the perfectly bewildering variety of 
 costumes, a veritable riot of color and yet 
 never inharmonious, and then at night to get 
 into the chief shopping street, which is turned 
 into a fair, where great crowds surge back and 
 forth, just having a good time in the sense of 
 companionship and motion, is worth a voy- 
 age across the ocean. Perhaps some one be- 
 sides the Americans bought something, but 
 very little trading is done; it is just the com- 
 munity spirit, when all are out dressed more 
 or less in their best, and the queer ones are 
 those who have nothing better to wear than 
 the wretched things designed by Worth and 
 Poole. I must think a little more about these 
 things of personal adornment and habits, in 
 another chapter, for I find the normal char- 
 acter of any people best expresses itself through 
 these things. 
 
 Of course there was a reception at Amster- 
 dam. A former session of the International 
 Congress of Religious Liberals had been held 
 there, and there is a large liberal element in 
 the religious life of the city. This reception 
 was wholly informal, not like the others along 
 the way, but just to show to the pilgrims the 
 
76 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 spirit of fellowship and give them God-speed 
 on their way. 
 
 A carriage drive was taken about the town, 
 with stops at all the places of interest, with a 
 long stop at the National Museum, where are 
 to be found some of the best pictures in Europe, 
 especially of the Dutch school. This seemed 
 to be the headquarters of the Rembrandt collec- 
 tion, one portion of the gallery being devoted 
 entirely to this artist. 
 
 In my early years I was brought up on the 
 banks of the old Genesee canal in western New 
 York, and by the time I was ten years of age 
 was considerable of a navigator, having on one 
 memorable occasion voyaged for one whole 
 day over that wild waste of waters, during 
 which time I had traveled six miles. I thought 
 I knew something about canals, but in Amster- 
 dam I was but the most ordinary amateur. 
 The city is called the Venice of the North, and 
 one is impressed with the thought that there 
 is water, water everywhere, and only beer to 
 drink. The city is literally built on the banks 
 of innumerable canals, or else the canals have 
 been built against the city; anyway it appears 
 that when we are not walking beside a canal 
 we are crossing bridges over them, while 
 through them sets the whole tide of commercial 
 
IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 77 
 
 life. They are generally very attractive, but 
 often need straining. And in spite of the dis- 
 position to know only the best things on this 
 whole trip, there were times when looking 
 from my window out over one of these water- 
 ways there came into my mind this adapta- 
 tion: 
 
 You may clothe the canal with art if you will, 
 But the smell of the thing will hang round it still. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 
 
 ALSO OF THE WINDMILL, THE CANAL AND 
 SEVERAL OTHER THINGS 
 
 f HAT a picnic Cervantes's old hero 
 would have had in Holland! 
 There are places where he could 
 not have couched a lance in any 
 direction without spitting a dozen of the fierc- 
 est windmills which ever challenged a brave 
 knight. Among the "Angels" there were 
 preachers who confessed that in all their fight- 
 ing of windmills, through a long and vapid 
 ministry, they never saw anything like it! 
 But we found these engines of war quite 
 harmless, and rather interesting, as they 
 break the monotony of hundreds of miles of 
 flat country with a little touch of the artistic, 
 quite restful to the eye of the aesthetic and 
 quite exciting to the eye of the curious. 
 
 Canals and windmills and wooden shoes are 
 Holland to the passing traveler. Of course 
 there are other things of value and of interest. 
 I could fill whole pages with statistics of good 
 
 78 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 79 
 
 and wonderful things from the history of this 
 brave little land, but they would all finally 
 cluster about the canals, which are the arteries 
 of her life; the windmills, which catch the 
 breath of heaven and harness it to human 
 needs; and the wooden shoes, in which stand 
 as fine people as walk the earth. 
 
 To get into the real Holland you must leave 
 
 THE WATERWAY OF HOLLAND. 
 
 the great cities, and a covey of the "Angels" 
 took the steamer one morning at Amsterdam 
 for the all-day trip to the uncontaminated 
 town of Volendam and the island of Marken. 
 Our course took us through the lock into the 
 canal, once the main channel of the city's 
 commerce to the sea, and from that into one 
 of the innumerable little canals which seem to 
 be everywhere but to go nowhere in particu- 
 lar, and hour after hour we sped smoothly 
 along past prosperous farms, where in the 
 
80 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 wide fields multitudes of fat cattle were feed- 
 ing on the most luxuriant of pastures. Every- 
 where were men and women working together 
 in the fields, and occasionally along the banks 
 of the canal or in the street of some little 
 village through which we passed would be 
 seen the little carts drawn by three dogs and 
 sometimes by a woman. 
 
 Broek-in-Waterland was our first stop, and 
 we had a delightful run through the quaintest 
 of little villages, which is noted for its exquisite 
 cleanliness. And there was nothing to make 
 it dirty; even the troups of pudgy little chil- 
 dren, clattering along with 
 their wooden shoes and 
 funny little caps, look good 
 enough to eat. I was fasci- 
 nated with their shoes, and 
 though one could buy all 
 * \ ,„. he wanted in the stores, all 
 newly whittled or turned 
 out, or however they make 
 them, I wanted the real 
 
 CHILDREN ON THE ^ ^ ^ ^^ fo ^ 
 
 TOWPATH. ° ' 
 
 and so started on a cam- 
 paign to get a pair right off the feet of a child. 
 As I could speak no Dutch, and they could un- 
 derstand no English, I soon got the reputation 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 81 
 
 of being demented, and when finally, through 
 an interpreter, I made them understand that 
 I really wanted an old pair of wooden shoes, 
 right off the feet of one of the children, when I 
 could get new ones at the store, the suspicion 
 was confirmed that I was stark mad. But I 
 persisted, and finally found a little girl, who was 
 instructed by her father (probably "to let 
 the man make a fool of himself if he wanted 
 to"), to sell her shoes to me, and so she took 
 my money and I took her shoes and brought 
 them to America, and she ran home in her 
 stockinged feet to tell her mother of the crazy 
 man who came from America to Broek-in- 
 Waterland to buy old shoes off little children's 
 feet, when he could have got new ones right 
 out of the store for the same money. 
 
 At Monnikendam, one of the quaintest of 
 old towns, whose present life is nothing but a 
 dream of the past when it was a real seaport, 
 we came up through the locks and out from 
 the canal into the Zuider Zee, a great wide 
 sea which forms the northern boundary of 
 Holland, and out across its shallow waters to 
 the island of Marken, where old Holland 
 remains with all the charm of ancient costume 
 and custom, and where we spent one of the 
 rarest hours of a lifetime, right in the midst 
 
82 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 of the home life of this colony of fisher folk 
 who are not ashamed to live as their fathers 
 lived and do as their forefathers have done 
 for many generations. 
 
 And here is a people contradicting about 
 every standard of our modern life, doing the 
 things which to us would mean destruction, 
 and yet who ever saw a healthier or happier 
 lot of God's children on this sunny old earth? 
 There are homes which violate about every 
 hygienic law, even those we in our wisdom 
 have transplanted into civil law. They are 
 all built on the very banks of the water, which 
 not infrequently sweeps up actually under the 
 house. The houses are but little more than 
 boxes, with ceilings so low you can touch them; 
 the beds are but alcoves cut in the side walls, 
 and covered by curtains so that no breath of 
 fresh air can by any possibility penetrate to 
 the sleeper; a bit of stone is set in the floor, 
 on which stands the brazier over which the 
 cooking is done. 
 
 All the people, men, women and children, 
 wear the wooden shoes. The dresses of the 
 women are padded out until they look like 
 animated balloons, and the boys and men 
 wear their whole stock of pantaloons, number- 
 ing from three to a dozen, at one time, until 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 83 
 
 each leg is bigger than his whole body. All work 
 
 and play together. Fish and hay are about 
 
 the only resources of 
 
 the island, and the 
 
 women handle the hay 
 
 from the cutting to the 
 
 loading on the boats 
 
 quite as handily as the 
 
 men. Their houses are 
 
 all open to the visitors, 
 
 and within one finds 
 
 the walls covered with 
 
 the beautiful old blue 
 
 delftware, every pos- -J^^BHB 
 
 session of the owner a citizen of marken. 
 
 being displayed. In 
 
 one house was a little baby two weeks old, 
 
 dressed as all the others are, even to its cap; 
 
 and as everyone who entered made an offering 
 
 of coin which was put in the tiny hand, I was 
 
 impressed with the thought that after all the 
 
 best investment in the isle of Marken is a 
 
 new baby. The young mother was stared 
 
 at, her household was examined, and the baby 
 
 investigated to the last degree, while the mother 
 
 smiled and smiled. And within a very short 
 
 time she will be out pitching hay or pushing a 
 
 big boat, or it may be hitched to a cart with a 
 
84 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 couple of dogs; and still she will smile and 
 smile. 
 
 And our women "Angels" pitied her, be- 
 cause she would go on that way through her 
 life, because she had to wear such outlandish 
 clothes, and because she might live and die 
 right there on that little island and never go 
 traveling about the world. 
 
 Well, I was sorry for her too, for I knew she 
 would never, never have a hobble skirt. That 
 instead of tying her feet together at the com- 
 mand of fashion, she would continue to build 
 out great pads on her hips until she looked like 
 a barrel; but I thought, she has one advantage, 
 the pads on the hips will help to support the 
 baby when she has to carry it, while the hobble 
 skirt, — but I am all off; women who wear 
 hobble skirts do not have babies. But the 
 Marken young woman will never be able to 
 join a Browning club. I doubt if she ever has 
 a chance to play Bridge, poor thing! It may 
 be she will never carry a sign, "Votes for 
 Women." She will not go to the opera in a 
 dress that is too short at one end. She can- 
 not dance till three in the morning through a 
 whole winter and break down with nervous 
 prostration during Lent. She has to wear 
 those great wooden shoes, when, if she only 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 85 
 
 had the advantages of the really up-to-date 
 woman, she could wear a five-inch shoe with 
 a three-inch heel on a seven-inch foot and think 
 she was graceful. And she has to work till 
 her muscles are strong, and her eye is bright, 
 and her laugh will reach out across the Zuider 
 Zee to her sister who laughs back to her from 
 Volendam. Yes, I am sorry for her in a way; 
 she is downtrodden from the point of view of 
 some of us, but after all, I wonder if she does 
 not get the best of us. She lives longer, has 
 all the pleasure she knows and wants, and 
 nothing would make her quite so unhappy as 
 to "improve her condition." There are the 
 sentimentalists who say, "But think of the 
 mental and nervous strain, think of her yearn- 
 ing soul struggling to be free, think how she 
 must feel to have to wear such costumes and 
 endure such surroundings!" And there is 
 where the sentimentalist is all wrong; from the 
 sentimentalist's standpoint it might be, but 
 there is not a particle of mental and nervous 
 strain and soul yearning in that Marken young 
 woman. She is doing just what she has been 
 hoping to do all her life; she is wearing just 
 what she has been looking forward to wearing 
 ever since she was a child, and her yearning 
 soul is far better satisfied than are the souls 
 
86 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 of fifty millions of women who are killing them- 
 selves and all their friends in their mad attempts 
 to keep up with the procession of pseudo cul- 
 ture, ultra fashion and debauched pleasure. 
 
 I am sorry because of the Marken women — 
 because there are not more of them. 
 
 We landed at Volendam on our way back, 
 and though there came a dashing shower 
 which cut off any real visiting of the town, we 
 got a little bit of the quaintness and color of 
 this favorite resort of artists, who, after all 
 their training in the best of art schools in the 
 new and old worlds, come to this out-of-the- 
 way place to learn how to color their pictures 
 from the coloring these crude and humble 
 fishermen put upon their houses and weave into 
 their garments. Verily the world is topsy- 
 turvy; the wise ones come to learn archi- 
 tecture of the primitive children of men, and 
 the educated find most wisdom as they com- 
 mune with the foolish. 
 
 Through the twilight, the long twilight of 
 these northern lands, we sailed back through 
 the Zuider Zee, and we looked out across the 
 waters and over the long reaches of the great 
 flat country to the distant horizon against 
 which were silhouetted the great windmills, 
 all sleeping in the calm, and the tall trees 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 87 
 
 which here and there reach straight up against 
 the light. We came again to the canal and 
 were locked through to the music of a cornet- 
 ist who, recognizing the mark of the American, 
 played " America" and "The Star-spangled 
 Banner," and our hearts sang of home and of 
 friends away across the big sea-water, and of 
 the land we love, which took the spirit of her 
 life in the long ago from brave little Holland, 
 which has something to teach us yet. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 
 
 WHICH BEFELL THEM IN COLOGNE AND ON THE 
 
 RHINE 
 
 ^Ss^SSOES it not seem to you that good 
 JlrSiBl people have trouble enough in this 
 *^$Mm °^ wor ld without being subjected 
 "^ -^1 to all sorts of temptations? It is 
 well enough to keep the sinners busy and 
 so help to keep them out of mischief and 
 strengthen their moral backbone, but why 
 should the feelings of our particular group 
 of "Angels" be harrowed up by the seductions 
 of the carnal appetites, and put to tests of 
 restraint which gave a pretty severe wrench to 
 the heavenly strings of our pure and tender 
 hearts? And besides, it might have spoiled 
 my chapter about Cologne had any one been 
 unequal to the test, for I have no desire to 
 write of fallen angels. I would not have you 
 think for a moment that none of us stumbled 
 along the way, but this veracious chronicle is 
 not marred by a single instance of a serious 
 lapse from innoxiousness by an American 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 89 
 
 "Angel." It is not improbable that by com- 
 mitting the sin of omission I add grace to the 
 record, but on the whole I am proud of the 
 way in which we disported and deported our- 
 selves under all circumstances. 
 
 It was a long ride from Amsterdam to 
 Cologne, mostly through a country that would 
 have reminded us of our own middle West 
 had there not been so much of formality and 
 
 COLOGNE FROM THE RHINE. 
 
 regularity. A clever woman in our compart- 
 ment observed that it seemed to her that she 
 was in one of the German gardens she used to 
 make when a child, of the wooden trees and 
 houses which came as toys from Germany, for 
 the trees were so stiff and formal that no 
 wind could be so disrespectful as to tickle them 
 into motion, and the houses were set here and 
 there just as a great giant baby might have 
 placed them, while scattered about were the 
 
90 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 figures of men and women so still that one 
 could easily imagine that they were pegged 
 fast to the ground so they would not fall over. 
 
 It was four o'clock in the afternoon when 
 we arrived at Cologne and were met at the 
 station by a committee of ''The Friends of 
 Evangelical Freedom in the Rhinelands," who 
 proceeded to tell us in very beautiful German, 
 most impressively spoken, where our hotels 
 were to be found, and that at five p.m. we 
 were to be their guests at a dinner in the Great 
 Hall of the Lesegesellschaft, which proved to 
 be the beginning of such a series of entertain- 
 ments as had never been imagined, much less 
 experienced, by the oldest traveler among us. 
 It was a rush, from the moment of arrival, to 
 get to our hotels with our luggage, don evening 
 dress and be at the hall within an hour, but 
 by the help of taxis we were on time. 
 
 It was a magnificent sight to which we were 
 introduced. The great hall itself seemed inter- 
 minable in length, and all down the distance 
 were splendidly furnished tables for six hun- 
 dred people. We paused at the door to feast 
 our eyes, and they were riveted on six hun- 
 dred bottles, — a long, tall, slender bottle for 
 each plate, — and we said to ourselves, "How 
 delightful, and what charming taste, to give 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 91 
 
 to each guest as a souvenir from this, its 
 fountainhead, such a fine bottle of Cologne 
 water!" 
 
 We had expected to bathe every day in 
 Cologne water while we were in the city, but 
 we had not intended to drink it. And evidently 
 these bottles were designed for drinking pur- 
 poses, as they were all uncorked and beside 
 them were delicate, long-stemmed glasses. 
 But the odor was so different. The Cologne 
 we get in America is of an entirely different 
 order of fragrance, and we were not just sure 
 as to what we were to do with it. However 
 as the dinner progressed we saw our hosts 
 drinking freely of the " water " and seeming 
 to enjoy it, and we came to the conclusion that 
 the Cologne water served at a great dinner 
 must be of an entirely different brand from 
 that used at the toilet. And so far as the 
 "Angels" knew, the brand to be used as a 
 beverage has never come into general use in 
 the best angelic society on our side of the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 A German dinner is a continuous surprise; 
 there is nothing like it in America or England. 
 Generally the dressing is the same. Evening 
 dress appears to follow a common mode, but 
 there the resemblance stops. There was a 
 
92 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 word of greeting from the chairman, and then 
 the first course of the dinner was served. 
 When it was eaten and the dishes were re- 
 moved, the people were called to order and two 
 long speeches of welcome were delivered in 
 German, then the second course was served, 
 and we had two more speeches, then the third, 
 and more speeches, and so on until the end, 
 which came after three hours, and when the 
 dinner was ended the speeches were ended. 
 There are some features of this plan which 
 commend themselves to me. It insures slow 
 eating and good digestion; it also provides 
 against an exodus of the guests in case there 
 is a dull speaker. And when the dinner is 
 through it is done, and we can go home. 
 
 But in this case we were not allowed to 
 go home. We thought we had reached the 
 climax of hospitality in England, but we have 
 to confess that we knew not its possibilities 
 until we struck Germany. Remember there 
 were over two hundred of us, and we all 
 brought our appetites with us. Not only 
 were we given this splendid dinner, with a 
 bottle of Cologne water, — or something! At 
 the conclusion of the feast, we each received 
 a little booklet of coupons, by the use of 
 which we could get anything we wanted, and 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 
 
 93 
 
 some things we did not want, during our 
 entire stay. There were coupons for transpor- 
 tation, for entrance to the "Flora," one of the 
 most spacious and ^__________^___ 
 
 elaborate concert 
 gardens in Rhine- 
 lands. I call it a 
 concert garden be- 
 cause that is not its 
 name; there are con- 
 certs there of the 
 very highest musi- 
 cal order, but in the 
 vernacular it is about 
 the biggest beer gar- 
 den on earth. And 
 in our little book we 
 found a number of 
 coupons good for 
 
 bottles of wine, more coupons good for beer, 
 still others for mineral water, yet others for 
 the long and wonderful trip on the Rhine, 
 and another for another elaborate dinner at 
 Remagen. 
 
 I thought we had some pretty good 
 "spenders" at home. We are mostly glad to 
 entertain a few guests when they come from 
 a distance and are not going to stay very 
 
 ON THE RHINE. 
 
94 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 long, but to have a group of two hundred 
 landed upon us and give them all pie and 
 "Cologne water" at every meal, with several 
 glorious concerts thrown in, sets a new mark 
 in the grace of hospitality. 
 
 And probably about this time the "gentle 
 reader" will begin to have a suspicion as to 
 when the "temptation of the Angels" occurred. 
 Following the dinner at the Lesegesellschaft 
 (I would not use that word if I had to pro- 
 nounce it), we were hurried to the cars and on 
 them to the "Flora," where we arrived at 
 about nine o'clock and found seats together 
 with two thousand others at the little tables 
 scattered about in the large and lofty pavilion 
 and through the beautiful gardens surrounding 
 it. There seemed to be music everywhere; 
 in one place was a fine band of thirty-three 
 performers; in another a splendid orchestra, 
 and on the platform in the center of it all 
 there were singers and speakers, so, as we say 
 in America, there was something doing all the 
 time. And while the music and the speaking 
 were going on the waiters were circling about 
 taking orders and calling for our coupons. 
 Now as a matter of history, the "Angels" 
 used only the coupons calling for mineral 
 water, to the supreme disgust of the waiters, 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 95 
 
 who lifted their hands in horror at the taste 
 of those Americans who wanted to drink 
 water. They flouted us, they scorned us, they 
 laughed at us with ghoulish glee, they abashed 
 us, until at last, to appease them, I meekly 
 asked for ginger ale, and the waiter nearly 
 went mad; but I persisted and wanted lemonade, 
 which he denied me with scorn, and he even 
 refused me "Mellin's Food. ,, Understand 
 that the temptation of this "Angel" was not 
 to drink beer, but to kill the waiter. 
 
 And yet we had a most hilarious time, and 
 listened to some splendid speeches in English 
 and in German, heard good music, and got to 
 our hotels at two o'clock in the morning, 
 which, from the German point of view, is just 
 on the edge of the evening. 
 
 What a day was that day upon the Rhine! 
 We were taken by our hosts in the morning 
 to Bonn, that we might get a glimpse of the 
 great university, and thence to the special 
 steamer which carried us and twelve hundred 
 of our German friends up the beautiful and 
 historic river, past Obercassel, Godesberg, 
 Drachenfels, Rolanseck and many other cities 
 and castles and ruins to Remagen, where in a 
 great hotel on the bank of the river, with vine- 
 covered but otherwise wide open porches we 
 
96 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 sat for three hours through another German 
 dinner with speeches between courses and 
 bottles of the "Rhine" at our plates. There 
 does not seem to be much difference between 
 the "Rhine" and "Cologne water" when 
 served as a beverage. But here those who care 
 
 THE RHINE AT REMAGEN. 
 
 for it did have a real treat. Up in the moun- 
 tains back of Remagen is the famous Apolli- 
 naris spring, and this fine water, which at 
 home is looked upon as a great luxury, was 
 served with prodigality. 
 
 After the dinner we were again on board our 
 steamer and moved off with the band playing, 
 every one singing and all the inhabitants of the 
 town upon the river banks waving and cheering 
 us a good-by. Then we continued on up 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 97 
 
 the river nearly to Coblenz, and turned back 
 as the sun was setting, to speed down the river 
 aided by the swift current, for we were due 
 in Cologne at a social reception which was to 
 begin at ten o'clock at night, and end, of 
 necessity, in time for us to take the morning 
 train for Berlin. 
 
 Through all the years of my life my heart 
 has yearned for the beauties of the Rhine with 
 a longing which would not be satisfied. No 
 amount of traveling was an adequate substitute. 
 In some way, back in childhood days, I as- 
 sociated with that river and its embracing hills 
 all of my fairy stories. Some of its myths and 
 legends had come to me more or less corrupted 
 probably, but I have always been sure that 
 there was something mystic about the stream, 
 and if I could only look upon it I should see 
 some of the giants and robber barons who used 
 to sweep through my imagination before my 
 imagination became corrupted with truth and 
 reason. And now I have seen the Rhine, at 
 least a bit of it, and I can remember few days 
 in my life that are richer in keen enjoyment 
 than that one when we sang our way through 
 the ruins and castles which stand all along 
 the shores, like frozen echoes of the past. 
 
 And yet the Rhine itself, stripped of its 
 
98 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 historic robes, is not as fine as our own Hudson, 
 and even the Penobscot from Bangor to the 
 sea, can show exquisite touches of scenery which 
 easily rival those of the more famous river of 
 Germany. But the Rhine is more than natural 
 scenery. It is a great moving stage upon which 
 the activities of the world's largest life have been 
 enacted. The very ordinary hill is seen not as 
 it is to-day, but as the centuries have colored 
 it, often mixing their colors with human blood. 
 And that pile of stone, but a resting place for 
 birds in their flight, is more than a stone pile, 
 for it has housed and homed and protected 
 human hearts in the long ago, and is their 
 pathetic monument. And the ruin which lifts 
 its shattered figure between you and the set- 
 ting sun is more than a ruin of man's work; it 
 is a symbol of the way of all human strength 
 and greatness, which pass with the passing 
 centuries to give place to something better. 
 
 All day long we sang, led by the fine orches- 
 tra and the singing spirit of the Germans, we 
 sang the hours away. And sometimes our 
 voices made a mighty chorus which swung up 
 through the hills and through the shattered 
 courts and corridors of the ruins, and startled 
 sleeping echoes into life. And then with the 
 day we moved away, but a passing incident 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 99 
 
 soon to be forgotten by the mighty river 
 which through the ages and ages has been 
 fretted by the fleeting generations of men, and 
 yet flows on, strong, calm, unchanging, while 
 men and the works of man decay. 
 
 In spite of the bounteous hospitality of our 
 hosts, we had a little time in which to see the 
 city of Cologne, and especially its cathedral. 
 It is a glorious city, filled with wondrous 
 churches and buildings of historic interest and 
 opportunities for pleasures of every possible 
 kind, but after all, as every street seems to lead 
 to the cathedral, every interest also centers 
 there. And worthily too, for among all the 
 cathedrals we saw, to my thinking there is 
 none to approach the unity, massiveness and 
 perfection of the Cologne Cathedral. It is 
 almost inconceivable that a thought so large 
 should have existed in any mind away back in 
 1248, and entirely inconceivable that that 
 thought should have been carried out through 
 all the centuries until the towers were completed 
 in 1880. When we realize how many minds 
 have been at work, and how there is hardly 
 another instance in existence in which the 
 original design has not been changed and al- 
 most always injured by some follower we 
 stand in amazement before the unity and har- 
 
100 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 mony of this massive pile. As I stood in front 
 of it and looked up and up, following the lines 
 
 COLOGNE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 of the towers in their graceful focus into the 
 very heavens, and felt as well as saw the stu- 
 pendous immensity of the thing, I could think 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 101 
 
 of nothing save one of the great towering peaks 
 of our own Rocky Mountains, which, as you 
 look, seems to float in the air and lean more 
 and more over you, luring your spirit into 
 companionship. I do not think I have ever 
 been so impressed with the work of man. 
 There are bigger things, and far more intricate 
 products of the mind, but in this cathedral six 
 hundred years ago a man thought, and thought 
 so well and so fully that hundreds and thou- 
 sands of thinkers and workers coming after 
 him but thought his thoughts over again and 
 translated them into stone, and behold, the 
 seed-thought growing for six hundred years 
 blossoms into this marvelous thing in which 
 the eye, the mind and the spirit all find con- 
 tent. Within there are wonders of carving and 
 decoration, and in the magnificent proportions 
 one's enthusiasm is commanded. None may 
 enter here without a feeling of awe and rever- 
 ence, but it was when I stood without and 
 sensed the greatness of man's achievement 
 that I worshiped God. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 
 BEING A BRIEF OF THEIR STAY IN BERLIN 
 
 [EVEN hundred years ago, on op- 
 posite sides of the river Spree, in 
 the northern part of what is now 
 the German Empire, were two 
 small towns, one known as Kolln and the other 
 as Berlin. Half a century later the two were 
 united and formed the beginning of the great 
 city which was to follow. In those days the 
 humble inhabitants, as they loved and fought 
 each other in their crude ways, had no thought 
 that the World Congress of Free Christianity 
 and Religious Progress was on its way to Berlin 
 and would arrive at 6.19 P. M. on August 5, 
 1910. In 1650, when the town had grown to 
 a city of 20,000 inhabitants and was about to 
 become the royal residence, nothing had yet 
 been heard of our coming. One hundred years 
 later, when Frederick the Great led in making 
 his capital a place worthy of the honor, and the 
 population had grown to one hundred and 
 forty-five thousand, it is doubtful if a thought 
 
 102 
 
THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 
 
 103 
 
 of the Liberal Religious invasion at the begin- 
 ning of the twentieth century had occurred 
 to any one. In the year 1850 there were in 
 the city of Berlin nearly half a million who 
 never saw a shadow of the coming event, and 
 
 IN BERLIN. 
 
 it is a rather humiliating fact that when the 
 " Angels " swooped down upon Berlin on the 
 fifth of August in this year of grace, so far as 
 we could see there were several of the three 
 millions of citizens of one of the most wonderful 
 cities of the modern world who did not know 
 
104 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 of our arrival, and several others who did not 
 care whether we were there or not. 
 
 We are thus made to see the difference in 
 the times. Had two thousand Religious Lib- 
 erals caravaned into the town of Berlin six 
 hundred years ago, we should all have been 
 sliced up into small pieces, had our awful 
 heresies burned, and the ashes scattered to the 
 four winds, and we should now be but a fading 
 incident of history. We should have made a 
 great sensation in those days; every man, 
 woman and child would have known we were 
 there, and probably had a piece of us to keep 
 as a souvenir. But I don't care for too much 
 excitement. I think I prefer the indifference 
 of the three millions of to-day to the personal 
 attentions of the twenty thousand in that cruder 
 and ruder age. 
 
 The three millions were very busy enjoying 
 themselves, and so far as we could see, most of 
 them kept right at their job all the time we 
 were there. But when, after a hasty toilet and 
 dinner at the hotel, we hastened to the Land- 
 wehrcasino, where the Congress was to assem- 
 ble, we found that some one had taken account 
 of our coming and every preparation was made 
 for our comfort and the success of the gathering. 
 Though only four hundred had been expected, 
 
THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 105 
 
 the delegates flocking from all parts of the 
 world, and particularly from all the cities of 
 Germany, soon numbered over two thousand, 
 and before the session was two days old the 
 people of Berlin did discover that something 
 was going on, and something of importance, 
 and poured in upon us until the great halls were 
 inadequate for the crowds. And for the next 
 week such a series of meetings was held as had 
 never been known in religious history, and the 
 great throbbing, amusement-loving city and 
 the greater land of which it is the political 
 center were touched and moved by a great new 
 thought of a new age. 
 
 It is not my purpose in these gossipy chap- 
 ters to try to tell the story of the Congress 
 itself, which was the goal of all our journeying, 
 for many have already sketched its proceedings, 
 and when these words are being read, the Book 
 of the Congress will have come from the press 
 and all who will may read. 
 
 This writing is largely a matter of personal 
 observation and memory, freed from the handi- 
 cap of the notebook I did not keep. I did have 
 some impressions and have some memories of 
 the great Congress, and perhaps it will not be 
 out of place to hint at them here even at the 
 risk of introducing the egotistical. Such an 
 
106 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 experience as standing before representatives 
 of the whole world to speak one's little piece 
 does not come so often in a lifetime as to pass 
 without notice. It was my privilege to be on 
 the platform at the first great meeting, and to 
 bring the disciples of religious freedom the 
 greetings of our Land of Liberty. At such a 
 time it does not matter so much what one may 
 say, providing he has a sense of the dignity 
 and significance of the occasion. And I con- 
 fess to one of the life-thrills which a man may 
 not often know, when I faced in one great 
 audience not only the Americans and British 
 and representatives of our colonies who speak 
 a common language with us, but also French, 
 Italians, Scandinavians, Germans, Swiss, East 
 Indians, Japanese, Chinese and Russians; not 
 only those of a common faith who might have a 
 sympathetic interest, but also those of thirty 
 different phases of religious thought and life, 
 who had come together to find, if it might be, 
 the points of agreement on which they could 
 unite for a larger service to humanity. 
 
 It was an occasion which must appeal to any 
 one who has caught, even in a small measure, 
 the spirit of the Universalist Gospel which for 
 more than one hundred years we have been 
 trying to establish in America. For here were 
 
THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 107 
 
 the first gleams of the light of its fulfillment in 
 its largest definition. Here was the revelation 
 of the fact that the great basic principles of 
 our faith had not only been planted and culti- 
 vated within the range of our own humble 
 efforts, but like all the blessings of God's 
 revelations of truth, the seeds had been planted 
 in many lands, and though growing under 
 different names and under different conditions, 
 they were bearing like fruit of human freedom, 
 religious liberty, and the promise of the ulti- 
 mate universal triumph of God and good. 
 And it came to me as I stood there in the 
 presence of that distinguished assembly, that 
 the seemingly little movement of an insignifi- 
 cant Church in America is glorified by its 
 connection with such a world-movement as 
 perhaps has never been known in the history 
 of religion ; that we are not working and fighting 
 alone for those things we count precious and 
 peculiar in our faith, but we have our contri- 
 bution to make to a common service, and we 
 are to receive the encouragement and impulse 
 of a great multitude whom no man may number, 
 who are working and fighting in their own place 
 and their own way for the same things. 
 
 I followed through those long sessions, lis- 
 tening to addresses often in unknown tongues, 
 
108 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 with a sense of awe and a sense of exhilara- 
 tion, and noted that every contribution made 
 to the great meeting by a representative of the 
 Faith we hold to be universal in hope and 
 promise, rose to the dignity of the hour in such 
 a way as to make it a real contribution and an 
 honor to the occasion, the speaker and the cause 
 he stood for. 
 
 But let no one imagine that the "Angels" 
 carried their devotion to the point of dissipa- 
 tion. Generally they were faithful in attend- 
 ing the sessions of the Congress, but betwixt 
 and between times there were both duties and 
 pleasures which loomed large, to meet which it 
 was necessary to adopt the Berlin custom which 
 has anticipated the final home of the angels; — 
 "there is no night there;" that is, no night 
 in the sense of going home and going to bed. 
 So far as is known, there is a period of lull ex- 
 tending from three a.m. to seven a.m., during 
 which it is supposed that people sleep and eat 
 their breakfasts, but no American has been dis- 
 covered who has been able to learn the facts con- 
 cerning that period of semi-darkness (for in that 
 high latitude the darkness is only " semi " dur- 
 ing those hours when morning is dawning). 
 
 It would be irreligious if not criminal for one 
 to be in Berlin and fail to see something of this 
 
THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 109 
 
 extraordinary civic creation. I use the term 
 "civic creation" advisedly, for while most of 
 the great cities of the world have grown and in 
 their growth been directed more or less by the 
 wisdom and foolishness of man, Berlin literally 
 has been built, made, created mostly according 
 to plans of wise architects and foolish kings. 
 And when the foolish kings did not interfere 
 too much, the creation has set worthy stand- 
 ards, and to-day, in some respects, Berlin is a 
 model city. Not so model as many of the 
 modern reformers who are continually shaking 
 it in our faces would have us believe, but on 
 the whole a place where the animal man and 
 the intellectual man may be pretty comfortable 
 and the spiritual man can find enough to do. 
 It is perfectly true that by slipping a very 
 small coin into a slot-machine you can get a 
 ticket which will allow you to be shot through 
 a hole in the ground to your distant destination 
 at a more rapid rate and, if you want to ride 
 third-class where every car is a " smoker," at 
 a less price than in almost any other great city 
 of the world. It is true that the control of 
 these roads by the city is in the best interests 
 of the people who pay the taxes, if not of the 
 passengers, but it is not true that there are no 
 defects in the mechanism of the thing, for I 
 
110 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 still mourn the ten pfennigs I slipped into a 
 slot-machine which never rendered up its ticket. 
 It is true that the streets are so clean you feel 
 you must wipe your feet before you leave your 
 house; true that repairs very generally are 
 made at night and the street that is all torn up 
 when you return from the opera — or church — 
 at night will show no sign in the morning. It 
 is true that the streets are full, literally, of fine 
 cabs and taxis which move a continual pro- 
 cession, and will respond to your whistle and 
 take you anywhere very quickly for a trifling 
 sum, so trifling in fact that the average man 
 squanders lots of his hard-earned silver when 
 he should be benefiting his health by walking. 
 It is true that the average citizen of Berlin 
 knows how to keep out of a sanitarium by 
 finding a place to stop in his work, and a place 
 where he with his family and friends can be 
 diverted and made to forget the troubles and 
 trials of business. 
 
 As the stranger goes about the city and notes 
 the number of " gardens " where people sit 
 under the shade of real or artificial trees and 
 drink beer and music at the same time, he will 
 wonder where they all come from, and if he 
 goes to one of the larger gardens, such as the 
 Zoological, and finds it difficult to make his 
 
THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 111 
 
 way amid the acres of solid folk, it will seem to 
 him that every home in that great city must be 
 deserted, and that nothing less than the whole 
 volume of the river Spree could supply the 
 beer consumed in a single evening. 
 
 The beer-drinking habit of the Germans 
 reaches its climax in the cities of Berlin and 
 Munich, and it has come to be the common 
 belief in America that with the beer there used 
 and the way of using, it is innocuous, and I 
 am disposed to give it all the credit possible. 
 From hearsay and observation only, I learn 
 that the beer used contains only a small per 
 cent of alcohol and is comparatively pure, and 
 the consumption per capita does not approach 
 that of other countries, for the reason that the 
 drinking is not to quench an unnatural thirst 
 but is a sort of social function. A party sits at a 
 table and each person has a glass or stein which 
 he sips through a long evening while listening 
 to music, and it is said there is no intoxication. 
 I have heard many a returning traveler say 
 that there is no drunkenness in Germany, but 
 I know that is not true. It is true that drunk- 
 enness is not allowed to be exhibited on the 
 streets as with us, but it is only necessary for 
 one to sit up late enough at night to discover 
 it on the street in spite of the statutes. 
 
112 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 But there are a great many foolish as well as 
 criminal untruths about Europe which have 
 found their way into the common speech of 
 Americans, and among them all there is none 
 more foolish and more criminal than the one 
 fostered by reputable physicians on our side of 
 the water, who tell their patients as they start 
 for Europe to " beware of drinking water over 
 there, for it is dangerous, and to fall in with the 
 customs of the country and take wine or beer." 
 Now, this statement of our otherwise worthy 
 physicians is the cheapest kind of a bid for the 
 cheapest kind of reputation, and has not the 
 slightest foundation in truth. There is not a 
 city in Europe in which the water supply will 
 not average up to the best in any of our own 
 cities, and there is not a particle more danger 
 in drinking the water even in the cities of Italy 
 than in drinking it in our American cities. 
 The people over there drink beer and wine 
 because it is the habit of generations, and 
 tourists often find difficulty in getting water, 
 especially ice water, because the waiters at 
 hotels and restaurants get a commission on the 
 liquors they sell. An instance in point: At the 
 closing banquet in Berlin, which was one of the 
 most magnificent I ever attended, at two of 
 the tables were seated only Americans and 
 
THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 113 
 
 English, and none of them took wine, and at 
 the close the waiter appealed to me, because I 
 happened to preside at that table, almost with 
 tears in his eyes, for a larger gratuity because 
 none of our party drank. 
 
 And we may say all we can say in extenuation 
 of the drinking habit of the foreigner, it is in 
 fact so pronounced a curse upon the people of 
 the land that to-day the better element of 
 Germany is rising in protest against it; and 
 though we and all others must glory in the 
 material achievements of the city of Berlin, 
 which we see under the most favorable con- 
 ditions, behind the scenes there are slums of 
 wickedness and suffering no less awful than 
 those in other great cities of the world, and 
 they are there very largely because of the 
 blight of drink upon human nature. 
 
 But I did not intend to write a temperance 
 lecture; I only stumbled upon it, as unfortu- 
 nately we must in almost any pleasure ex- 
 cursion, in almost any place or time, stumble 
 upon this chief cause of most of the shadows 
 which fall athwart this otherwise fair earth. 
 
 Berlin the beautiful, Berlin the wonderful 
 city, deserves all that can be said of it, and now 
 that I have cleared my mind of the shadow, 
 I can talk in the sunshine. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 
 FROM THE ANGELS' POINT OF VIEW 
 
 H 
 
 HE "Angels " were a little dubious 
 regarding the attitude of the Kaiser 
 towards his guests. We did not 
 expect him to meet us at the station 
 with his private carriage and take us "up to 
 the house " where we were to make ourselves 
 at home, though it occurred to us when we 
 discovered that one of his palaces had seven 
 hundred rooms that if he had been so disposed 
 he could have accommodated the two hundred 
 American "Angels " and not put himself out. 
 But it seemed that he was so thoughtless as to 
 be away from home at the very time when he 
 had company coming. In a way this was, 
 whether intended or not, a real favor on his 
 part, for his notion of hospitality requires that 
 no visitor be admitted to his home palace in 
 Potsdam when he is in residence, and being 
 away, the " Angels " had the privilege of 
 seeing the grounds and a few of the rooms of 
 the New Palace. " New," in Europe, always 
 
 114 
 
THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 
 
 115 
 
 has a meaning differing from ours. A new 
 building in America would mean one in pro- 
 cess of construction, whereas this " New 
 Palace " was built by Frederick the Great in 
 1763. And yet the bloom has not worn off. 
 We had no means of knowing how often the 
 
 THE DOM. 
 
 Empress " cleans house/' but with several 
 palaces in Potsdam, which place is less than 
 an hour out from the city of Berlin, and some 
 pretty extensive establishments in the city, it 
 seemed that housekeeping in the royal family 
 in Germany might be almost as complicated as 
 in a six-room flat in America with only one 
 German maid to do the work. But we dis- 
 
116 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 covered evidence of his Majesty's enterprise 
 and providence. 
 
 The Konigliches Schloss, — it is funny how 
 I accidentally fall into the use of these German 
 words every time I can think of them, and find 
 out how to spell them ! — I mean the Royal 
 Palace in Berlin, is big enough to do for a 
 World's Exposition, and there seem to be 
 several acres of floors in the innumerable rooms. 
 These floors are of hardwoods and so exquisitely 
 polished as to excite the wonder and admiration 
 of all until the process is revealed by which 
 they are kept in their mirror-like condition. 
 It would seem that the greatest ruler of the 
 world — excepting of course our own Theo- 
 dore I — could pay for the proper care of his 
 own Schloss, and yet when these freeborn, 
 liberty-loving and independent American ' 'An- 
 gels " came to look upon this magnificence, 
 they were all set at work polishing floors for 
 the Kaiser. It is with a feeling of shame that 
 this record is made, and yet it is my business 
 as a reporter of this excursion to tell the truth, 
 and the truth is that every "Angel " who 
 ventured into that palace had to tuck up his 
 or her wings and put on over the good American 
 shoes we wore, great ungainly carpet slippers 
 in which we were to sort of glide about those 
 
THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 117 
 
 vast galleries, — we must of necessity slide or 
 glide, because the old things were several sizes 
 too large for the feet of even the Chicago 
 representatives, — and in this way the beautiful 
 polish was secured and preserved. We need 
 nevermore talk of Yankee enterprise; the 
 Kaiser has us beaten to a frazzle. And my 
 humiliation reached the climax when I wit- 
 nessed grave and reverend ministers of the 
 Gospel, spectacled schoolmarms from New 
 England, literary lights from Indiana, Quaker 
 men and maidens from the city of Brotherly 
 Love, esoteric philosophers from Beacon Hill, 
 sages from Concord, Muses from Cincinnati, 
 and cowboys from the wild west, skating here 
 and there over the Kaiser's glossy floors and 
 giving them the final touch of real American 
 polish. 
 
 For those of the "Angels " who arrived at 
 the palace at the auspicious moment when the 
 guard changed there was adequate compensa- 
 tion for the labor of polishing floors, in being 
 allowed to witness the mightiest army in the 
 world make itself ridiculous in the " Goose 
 Walk." Of course the whole of the army was 
 not there excepting as it is embodied in the 
 breast of each proud soldier, but it was suffi- 
 cient to fill our souls with joy to see the repre- 
 
118 A SUMMER FLIGHT ■ 
 
 sentatives of the King's Guard take these 
 historic steps. Why they take them I do not 
 know, excepting that in Europe you can de- 
 pend on anything that has been done for several 
 hundred generations being continued in all 
 seriousness by a good many generations to 
 come. The Goose Walk is an instance. In 
 the long ago the soldiers of the Guard, either 
 in order to be distinctive, or because they 
 thought it pretty, or some ancient ruler wanted 
 to see them do it, at the time of changing the 
 Guard, used a step in which the foot is lifted 
 very high, till the knee comes up nearly to a 
 level with the breast, and then is snapped down 
 and the other leg is put through the same antic. 
 Some time in the history of this curious cus- 
 tom some one saw in it the resemblance to the 
 way in which a goose walks, and christened it 
 with a name which has stuck. I have to confess 
 to my readers that this is a wholly original 
 description and explanation of this extraordi- 
 nary custom; I could find none in the German lit- 
 erature I read, and so advance this hypothesis, 
 which is good enough to be true whether it is or 
 not, and is better than nothing. 
 
 Those who have the privilege of visiting this 
 wonderful island, formed in the river Spree, 
 right in the heart of Berlin, are blessed with 
 
THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 119 
 
 the treat of a lifetime. It is difficult to. find 
 another place in which so much of historic and 
 artistic interest is grouped within a small area. 
 The Royal Palace fronts on the Lustgarten, a 
 small but beautiful park adorned with a great 
 fountain and statuary. At the rear of the 
 park is the Dom, which is the German designa- 
 tion of the Cathedral, a big building with a 
 most impressive dome, but otherwise hardly 
 to be classed with the great cathedrals of 
 Europe. Opposite the Palace is the Old Mu- 
 seum, which is connected over Museumstrasse 
 with the larger New Museum, and that in turn, 
 through a court, with the National Gallery, 
 leaving the end of the island to the magnificent 
 Kaiser Frederick Museum. 
 
 Aside from the architectural interest of this 
 group of great buildings, there is enough within 
 them and accessible to the public to employ 
 the time of the antiquarian or lover of art for 
 months. And yet it is possible to get a very 
 fair impression even in a day's visit. This 
 matter of seeing the galleries, pictures and stat- 
 uary of Europe is a curious one. We every- 
 day sort of people, without technical training, 
 are handicapped a good deal in our observing 
 and observations. There has come through 
 our schooling and general reading a haze of in- 
 
120 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 formation in which there are sharply defined 
 certain names of artists and certain subjects 
 of art. We have read the names, and descrip- 
 tions of the works, and of some have seen more 
 or less worthy reproductions. But when we 
 are suddenly thrust among a great multitude 
 of these masterpieces of the ages, we are only 
 sure of a sense of confusion and bewilderment. 
 If we could come upon a single object and have 
 the time to take it in and make it our own there 
 would be some hope of carrying away some- 
 thing besides a misty impression. To walk 
 through the Old Museum is really to lose one's 
 self in a forest of antiquities. Out of every 
 place have come fragments, very largely, of the 
 world's sculpture, and there they are massed, 
 each with a label which ceases to have mean- 
 ing as others press upon it. In the National 
 Gallery there is a mixture of ancient and modern 
 painting, and nearly every school is represented, 
 while in the Kaiser Frederick Museum there 
 is the most complete collection of the works 
 bearing the deathless names of the Masters, 
 particularly in ecclesiastical art. 
 
 A party of average people go through these 
 miles of galleries, and we all come out with our 
 eyes glutted, our hearts throbbing and our 
 minds dazed. Those who have a memory for 
 
THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 121 
 
 detail, or rather a verbal memory, have filled 
 up on the names which are " starred " in 
 Baedeker as being worthy of particular notice, 
 and can talk fluently as they do talk freely the 
 conventional art slang, and it appears that they 
 have brought away about everything the 
 tourist can attain, but they will not bear close 
 questioning. The great picture is picked out 
 from the catalogue and we stand before it, and 
 we should and would be mute, but the disease 
 of talk has infected us and talk we must, though 
 we have nothing to say, and so, very generally, 
 we stand solemnly before the picture with an 
 intense look in our faces, then we clasp our 
 hands, heave a great sigh and say, "Such 
 coloring! " And after all, that does pretty 
 well, because it is what all the others are going 
 to say! 
 
 As a matter of education the massing in 
 our minds of these vast collections will be of 
 inestimable value, as through all the coming 
 years, through experience and reading, we are 
 enabled to identify and classify that which we 
 brought away; but for enjoyment while there, 
 I confess to a keen if crude delight when in an 
 alcove of the National Gallery, I ran across a 
 little picture of one of those lazy little streams 
 which creep up right under the grass-grown 
 
122 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 banks, and just lie there in the soft light of 
 an afternoon sun, reflecting the clouds over- 
 head, and smiling a little when the branches 
 of the old tree which overhangs, reach down 
 and tickle their faces. There was no motion of 
 the water, but I sat there opposite it for a long 
 time, and it bore me away from myself and 
 from the wilderness of pictures, from the associa- 
 tions of royalty, from the great city and its 
 great religious congress, from the continent of 
 Europe and from the world and its people to 
 God and the things of God. It was not an 
 " Old Master," but it was a master of my soul. 
 
 When you pass from the Thiergarten through 
 Brandenburg Gate and enter Unter den Linden, 
 you are in the center of the world, to the Ger- 
 man, and you are on one of the most famous 
 streets of the world. There is hardly any one 
 word adequate to its description, but even dem- 
 ocratic Americans think of it instantly as a 
 " royal thoroughfare." The great gate at the 
 entrance, erected more than a century ago, must 
 have been designed by one who had the vision 
 of a prophet, who saw through the magnificent 
 arches the glory to which it made entrance, and 
 which was to come in the unfolding years. 
 
 There should be inscribed on this gate, " Let 
 him who enters here leave his pocketbook 
 
THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 123 
 
 behind"; for when he reaches the corner of 
 Friedrichstrasse the lure of the Berlin mer- 
 chant will be upon him, and he must remember 
 that the new custom laws of our great and 
 glorious America will not let him bring his 
 spoil home unless he pay for it over again. 
 And yet it is worth the double price, just for 
 the fun of shopping when neither buyer nor 
 seller can understand, that is, worth it, — if 
 you have the price. And prices are so reason- 
 able when compared on the level with our own, 
 and if one knows how to buy and what to buy, 
 it will be found that he is making money even 
 when paying full duty. 
 
 Fain would I linger. But I must not. Were 
 I to try to tell but the half of the fascinations 
 of Berlin, I should never finish this record, 
 for though our itinerary compelled our de- 
 parture on a certain date, so full is my mind 
 of memories that it seems I can never grow 
 poor in material. I have said nothing of the 
 parks, which are fairer than any I have known 
 elsewhere, because they have retained so much 
 of the natural .; and as you walk or drive beneath 
 the grand old trees you feel that they have 
 grown there to their stately proportions and 
 were not bought and paid for and removed 
 from their native soil. Perhaps they all were, 
 
124 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 but it has been so well done that I do not want 
 any one to tell me so and spoil my satisfaction. 
 
 I have told nothing of the churches, and 
 yet we were there on a religious mission. I 
 do wish I could have taken you with us to the 
 old thirteenth-century " Marien-Kirche," that 
 you might have a sense of the reality of the 
 sanctity with which age really does invest a 
 building. We attended a concert of rare merit 
 there on Saturday afternoon. The audience was 
 immense, but it was all like a religious congre- 
 gation, and we came forth from the great 
 shadowy interior with rapt faces and exultant 
 spirits. I wish you might have gone with us 
 on Sunday to " Jerusalemer-Kirche," and caught 
 some of the inspiration of the great sermons 
 preached by some of the real leaders of reli- 
 gious thought and life of the world, who had 
 come together with the disciples of religious 
 freedom. But you must read their messages 
 in the Book of the Congress. 
 
 I wish I could take you to Wagner opera, 
 that you might see and hear " The Rhinegold " 
 as it can be staged and sung only in Germany; 
 that you might know something of the place 
 music holds in the life of this people. But my 
 space is all gone; I cannot even end this chapter, 
 I must simply stop. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 
 
 FOLLOWING THE REFORMER THROUGH WITTEN- 
 BERG AND WEIMAR TO EISENACH 
 
 |ORE and more am I impressed with 
 the rare skill exhibited in the man- 
 agement of this great tour of the 
 Americans to the World Congress 
 and through Europe. The sense of independ- 
 ence is so aggressive in our countrymen that 
 we prefer, usually, to be troubled about many 
 things rather than surrender for even a brief 
 period our pride of self. We want to go where 
 we want to go, and we want to do what we 
 want to do, and we resent the interference of 
 any other mind, however well equipped it may 
 be. As a result we often run our heads against 
 a stone wall, or land in some slough of despond, 
 all of which could be easily avoided by the 
 exercise of a little of that heavenly virtue of 
 common sense and the heavenly grace of 
 humility. 
 
 From the two hundred people of our party 
 we heard few complaints, and certainly it is 
 
 125 
 
126 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the verdict of the great majority that we saw 
 more in less time and with less friction, in the 
 period allotted us, than it would have been 
 possible under any other conditions, particu- 
 larly through any scheme of independent 
 traveling. The independent tourist unless he 
 carry a great number of letters of personal in- 
 troduction, which he will be loath to use, has no 
 such chance of touching the actual life of people 
 of the countries visited as came to us without 
 effort, and, in addition, it was our privilege to 
 meet personally that group of religious and 
 life leaders which makes Europe a dominant 
 power in the world's progress. 
 
 We realized our opportunity especially when 
 we came to leave Berlin after the close of the 
 Congress. Ordinarily we could expect little after 
 the great purpose of the journey was accom- 
 plished; we must have been satisfied with the 
 glory of the great gathering and the sounding 
 of its note of religious freedom, and counted 
 that the climax; but to us there came a post- 
 script which, like that at the end of the woman's 
 letter, was even better than the letter itself. 
 
 One prominent incident of the meetings in 
 Berlin occurred one Saturday afternoon when 
 we all gathered at the foot of the great statue 
 of Martin Luther, in Neuer Market Square, and 
 
FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 127 
 
 with fitting ceremony placed a large wreath at 
 the feet of the great reformer. This was most 
 fitting, for however much the Luther of olden 
 times differed from the modern Liberal, yet in 
 his day he represented exactly the same posi- 
 tion as did those who, in this later age, paid 
 worthy tribute to his memory. Luther was 
 as liberal for his day as the spirit of the " Welt- 
 kongress fur Freies Christen turn " which as- 
 sembled in Berlin in 1910 was for the present. 
 
 Our program following the Congress might 
 well be termed "A Luther Pilgrimage," for 
 the next two days were spent almost wholly in 
 the land hallowed by his presence and labors. 
 The morning after the splendid banquet with 
 which the formal session closed, two special 
 trains of cars, carrying besides the Ameri- 
 can and English delegates, representatives 
 from France, Italy, Switzerland and many 
 other countries, also many of our German 
 hosts, took us first to Wittenberg, where we 
 had the privilege of visiting the home and 
 church of Luther and placing wreaths upon 
 the graves of Luther and Melanchthon, and 
 holding a brief service in the place where the 
 reformer had preached, and on the door of 
 which he nailed his famous theses which revo- 
 lutionized the religious world. 
 
128 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 This church stands at the top of a long street, 
 now bordered with little homes and shops, and 
 through which runs — or creeps — an anti- 
 quated horse car, in which a few of us rode, 
 while the others walked, slowly, so as not to 
 distance the car, past the quaint old square 
 with its picturesque town hall to this shrine 
 of religious progress, where we were to feel our 
 
 WITTENBERG. 
 
 hearts thrill with a new sense of the personality 
 of this great man, who dared to think, and set 
 the world a-thinking. 
 
 Wittenberg is very closely associated with 
 the career of Luther, for it was there that as a 
 monk true to the Romish Church he taught in 
 the University, and there as the revolter against 
 the abuses of the Church he applied the fire to 
 a condition extending throughout the empire 
 which was ready, like tinder, to respond. We 
 
FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 129 
 
 have a sort of notion that Luther was the whole 
 of the Reformation, but as a matter of fact the 
 whole religious world was but waiting for a 
 leader, and as all through history, the occasion 
 met the man, the man was ready, and the man 
 was lifted by the occasion to immortality. 
 
 Probably never was there greater surprise 
 than that felt by the friends of Luther. Had 
 any one foretold about the time that Columbus 
 was discovering America that the small boy 
 in the Eisleben school who was flogged fifteen 
 times in one forenoon was to reshape the 
 religious thinking of Europe, he would have 
 been laughed to scorn. No man is able to see 
 the man in the boy, and I should think, some- 
 times, that even God would be puzzled. 
 
 We were diverted from the footsteps of 
 Luther that we might have a day and a night 
 in the famous city of Weimar, the home of 
 Goethe and Schiller and where they lie buried 
 side by side, in the mausoleum, together with 
 the rulers of Saxe- Weimar, where the un- 
 titled are the more royal. 
 
 Weimar afforded the "Angels " some per- 
 sonal experiences which were met with nowhere 
 else. Of course it was our desire to get as close 
 to the people as we could, and when several 
 hundred of us descended at once upon the 
 
130 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 hotels of a small city there was no getting away 
 from the fact that we were of necessity as close 
 as was desirable. Every hotel was utilized 
 and some of us found ourselves in quarters 
 which became endurable only when we resorted 
 to the thought that they were " quaint." 
 What a help that word is whenever we get into 
 places where there are none of the conveniences 
 of life, and things generally are about as ugly 
 as they make them; we call them " quaint," 
 and begin to enjoy them. It shows just how 
 much the realities of life amount to; it is the 
 quality which enables us to go away from our 
 comfortable homes in the summer and put up 
 with small rooms, hard beds and bad food and 
 be happy because it is all so " quaint." 
 
 The great sprawling German hotel where 
 my particular covey of "Angels" roosted was 
 quaint enough to satisfy the most exacting. 
 The doors through which we entered the court 
 were large enough for castle walls, or in the 
 Yankee vernacular, to admit a load of hay. 
 From this gigantic and imposing entrance we 
 came into an " office " almost large enough to 
 make an old-fashioned " wardrobe," and from 
 this we wound up a circular stair and through 
 narrow halls twisting and turning through every 
 possible form of angularity, leading at last to 
 
FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 131 
 
 rooms in which the ' 'Angels " were mixed up 
 almost as badly as on the Channel steamer. 
 When finally we were separated and reas- 
 sembled each in his own place, I found myself 
 in a room bounded on the north by the pig-pen 
 and the chicken coop, on the east by the parlor, 
 on the south by interminable stairways leading 
 up and down, and on the west by the laundry, 
 through which latter department I had to 
 reach my door, the lock of which was so con- 
 structed that it could not be opened until one 
 of the Venuses of the Tubs had descended to 
 the lower regions and secured a bar of iron 
 about a foot long, which in some mysterious 
 way solved the combination and admitted me. 
 But it was " quaint." 
 
 I have not said anything about the German 
 beds yet. I really haven't had room. Some 
 day I shall write a book about them. They are 
 " quaint " too. But I can hardly conceive of 
 anything more astounding to the innocent 
 American than to enter his sleeping room in a 
 German home or inn, in the middle of August, 
 and look upon his bed before it has been 
 touched by the rude hand of the iconoclast. 
 If there is anything I despise more than another, 
 it is to sleep on a feather bed, in the summer 
 time particularly, or to swathe my fair form 
 
132 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 with oppressive bedclothes; in short I prefer 
 to sleep in the altogether, as it were. It is easy, 
 then, to imagine my feelings when, entering my 
 room, I beheld a bed on which there was a 
 feather bed and on top of that another feather 
 bed, the latter with a little lace petticoat all 
 around the edges, the whole thing rising before 
 my horrified sight like an ancient pyramid some 
 several cubits wide, several more cubits long, 
 and at least forty cubits high. One naturally 
 looks about at first to find the stepladder by 
 which he is to reach the apex of his night's rest, 
 and then he begins to wonder how he is ever 
 to stay on the thing when he gets there. That 
 man in the circus who balances with perfect 
 ease and grace upon the top of a rolling globe 
 might find repose at that dizzy height, but no 
 hard-working minister would ever try it unless 
 he was well insured. 
 
 Had I not been initiated into the mystery of 
 these beds before, I must have sat up all night, 
 but as it was I knew exactly what to do, and 
 that was to creep in under that top feather 
 bed and go to sleep. What I did do was to 
 pull the whole pyramid to pieces, scattering 
 the remains about the room, and go to sleep 
 on the slats. 
 
 We had the pleasure of meeting in this hotel, 
 
FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 133 
 
 also at close quarters, that other German mon- 
 strosity, the porcelain stove. Fortunately it 
 was not in action. But we examined it with 
 wonder and amaze. It was built in sections, 
 one resting upon another until it reached much 
 higher than our heads, and I came to the con- 
 clusion that each section represented a genera- 
 tion of the family in which it had grown from 
 early historic times. I don't know that this 
 is so, but I want to get some original notions 
 into these chapters, and I do not see why the 
 sections of a porcelain stove should not repre- 
 sent different generations of the family, just 
 as the rings on the stump of a tree mark the 
 years of its growth. Though there is one 
 trouble with the theory in its practical applica- 
 tion, as there is in most theories brought to 
 the practical test, there is something a little 
 weird, not to say repulsive, in the thought of 
 building a fire in your ancestors for the pur- 
 pose of keeping your grandchildren warm. 
 
 But we were not obliged to spend very much 
 time in our hotel, and so it really did not matter 
 much just how " quaint " it was. We dis- 
 covered that there was nothing "quaint" about 
 the food; that was all right, and a notable and 
 historic fact was that we had a pitcher of ice 
 water on the table at every meal, and we knew 
 
134 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 from the gestures of the waiters when they 
 gathered in the corner of the room that they 
 were saying to each other in awe-stricken 
 voices, " Those Americans are really drinking 
 that water! " 
 
 We were in the city of Goethe, and I noticed 
 that as different parties left the hotel, the lady 
 "Angels " seemed bent on finding Faust, the 
 gentlemen "Angels " sought Marguerite, and 
 the ministers with one aecord went in pursuit 
 of Mephistopheles. And I have noticed, too, 
 that we pretty generally find what we are 
 looking for. 
 
 Weimar is one of the most charming places 
 in Germany; it is the place par excellence for 
 one to go to live, if he would learn the German 
 language in all its purity. Over the whole 
 community the influence of the educational 
 atmosphere, and particularly of those masters 
 of German literature whose home was there, 
 reigns. The inhabitants prize their possessions, 
 among which they count as chief the memorials 
 of Goethe and Schiller. And these are many. 
 The beautiful monument in commemoration 
 of these two, between whom there was no spirit 
 of envy, exhibits in the figure of Goethe pre- 
 senting the laurel wreath to Schiller, and 
 Schiller declining it, an exquisite relationship. 
 
FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 135 
 
 Here the houses of these two authors have 
 become state property and are preserved as 
 museums of inexhaustible interest. Here we 
 can see the humble little trundle-beds in which 
 they slept, and as we stand before the Goethe 
 Gartenhause where he used to write, we are 
 astonished at its simplicity, and begin to 
 realize how little connection there is between 
 real greatness and circumstances or conditions. 
 Here the " Angels " were given the honor of 
 a reception by the town authorities, and Pro- 
 fessor Euken of the University of Jena, Pastor 
 Jaegar of Karlsruhe, and Mr. Bornhauses of 
 Marburg, made addresses, which caught the 
 spirit of religious fellowship, born of the great 
 Congress, making of one blood all nations. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 
 
 FINDING REFUGE WITH HIM IN THE OLD CASTLE 
 OF THE WARTBURG 
 
 HE "Angels" had need of their wings 
 when they came to scale the heights 
 of the Wartburg, going up from 
 Eisenach. It was a good five miles 
 by the long and winding road, and most of us 
 drove, but some walked, and one distinguished 
 "Angel " rode a donkey, about one-third his 
 own length in height, necessitating his taking 
 several tucks in his legs to prevent their trailing 
 behind and tripping others. 
 
 The carriage took us to within about a 
 quarter of a mile of the top, and then we had to 
 pick our way up over the roughest kind of 
 stone-paved pathway through the wall to the 
 castle, which covers the whole summit. 
 
 And that last quarter of a mile brought before 
 us another of those unsolved problems of human 
 progress: How did the builders of nearly one 
 thousand years ago, without any of the knowl- 
 edge and facilities of which this present age 
 
 136 
 
138 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 boasts itself, manage the erection of a great 
 castle on the extreme top of what is an almost 
 inaccessible height, and so build, under those 
 impossible conditions, that which has outlived 
 the centuries, and that which puts to shame 
 the building achievements of modern life? 
 What is "progress"? We begin at the fif- 
 teenth story of a steel skeleton and build 
 downward to the earth a modern office build- 
 ing which in twenty years at most will be out 
 of date and must come down to make a place 
 for a twenty-four-story mushroom under which 
 a myriad of human toads may squat and catch 
 flies. 
 
 Mostly we settle this problem by saying that 
 modern life has no occasion to build in such 
 inaccessible places; modern life has something 
 better to do than to waste its good money in 
 walls and towers, and courts and drawbridges. 
 And yet we all strain our modern resources to 
 get enough of the good money to take us to 
 Europe, that we may just look upon the ruins 
 of the creations of those whom we pity because 
 they lived under such great limitations. 
 
 It is natural of course for the "Angels" to 
 want to get as near heaven as possible, so not 
 content with reaching the top of the mountain, 
 they mostly paid ten pfennigs to the "St. 
 
ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 139 
 
 Peter " at the gate, and climbed the winding 
 stairway up to the top of the old tower. It 
 may be theologically absurd, but it is dismally 
 true, that there is a " St. Peter " at the gate 
 of every heaven of our desire, and he holds us 
 up with some condition or demand which we 
 must meet; and our experience in Europe has 
 convinced us that when we get to the real 
 heavenly gate over on the other side, and stand 
 trembling, even if hopeful, before the glories 
 of the celestial world, and make our humble 
 petition to the real St. Peter, not only will he 
 hold us to a strict theological examination, but 
 he will also insist upon our buying the latest 
 colored set of post cards showing all the public 
 buildings of the Holy City, and, perhaps, 
 views of a pageant representing the revolt of 
 Satan and his angels. 
 
 If the view from the battlements of heaven 
 is any finer than the view from the top of the 
 tower of the Wartburg, then we shall be recon- 
 ciled to the transition from this very satis- 
 factory world. Below was spread the wide 
 sweep of the Thuringian forests, and in the 
 heart of the valley lay the fair city of Eisenach, 
 rich in romance and history and associated 
 with so much of the life story of Martin Luther. 
 
 Within the castle itself, still more intense 
 
140 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 were the memories and suggestion of Luther, 
 for here it was that he was brought by his 
 friends when he had not only been excommuni- 
 cated by the Church but had also been outlawed 
 by the State and his very life was in danger. 
 Here it was he lived in the disguise of a soldier, 
 changing his monk's dress for the armor of the 
 
 THE WARTBURG. 
 
 warrior, and going forth only in that habit. 
 Here we found his room, restored in some 
 measure, in which he studied and where he 
 made his famous translation of the Bible into 
 the vernacular. And it was in this room that 
 in a moment of religious enthusiasm he flung 
 his inkstand at the devil, and made a great 
 splash on the wall, which tourists have several 
 times scratched and cut out and carried away 
 
ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHEK 141 
 
 as mementos, and each time the wall and the 
 ink splash have been restored, not by miracu- 
 lous hands, as they would have been under 
 Roman Catholic auspices, but by the skill and 
 enterprise which know the commercial value 
 of a good thing. 
 
 Romance as well as history makes its home 
 in the Wartburg, and it is a pretty story which 
 is told of St. Elizabeth who, as the princess, used 
 to distribute bread to the poor, who came up 
 to the very gate through which we entered; 
 this she did without the knowledge or sanction 
 of her husband, who felt that he was being 
 made poor by some unknown drain upon his 
 resources, and meeting her one day at the gate, 
 when she was holding her skirts so as to conceal 
 her bounty, being suspicious, he asked her what 
 she had, and she answered, " Roses/' and when 
 he demanded to see them, a miracle was per- 
 formed and the bread was changed to roses, 
 and when the selfish old husband had moved 
 away another miracle changed the roses back 
 to bread, and the poor were fed. 
 
 A good deal of romance has clung to the 
 Luther story too, and it is best for one not to 
 hamper his imagination if he would get the full 
 measure of inspiration which the place can give. 
 The poet is often a more faithful historian than 
 
142 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the historian himself, for the latter sees but the 
 bare facts, the body of the soul of truth which 
 the poet sees and reveals. Of course Luther's 
 room in the Wartburg is not exactly as it was 
 when he was there, but there is enough of him, 
 that is, the things which he has hallowed by his 
 touch, to leaven all the other memorials which 
 have been gathered; there are his chair and desk 
 and old porcelain stove and the place on the 
 wall where the ink spot used to be, and there is 
 the outlook from his window, just the same as 
 when he was looking out over the forests to the 
 great world, which, perhaps, all unconsciously 
 to himself, he was to redeem from the shadow 
 of mental and spiritual slavery. 
 
 Luther becomes very real as we stand in the 
 places which were his familiars. He comes up 
 out of that misty and mystic land our early 
 study in history creates and peoples largely 
 with ideal characters, a great, strong, manly 
 man, a mighty, virile, fighting force, who could 
 do things. We never meant to keep him a 
 delicate and spiritually minded child, but some 
 way the picture of the boy singing in the streets 
 of Eisenach, with voice so sweet as to win the 
 attention and affection of a woman who made 
 him her charge and made his way to education 
 easier, got fixed upon the walls of our imagina- 
 
ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 143 
 
 tion and has hung there through the years, in 
 spite of his heroic achievements; but here we 
 came upon a new Luther, a great burly, master- 
 ful man. A spiritual enthusiast might have 
 sought martyrdom by nailing his theses to the 
 door of a church as an announcement of his 
 convictions and his loyalty to the truth, but 
 here at the Wartburg, in his life as a soldier, 
 even though it was but for a disguise, he came 
 close to the great throbbing heart of man, he 
 caught the human, the democratic note, and 
 tuned his nature to a new and larger service. 
 As he caught the authority and dominance of 
 spiritual truth away from that mightiest cor- 
 poration of the ages, the Romish Church, and 
 enthroned it in the mind and heart of man, he 
 became even more than the prophet of the new 
 day, he became its creator. 
 
 So nothing more fitting could have been con- 
 ceived as a closing for the great Religious Con- 
 gress for Free Christianity than to hold the final 
 session in the court of the Wartburg, beneath 
 the window from which Martin Luther had so 
 often looked out to gather inspiration from the 
 world beautiful spread below; for it seemed that 
 his spirit must have stood there to pronounce 
 the benediction upon this group of modern 
 apostles of religious liberty and human progress. 
 
144 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 There were five or six hundred of us, repre- 
 senting any number of nationalities and races 
 and languages; it was a gathering so unique as 
 to be historic. It was prophetic of the soli- 
 darity of the human race. It was a new revela- 
 tion to man of the revelation of God. Just as 
 He has been speaking to His children through 
 all the ages, in different places and in different 
 ways, just as they were able to hear and receive, 
 behold, in this latter and better age, the product 
 of all that has before been, He speaks again, and 
 in far-off India His voice is heard ; China, Japan 
 and the isles of the sea hear His call, modern 
 England, France, Germany and young America 
 catch the new message, and under different 
 names, by different methods and along differ- 
 ent paths, God's children the world over are 
 feeling their way back to Him. And it ap- 
 peared as we gathered in the court of the 
 Wartburg — a type of the whole world — that 
 we represented a great circle of life, wide as 
 humanity itself, all facing towards a common 
 center, so that wherever we started from, each 
 step forward brought us all nearer to each 
 other and nearer to God. 
 
 I wonder if there is not here a hint of the true 
 significance of this World Congress of Free 
 Christianity. Men are asking, What did the 
 
ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 145 
 
 Congress do? In a way it did not do anything 
 that can be tabulated, save to utter and record 
 some speeches, great and small, but it was a 
 rallying of the world forces of Liberal Religion. 
 I wish we had some other term than that. 
 " Religious Liberalism " has come to be as- 
 sociated with negations or destructive criticism 
 of everything connected with religion and 
 worship, and particularly of that which is 
 elemental in Christian theology, whereas the 
 religious liberalism represented in the World 
 Congress was marked by a positiveness which 
 was quite remarkable, a conservation of the 
 truth revealed or established, and an attitude 
 of openmindedness which appealed to members 
 of orthodox churches not less than to the 
 so-called " liberal/ ' Those in the conservative 
 ranks who are growing, who refuse, as did 
 Luther, to be bound by existing dogmas, and 
 especially those who would make religion a 
 this-world force for righteousness, saw the 
 opportunity for a fellowship of world-wide 
 reach, without the sacrifice of any of their per- 
 sonal convictions. The Universalist Church, 
 as an example of theological moderation, a 
 small church organically, and for years ham- 
 pered by its smallness, here discovered that 
 it was a part of a fellowship reaching to the 
 
146 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 corners of the earth, and its life and work are 
 not to be estimated by the reports in a year- 
 book; it is not an independent something set 
 apart by itself, to grow or die in solitary isola- 
 tion; it is a part of a great world-movement for 
 religious freedom and for accomplishing the 
 universal salvation which it has so proudly and 
 persistently foretold. And so the thought that 
 came to me in the closing session of this largest 
 and best religious World Congress was, that no 
 greater step had ever been taken or could be 
 taken by any Church than to line up with these 
 world-forces of religious liberty and human 
 progress. 
 
 Who can tell the story of that last and 
 greatest meeting? It was a picture never to 
 be forgotten, — the great multitude filling the 
 court of the castle, from which rose a babble 
 of voices in many languages, until from a group 
 of forty choral singers there swept over us the 
 music of that grand hymn of Luther's, " Em' 
 f este Burg ist unser Gott . ' ' There are occasions 
 which thrill one by their rare significance; some 
 such have come into my life, but never one 
 which so caught my imagination and unfolded 
 before me a brighter vision. And then came 
 the closing messages from the representatives 
 of each of the greater nations, following the 
 
ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 
 
 147 
 
 story of the Wartburg as the cradle of religious 
 freedom, told by Professor Schmiedel of Eisen- 
 ach. From the opening words of the presi- 
 dent, Karl Schrader, until the last hymn was 
 
 THE ROAD TO THE WARTBURG. 
 
 sung, the delegates listened spellbound. Each 
 one felt the greatness of the hour, and when 
 the president adjourned the Congress to meet 
 in Paris in three years, in each heart there was 
 born the determination to be present. 
 
148 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 It was my rare privilege to walk down from 
 the castle to where our carriage awaited us in 
 company with the president of the Congress, 
 Mr. Karl Schrader of Berlin. For nearly ten 
 days he had presided over one of the most 
 remarkable gatherings in the history of religion, 
 and he had just closed it with his benediction, 
 and he was profoundly impressed with the 
 whole occasion. Mr. Schrader himself is a man 
 of note, a business man of standing in the city, 
 a student of both taste and training, a man 
 of devout religious feeling, a man of mature 
 years, keen thought and wise speech, and a man 
 practically and actively interested in present- 
 day affairs, legislative, social and philan- 
 thropic. I had before had occasion to feel his 
 cordiality of speech and manner, but I was 
 impressed, as we walked down the rough path 
 together, with the deep impression the Congress 
 and especially this last heart-moving session 
 had made upon this man of affairs. "All this 
 means more than we can see," he said, and 
 " it is a success, larger than we know." 
 
 School was out and vacation had begun when 
 we reached the bottom of the mountain. It had 
 been a joy all along the way, but there was a 
 sense of relief that henceforth we were neither 
 to make nor hear speeches, but just to see, and 
 
ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 149 
 
 to see the wonderful panorama of beautiful 
 Europe unrolled before us. The city of Eisen- 
 ach caught the spirit of the hour, and when we 
 drove back into the streets in the twilight, we 
 found that we were to be treated to an illumina- 
 tion, through which there came a feast of music. 
 A beautiful lake in the edge of the city was 
 turned into fairyland by electric lights, and 
 across its waters came the songs of fellowship 
 and brotherhood and good cheer. And who 
 shall say that with our coming and our going 
 in our small way we had not brought the 
 nations of the earth a little nearer together and 
 caught them in the embrace of a new human 
 brotherhood? 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AT OBERAMMERGAU 
 
 THE ANGELS OBSERVE THE NATIVES AND 
 INDULGE IN A FEW THOUGHTS 
 
 r T was a long flight from the hills of 
 Eisenach down through the valleys 
 of southern Germany and up again 
 into the Bavarian Alps. We had 
 started early in the morning and our special 
 train had made good time, and yet the late- 
 coming darkness of the northern countries was 
 closing around us when we rolled into the 
 station at Oberammergau. During the last 
 hour of daylight we had been watching the 
 mountains grow up on the horizon, silhouetting 
 against an ever-softening sky, until just as they 
 became all shadows we plunged right into the 
 heart of them, just as a bird on the wing with 
 seeming abandon plunges into the heart of a 
 dark evergreen tree, not into the strange and 
 direful, but into the shelter and rest of home. 
 
 Before arriving each "Anger' had been given 
 a slip of paper on which was written the name 
 of his host, in a few cases at an inn, but mostly 
 
 150 
 
AT OBERAMMERGAU 151 
 
 we were assigned to the homes of the villagers, 
 where we were to get a taste of the real life of 
 those wonderful people who have commanded 
 the interest of the whole world. In the gloom 
 of the station platform, which appeared walled 
 in by darkness, it seemed as though it would 
 require a miracle to untangle the multitude and 
 set them right, but it was only necessary to 
 shout the name of your host, and out of the 
 gloom appeared a small boy with long hair and 
 a picturesque costume, who took the luggage, 
 and if you followed you were either landed in 
 a wagon which would convey you to your stop- 
 ping place, or conducted to the stopping place 
 itself if it were near enough at hand. But we 
 noticed it was not always a boy who responded; 
 sometimes it was a woman, and quite as handily 
 as the boy would she swing off with two heavy 
 bags, while the chivalrous American trudged 
 shamefully behind; — but what can one do? 
 When you are with the Bavarians you must do 
 as the Bavarians do, and the situation there is 
 not unlike the farmer's " willing team," in 
 which one horse was willing to do all the work 
 and the other was willing that he should. The 
 women seem willing to do about all the work, 
 and while it hurts our sensibilities to see them 
 do it, as a matter of fact they thrive upon it, 
 
152 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 and they amaze us with the glory of their 
 physical strength, their ease if not always grace 
 of action, and more than all, with their super- 
 abundant good nature. There is probably no 
 way in which we could abuse them more than 
 to try to prove to them that they are abused, 
 and in no other way so rouse their wounded 
 dignity as to suggest that they are down- 
 trodden. Perhaps they are missing a good 
 many things we count among our necessities, 
 but I came to one conclusion and that was, that 
 any man who shall establish a sanitarium — or 
 sanatorium — in the Bavarian Alps, for the 
 cure of nervous prostration or corns, will starve 
 to death in sixty days. 
 
 Led by our small boy we crossed a bridge 
 over what we afterwards learned was the river 
 Ammer, passed into the square, which was 
 lighted quite brilliantly, down a little side street, 
 into the home of one Melchior Breitsamter, who 
 gave us a most cordial welcome and an excellent 
 supper. With his two daughters, Helene and 
 Babette, two beautiful girls somewhere in the 
 vicinity of twenty years of age, as willing 
 assistants, Herr Breitsamter and his gentle 
 Frau placed their home at our disposal. We had 
 good food and plenty of it, good beds and every 
 possible attention, and we knew not of extortion 
 
AT OBERAMMERGAU 
 
 153 
 
 in any way at their hands. Of course we had 
 heard all the strained stories of the way people 
 were herded together, and the extravagant prices 
 demanded, and the 
 poor accommoda- 
 tions, but we have 
 no such tale to tell. 
 Perhaps "Angels " 
 are different from 
 other people, but in 
 two hundred "An- 
 gels," even, there is 
 to be found a great 
 deal of human na- 
 ture, and we had our 
 human nature with 
 us, and yet the ver- 
 dict was that we 
 
 all got all we paid for, and some of us got a 
 bargain. 
 
 It was late when we arrived, still later when 
 we had finished supper, and we were very tired, 
 and must be up the next morning at five-thirty, 
 to go to the church and see the morning mass 
 which prepared the players for their perform- 
 ance, and yet we could not refrain from a little 
 turn about the square and a little peep into 
 the shops, the windows of which were fascinat- 
 
 OUR HOSTS. 
 
154 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 ing with wood carvings and curios, and still 
 more winning to our curious eyes were the 
 figures of the natives of the village, a few of 
 whom were still flitting about the streets, seen 
 for an instant in the light then fading away 
 into the darkness. 
 
 I did go to bed finally for the few hours 
 remaining, but not to sleep. It was to lie there 
 and think over the wonder-story of this mar- 
 velous thing we had come thousands of miles 
 to see. To think of this little village, set down 
 in a bit of a valley away up in the Bavarian 
 Alps, where three hundred years ago, out of their 
 dire distress, a people had cried unto the Lord 
 for help, had vowed to cry again and again 
 every ten years, and through all the years their 
 descendants had kept the vow they made, until 
 so perfect did the crying become that it seemed 
 like a song of sweetest music and charmed the 
 world to its hearing. 
 
 So often has the story of the origin of the 
 Passion Play been told, so often has its story 
 been repeated and its scenes described, that 
 there is no need, were I able, to rehearse it 
 again, and so I just want to wander through 
 the town, and later sit through the play, and 
 note my own impressions. For I came not 
 as a critic; in truth I never wanted to come, 
 
AT OBERAMMERGAU 155 
 
 for I feared that the play itself would be either 
 distressingly amateurish or painfully irreverent. 
 And yet through force of circumstances here 
 I was on the spot, and disposed to be very open- 
 minded and open-hearted. 
 
 As I lay there in my bed that Saturday night 
 before the Sunday which was to be one of the 
 marked days in a lifetime, there came before 
 me, pictured on the darkness and singing into 
 my heart, to the music of the Ammer, which was 
 hurrying along outside just under my window, 
 the strange tale of this peculiar people. At 
 intervals during the day, during our long ride 
 from Eisenach, I had read of them; away off in 
 America I had heard their story told, and seen 
 them pictured upon canvas. I thought I knew 
 them, and here I was in the very midst of them, 
 and they kept me awake more keenly than all 
 the glory of Berlin's splendor or her commercial 
 activity. I do not yet know why. When, 
 later, I came out from the play, and people 
 asked me what I thought, I could only say, 
 " Wait; I cannot think yet; wait three months, 
 then perhaps I will tell you, but more than 
 likely not." I am not sure I am awake yet, 
 any more than I am sure I was asleep that 
 Saturday night. This thing is mystic, mys- 
 terious, it grips the imagination. One is liable 
 
156 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 to contradict himself a dozen times and yet be 
 right all the time, or wrong, it may be. New- 
 standards must be set up for judgment. Here 
 are these peasants running a commercial enter- 
 prise with acumen which excites the wonder of 
 financiers; here are humble, plodding workmen 
 and women acting so as to confound the 
 masters of the stage; here, far removed from 
 all the " opportunities " of modern civilization, 
 civilization comes to sit in the seat of the 
 learner. 
 
 And here is another thing which came to 
 me out of the darkness: These people are all 
 Roman Catholic, the play is Roman Catholic 
 in its origin and through its whole history and 
 in its final purpose, and yet while it is all 
 Roman Catholic on the stage, in the forty-five 
 hundred people who sit before every perform- 
 ance there are representatives of the modernist 
 and conservative Catholic, of every possible 
 phase of Protestant thought, liberal and ortho- 
 dox Jews, Buddhist, Mohammedan, and heathen 
 of the wide world, and all sit spellbound 
 through the performance, and mostly all depart 
 in silence. Are we not to think that there is 
 something here which transcends our individual 
 opinion? which is cosmic? No matter how 
 many mistakes there are, no matter how crude 
 
AT OBERAMMERGAU 
 
 157 
 
 are many of the interpretations, no matter how 
 inefficient many of the presentations, back of 
 it all, or rising up through it all, is some great 
 life-truth which makes its appeal to every heart 
 and every mind. 
 
 But this was all in anticipation. I had not 
 seen the play and yet I was thinking it out, 
 and I then became most curious to know what 
 would happen to my thinking when I saw it, 
 when I actually sat 
 before the real thing. 
 Well, I shall try to Js 
 
 tell you in another 
 chapter. You see, I 
 am putting it off as 
 long as I can, hoping 
 that some inspiration 
 may come to me, so 
 that I can convey to 
 others what it was to 
 me. I know I did 
 fall asleep sometime 
 towards morning, to 
 be awakened, it 
 seemed to me, in- 
 stantly, by the voice of our host saying it was 
 half past five. That meant we must be up and 
 away to the church in a very few minutes. 
 
 THE CHURCH, 
 OBERAMMERGAU. 
 
158 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 I am not going to tell about Sunday as the 
 day of the performance of the Passion Play 
 now, but am going to jump over to the evening 
 after it was all over and we were turned loose 
 in the village to see it in the full flush of its 
 activity. For this Alpine village is unique, 
 and is well worthy of study by even wiser 
 men than we. 
 
 In spite of the fact that we had just come 
 from the most impressive religious service — I 
 think I may call the play a service — it was 
 hard to believe it was Sunday evening. There 
 was absolutely nothing to indicate its sacred 
 character; every store and shop was open and 
 all were crowded with customers. Behind the 
 counters were some of the people who an hour 
 before were taking part in what is called the 
 "World's Greatest Tragedy." Even the sa- 
 loons were open, and after the German fashion 
 many were in the gardens, partaking of their 
 beer and enjoying the music. The streets were 
 crowded with a most cosmopolitan throng. 
 There are few places in which so many national- 
 ities are represented as in the streets of Ober- 
 ammergau on a Sunday evening after the play 
 is over. And it is curious how irresistible is 
 the spirit of the place. I confess that I could 
 not force myself into a Sunday frame of mind. 
 
AT OBERAMMERGAU 159 
 
 Now perhaps it was all but the reaction from 
 the strain of the long day, the perfectly natural 
 desire to free the mind from a captivity which 
 was almost weird. Anyway, there we all were 
 in the midst of a carnival of mild excitement. 
 And I am not prepared to say that it was either 
 good or bad, for probably it was so character- 
 less as to be neither. 
 
 The village of Oberammergau is so beautiful 
 for situation that if it were known apart from 
 its Passion Play it would attract tourists; 
 not to the same extent perhaps, for there has 
 to be more or less of the human element to draw 
 humans. But there are few places in the 
 world with greater charm than one finds and 
 feels as he wanders through these crooked 
 streets, from any of which he can look up to 
 the sharp peak of the Kopfel, which rises four 
 thousand feet, and on the extreme summit of 
 which the villagers have placed a giant cross, 
 which is the goal of all eyes and of the feet of 
 those who are equal to the climb. The houses 
 are treasures of interest. Many of them are 
 ideal in shape, realizing the pictures we used to 
 see in the geographies of childhood, and nearly 
 all of them painted after the local fashion, with 
 most elaborate scenes of a religious character. 
 The artistic germ seems to be in the blood. Not 
 
160 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 only are the streets thus turned into picture 
 galleries; even the dress of the natives gives 
 opportunity for the taste for color and form; 
 the pantaloons of every boy are decorated with 
 painted or embroidered flowers, and there are 
 none so poor as not to have a feather in the cap. 
 They are a gentle, prudent and religious 
 people; they have shut themselves into them- 
 selves to carry out the vow of their fathers. 
 Now we are to see how they have carried it out 
 and perhaps note some of the results on a peo- 
 ple who for three centuries have had a common 
 purpose, and that a religious purpose. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 THE PASSION PLAY 
 
 A SERIOUS ACCOUNT AND INTERPRETATION 
 
 "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and 
 we beheld his glory" 
 
 |NLY the most unpardonable con- 
 ceit or the most exquisite rever- 
 ence would venture to realize this 
 thought. And I am going to ap- 
 proach the Passion Play of Oberammergau in 
 the belief that, consciously or unconsciously, 
 the motive of its original and each succeed- 
 ing production was the reverent desire and 
 purpose of the people of this little Alpine vil- 
 lage to bring their Christ in the flesh to dwell 
 among them, that they might behold his 
 glory. Only thus can we hope fairly to inter- 
 pret the play and judge the players. 
 
 A great many who go there expecting to see 
 their own Christ, the Christ of Protestant Ger- 
 many, England and America, whose growth 
 has been nourished by modern scholarship, are 
 disappointed and disposed to be hypercritical, 
 even disposed to violate their own scientific 
 
 161 
 
162 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 method in the harshness of their judgment. 
 To see the play at its best and thoroughly to 
 appreciate it requires an open mind, a warm 
 heart and a fertile imagination, and the con- 
 stant reassurance that we have come thousands 
 of miles to see, not our own Christ, but the 
 Christ of the village priest as interpreted by 
 
 the potter, Anton 
 Lang. And the 
 question whether 
 our Christ is better 
 than his is not ger- 
 mane. 
 
 Both to justify 
 
 and to understand 
 
 the Passion Play as 
 
 it is, it is necessary 
 
 / x that we come to it 
 
 ..a along the path of 
 
 its own origin and 
 
 growth, and so I must very briefly recall the 
 
 story. 
 
 In the year 1633 a terrible plague raged 
 fearfully in all the country around Oberam- 
 mergau, and in spite of all the precautions of 
 the villagers, came with its appalling disaster. 
 The people, realizing their helplessness, cried 
 unto the Lord for mercy. They gathered in 
 
THE PASSION PLAY 163 
 
 their church and, bowing themselves in suppli- 
 cation, vowed that if the Lord would hear their 
 prayer and have mercy they would perform the 
 tragedy of the Lord Christ's passion every ten 
 years. It is said that from the day on which 
 the vow was made the plague was stayed and 
 there were no more deaths. Then began the 
 preparation for the performance of their vow. 
 The play was to be given not for the villagers 
 but by them, by all of them, and that meant 
 specific preparation by every member of the 
 community. It meant the most complete or- 
 ganization and the most perfect cooperation; it 
 meant the practical dedication of every man, 
 woman and child to a common purpose, not 
 for a brief period, for a passing scene, but for 
 life and for generations of lives. Once in ten 
 years each and every one was to take some 
 part in this great drama through which they 
 were to bring their Lord Christ into their 
 midst, into the flesh, to dwell among them, 
 that they might behold him, and know him, 
 and love him and serve him. Naturally, to 
 reproduce the Christ was the ideal; all the 
 other parts were simply accessory. It became 
 the ambition of the village to be worthy and 
 able to fill that part; mothers bore children and 
 dreamed that they might attain to that su- 
 
164 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 preme glory. As generations passed, not only 
 was the play given with more and more elabora- 
 tion and greater perfection of detail, but it 
 began also to develop a new type, a peculiar 
 people, quite distinct from even their near 
 neighbors; certain physical characteristics and 
 mental traits appeared, and those who at first, 
 in all probability, made but sorry work of 
 their impersonations grew into their parts. 
 And after they had rehearsed for nearly three 
 hundred years we gathered with forty-five hun- 
 dred people from every part of the world to 
 witness the performance, which was given pri- 
 marily, be it understood, not for our witnessing 
 but in the performance of a vow, and, theo- 
 retically at least, would have been given just the 
 same had not one of us been there to witness it. 
 Just grasp that idea. While these people have 
 built a great covered auditorium for the con- 
 venience of those who come, and while they 
 have made use of the means which the visitors 
 have brought them to beautify and make more 
 elaborate their performance, yet there remains 
 measurably the same ideal with which the 
 play began. If people come, they are made 
 welcome, but they are not asked to come; there 
 is no advertising on the part of the community. 
 Once in ten years they are to give the Passion 
 
THE PASSION PLAY 
 
 165 
 
 of their Lord. If the world wants to see it, it is 
 welcome, but their vow will be performed just 
 the same whether the world comes or not. 
 
 At half past seven in the morning we joined 
 the vast multitude of people which, coming 
 from every direction, centered its face upon the 
 great auditorium. The arrangements for the 
 
 BABETTE. 
 
 HERR BREITSAMTER. 
 
 HELENE. 
 
 seating were perfect; the ticket tells you the 
 door you are to enter and the seat you are to 
 occupy. At a quarter of eight we were seated in 
 the front center. Over us was arched a mighty 
 dome of a roof of lofty height; the entire front 
 was open and we looked out, literally out, upon 
 a great platform, entirely open to the sky, upon 
 which there was another stage, itself larger than 
 that of any ordinary theater, which was ar- 
 
166 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 ranged to show the tableaux. On either side 
 of this opened the streets of Jerusalem; to the 
 right appeared the house of the High Priest 
 and on the left that of the ruler, Pilate. Be- 
 yond we look out upon the actual mountains, 
 and up into the sky, overcast with clouds, from 
 which all through the day there came occasional 
 showers, which made not the slightest difference 
 with the performers. We were sheltered, but 
 the play is enacted entirely in the open. 
 
 At exactly eight o'clock the chorus of forty 
 singers, in most elaborate oriental costumes, 
 appear from either side, coming in single file 
 to meet in the center of the platform at the 
 extreme front. A splendid orchestra accom- 
 panies the singing, which throughout the day 
 sustains the highest standards of music. "Pro- 
 logus " speaks the prelude, which in the first 
 case is a welcome and then an announcement 
 of the tableau which is to follow. The entire 
 play is in German, but with an English transla- 
 tion in hand there is no difficulty in following 
 it in every detail. 
 
 The plan of the performance is to have music 
 and then a tableau preceding every scene, the 
 tableau being an incident from the Old Testa- 
 ment supposedly connected in some way with 
 the scene following, which is to be enacted. 
 
THE PASSION PLAY 167 
 
 The first action is that of the triumphal entry 
 into Jerusalem, and then follows with real con- 
 tinuity every step of the way in the story of 
 the life of Jesus to the cross, the sepulcher and 
 the resurrection. From the time of the open- 
 ing scene at eight o'clock in the morning until 
 twelve o'clock noon there is no break, hardly 
 a pause, the only relief from the strain being 
 the coming and going of the chorus and the 
 passing tableaux. At noon there is a recess of 
 two hours, and then the action continues again, 
 all the time with growing intensity as the 
 climax is approached, until six o'clock in the 
 evening, when it is over. 
 
 The opening scene was a revelation of the 
 dramatic resources of this people both in stage 
 management and individual acting and elocu- 
 tion. Down the long street which reached 
 such a distance that people were actually re- 
 duced in size by the perspective, came the great 
 multitude, — and it was really a multitude, re- 
 peatedly there were from five hundred to seven 
 hundred people on the stage at the same time, 
 — and never have I seen such stage control. 
 Every one, whether child or man, was in the 
 exact position he should be at the exact time 
 he should be there, and the movement of that 
 coming host was the perfection of realism as it 
 
168 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 swept down past the house of the High Priest 
 and on to the temple steps. And the shouting 
 that came at first as from a great distance 
 swelled into a tremendous volume as there 
 appeared in the midst the Master, riding on an 
 ass. In front of the temple he dismounts, 
 greets a disciple, places his hand on the head 
 of a little child, and then, his attention being 
 called to the desecration of the temple by the 
 traders, he picks up a small lash of cords and 
 drives them out, and thus precipitates the con- 
 flict which ultimately bears him to the cross. 
 
 It is impossible to follow in detail through all 
 these scenes showing the gathering of the San- 
 hedrim, when the traders present their deter- 
 mination to put Jesus to death, but in such a 
 way as not to excite the opposition of the popu- 
 lace; the bargaining with Judas, the Last 
 Supper, the betrayal, the trial before the San- 
 hedrim, before the rulers, the condemnation, 
 the crucifixion and the resurrection. It was all 
 frightfully realistic, and it was not difficult to 
 imagine that you had been looking upon real 
 life instead of its mimic. 
 
 Through all these scenes moved the figures 
 of those made familiar by the story of the New 
 Testament, and here the striking genius of 
 these wonderful people is revealed in the perfect 
 
THE PASSION PLAY 
 
 169 
 
 balance of the cast. It does not matter how 
 insignificant the part, it is just as conscien- 
 tiously taken as the most important; and here 
 is the secret of the whole thing, the loss of the 
 
 ANTON LANG IN HIS WORKSHOP. 
 
 individual in the whole. The child, but a bit 
 more than a baby, which wabbles around in the 
 way of the multitude, is not an accident, a 
 happen so, but a part of the cast, doing its 
 part with a painstaking care and a sense of the 
 fact that the success of the part of Christus is 
 
170 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 dependent on that little child as well as upon 
 Anton Lang. 
 
 And yet it is impossible not to consider 
 the relative merits of the individual actors, — 
 though it is hardly fair to call them " actors/' 
 for they are primarily really participants in a 
 religious service. Their priest was wont to say 
 to them on the morning of the performance: 
 "It is not our aim to shine in the art of acting; 
 that would be presumptuous and ridiculous in 
 simple country people; but it must be the 
 earnest desire of each one to try to present 
 worthily this most holy mystery. Each one 
 who takes the least part in this work is a 
 necessary link in a great chain; let him there- 
 fore endeavor to fulfill his task with devotion, 
 to the best of his ability, and thus contribute 
 to the success of the whole." 
 
 But it is not within human nature to reach 
 this ideal; each trying to do his part perfectly, 
 no matter how much he may try to sub- 
 ordinate it to the whole, is bound to feel the 
 influence of some of the baser virtues. And 
 the audience is sure to pass judgments and make 
 comparisons. Of course the center of interest 
 is the character of Christus and the ability 
 of Anton Lang in portraying it, and I was 
 intensely interested in the spontaneous verdicts 
 
THE PASSION PLAY 171 
 
 of the people. Perhaps our own particular 
 company was so unique as not fairly to indicate 
 the average. We were, generally, what are 
 known as "Liberal Christians"; we had our 
 own conception of Christ; and quite generally 
 there was the complaint that the Christus of 
 Anton Lang was altogether too weak, there 
 was a lack of virility. It was even noticeable 
 how some compared the acting of Lang with 
 that of Zwink, who took the part of Judas. 
 They thought that Zwink would put fire and 
 energy and life into the character of Christus. 
 I recall my own impressions of Lang, and 
 months of consideration have but strengthened 
 them. He took the old and conventional and 
 non-resistant conception of the Master, and 
 having taken it, he was marvelously true to it, 
 and I am more and more impressed with the 
 wisdom of his choice and its historic accuracy. 
 The Christ which brought in the new dis- 
 pensation is a unique figure in human life, 
 he belongs to a new order, and he must do 
 things by what seem contraries. In the scene 
 when he entered the temple to drive forth the 
 traders, at first the terror and wrath of those 
 rough men seemed but an absurdity in the 
 presence of that gentle face, those mildly 
 spoken words, and that foolish little whip of 
 
172 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 cords, and his loosing of the doves, which at 
 once flew happily about over the audience, 
 was a veritable act of love; but presently it 
 began to dawn upon me that here was a true 
 conception of the part, and masterly acting. 
 Had a Christ of the aggressive type swung into 
 that place with a loud voice and a club he would 
 not have produced the slightest impression 
 upon those men; they would simply have 
 answered him with a louder voice and a larger 
 club. They were used to that sort of thing. 
 But here was something new and strange and 
 mysterious; those men were face to face with 
 a power they could not understand, and they 
 were afraid and fled. That is, the Christ comes 
 into the world not only with more power but 
 with a new power. To give him such a charac- 
 ter as was suggested by the acting of Zwink as 
 Judas, is simply to reduce him to the common- 
 place. But Lang sets him apart, a unique 
 and yet royal figure. 
 
 The conspicuous characters in the play are 
 all taken by those who have brought them up 
 to the highest standards of the stage, but 
 throughout that whole day the Christus of 
 Lang was in constant evidence, and never for 
 a moment did he depart from a consistent 
 presentation of a conception of Christ which 
 
THE PASSION PLAY 173 
 
 may be old and may not appeal to the crass 
 spirit of to-day, but which will yet conquer 
 the world. Reluctantly I had gone to my 
 place in that audience on the Sunday which 
 must evermore be memorable; fearfully I 
 anticipated the aesthetic and intellectual shocks 
 which the day might bring; but after the 
 Christus had entered the temple and revealed 
 the Christ which was made flesh before us, I 
 followed him reverently and lovingly into the 
 Sanhedrim and watched the rough waves of 
 human anger and selfishness and greed surge 
 and beat against that gentle rock, only to fall 
 away impotent; into the upper chamber where 
 at the Last Supper the Master was the servant 
 of all; into Gethsemane where the selfish and 
 superficial Judas betrayed him in his foolish 
 effort to serve; before the High Priest and 
 before the rulers, when the mad and fickle 
 multitude reviled him, but he reviled not 
 again; I followed with breaking heart as he 
 fell beneath the burden of the cross which he 
 was made to bear; I stood afar off with that 
 group of women when he was lifted upon the 
 cross, and there was a great sob in my throat 
 and a cry of pain upon my lips when the spear 
 touched his side and he was dead. And I was 
 there when with loving hands they lowered him 
 
174 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 into the loving arms of those who waited at 
 the foot, and my heart joined in the Hallelujah 
 Chorus when he arose from the dead to be 
 forever the life and the light of the world. 
 
 Yes, I know this is all foolishness in the light 
 of the newer criticism; I know that my imagina- 
 tion caught away my reason, and that I was 
 swept off my feet by sentiment, but I have 
 never yet discovered that " reason " is any 
 more reliable, in the long run, than imagination 
 and sentiment. And so I choose to bring away 
 from Oberammergau, not a critical judgment 
 of the play or the people, of social or theologi- 
 cal speculations, of Protestant and Romish dif- 
 ferences, but just a simple impression upon my 
 heart that the Christ was made flesh there 
 before me, and I beheld his glory. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 
 
 LINGERING FOR A FEW LAST OBSERVATIONS, 
 THE ANGELS DESCEND TO THE EARTH AT 
 MUNICH 
 
 UR stay in Oberammergau was brief 
 of necessity, for like every one else, 
 ii^^TJ^H we must away, that others might 
 'ii i S . <n\ 1 fog accommodated. But how one's 
 thoughts linger there among the hills! From 
 any of the heights which amphitheater the 
 little valley through which flows the Ammer, 
 particularly from the Kopfel, which rises almost 
 sheer from the bank of the river, one may look 
 down upon quite the most remarkable village 
 in Europe; not especially in appearance, for 
 in many can be found nearly the same type 
 of architecture, and in some the same style 
 of ornamentation; there is the one prominent 
 and imposing church spire, the same rambling 
 streets which have no logical beginning or end; 
 but when the crust of commercialism which 
 has been formed by the surging through of 
 hundreds of thousands of the world's people 
 
 175 
 
176 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 has been broken and we reach the real life of 
 the people whose homes are here, a new social 
 atmosphere is discovered, something quite 
 unique. What I have in mind I cannot de- 
 scribe, but possibly can illustrate. 
 
 In the home where I was domiciled, the 
 father took the important part of Joshua the 
 priest in the Passion Play. It is a "speaking" 
 part. He has no long address, but all through 
 the day he is constantly interjecting a sentence 
 or more, so that he must remember a great 
 many "cues," and it would naturally be sup- 
 posed that he would be under much nervous 
 strain. His two daughters are prominent 
 singers in the chorus, and must appear before 
 each and every scene; his son is a member of 
 the orchestra. These people had ten guests 
 who slept under their humble and not wide- 
 spreading roof, and they had at their table at 
 times as many as thirty to feed. They were 
 doing all the work themselves, and doing it 
 faultlessly. When we left the house at half 
 past seven in the morning, they were attending 
 to their household duties without a sign of 
 haste, or the slightest indication that presently 
 they were to be filling their parts in the greatest 
 tragedy ever presented, and before what in 
 numbers and character was an unparalleled 
 
DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 177 
 
 audience. Half an hour later they were in 
 their places on the stage, their commonplace 
 garb of the house replaced by the costumes 
 of their parts. When the curtain fell at 
 twelve o'clock, I left the building and walked 
 directly to the house, taking not more than 
 ten minutes, and found the father and daughters 
 in their home costumes, ready to serve us. 
 The same thing was again enacted in the 
 afternoon. The thing was weird, incompre- 
 hensible. 
 
 Think of one of our trained actors or singers, 
 however familiar their parts, being disturbed 
 by a trifling care or interruption! And this 
 is the point: — Those people are not actors 
 and singers in our sense of the word; their 
 part on the stage really does not differ from 
 waiting on the table or making a bed at home. 
 It is the life they have grown into, and have 
 been growing into for three hundred years, 
 and they go about one just as they go about 
 the other. From childhood that man had 
 expected to have a household to look after, 
 and from childhood that man had expected 
 to have some part in that play; and just as 
 he did little things about the house in child- 
 hood, taking more and more responsibility, so 
 in childhood he went into the child's place in 
 
178 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the tableaux, and then into other parts, and 
 there was never a sense of the strange to him. 
 
 As with " Joshua," so with all the others, 
 even those who rilled what we would call the 
 " star " parts. All those people were up at 
 daylight in the morning, doing their household 
 work and looking after the cattle in their 
 barns, or setting things going in their factories, 
 or putting their shops in order, finding time 
 to respond to the call of the bells for early 
 mass; so far as could be seen there was not one 
 extra heart-throb, no hurry, no impatience, no 
 worry, no fear that some one would fail, no 
 anxiety about the audience being pleased, no 
 question about the weather; in fact here was a 
 community going about its business without 
 a thought of anything else. Strangers were 
 here in their midst, and were to be hospitably 
 taken care of, they were to be given every 
 facility to see the play if they wanted to, but 
 their being there had nothing to do with it; 
 the play would go on just the same. 
 
 We can say what we want to about the 
 limitations of these people, that they grow up 
 narrow in thought and experience; they know 
 nothing of the great world, and have none of 
 the ambitions which are thrilling modern life 
 in other lands, but they have attained unto 
 
DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 179 
 
 physical content. If ambition stirs them, it 
 is but for a larger part in the play. Great 
 wealth has come to the community, but it is 
 so divided that none are rich and none are poor; 
 and if they have not been able to go out into 
 the world, behold, why should they? — for 
 the world has come to them. 
 
 And so it appears to me in a vague way that 
 while the wise men of the universities and the 
 masters and slaves of our commercial world 
 struggle and fight to solve the social problem, 
 lo, the children of this little village have found 
 its solution, and the key to their success is in 
 having in common a great purpose which is 
 entirely outside of all personal and selfish 
 interests. Our community struggles aim at 
 the betterment of self. Their community 
 struggle is for the glory of God, for the king- 
 dom of heaven, and behold, all these things, 
 comfort, peace, contentment, happiness, and 
 the attention of the whole world, are added 
 unto them. 
 
 Munich did not appeal especially to the 
 "Angels," but it was the fault of the "Angels" 
 and not of Munich. The few hours' ride from 
 Oberammergau to the capital of Bavaria was 
 significant in a good many ways to the whole 
 party. Most of us, if not all, had been up- 
 
180 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 lifted and profoundly moved by the suggestions 
 of the Passion Play, and this next step in our 
 journey was a dropping down to the lower level 
 of real life, into the hurly-burly of this every- 
 day world. And the place from which we 
 came and the place to which we were going 
 were in many ways typical of our states of 
 mind, and I am not saying which was the 
 
 KARLSPLATZ, MUNICH. 
 
 better. I know that there is nothing more 
 tragic than to be forever on the heights, and 
 nothing more pitiful than to live always in the 
 artificial. Anyway we came down, and the 
 coming down meant the first break in the party 
 which a month before started from Boston. 
 At Munich sixty-five "Angels" who were 
 theologically and financially worthy were to 
 leave us for an extended tour of Hungary 
 during which they were to join in the four 
 
DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 181 
 
 hundredth anniversary of the establishment 
 of the Unitarian Church in that country. 
 This parting of the ties which had held us all 
 in such delightful fellowship was naturally the 
 occasion of much regret and, I confess, of not 
 a little envy on the part of those of us who 
 must miss what afterwards was revealed to 
 us by those who went as the climax of new 
 experiences. However, there is a good deal of 
 philosophy in the normal "Angel," and while 
 it was not for us to venture farther afield, there 
 was a considerable sense of satisfaction in the 
 thought that we had turned our faces towards 
 home. Home was yet a long way off, and there 
 intervened many new sensations and nearly a 
 month of travel, but we had turned the corner 
 and in our mind's eye we saw floating above 
 the flags of the European nations the Stars 
 and Stripes, and we did not care for much else 
 just then. 
 
 Yes, we did want something else, and that 
 was — rest. From the start we had swept 
 along at a tremendous rate, seeing more and 
 seeing it better than we had any right to 
 expect, but the wear and tear were beginning 
 to tell even on the strongest. And that is the 
 chief reason why Munich failed to arouse very 
 much enthusiasm. And yet we " did " the 
 
182 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 city in true tourist style. It was our first 
 experience in the "sight-seeing auto." We 
 had been " specials " riding in carriages, ex- 
 cepting when we "coached" through the 
 Shakespeare country, but there is a great social 
 gulf fixed between a coach with four horses 
 and a sight-seeing auto; the former is aristo- 
 cratic, the latter democratic. But as we be- 
 came better acquainted we felt it was good to 
 get together and multiply our own pleasures, 
 as we always do in sharing them with others. 
 
 Munich is a great city, second in many 
 respects to Berlin, but at the season of the year 
 when the world comes to see the Passion Play 
 its accommodations are wholly inadequate. 
 Every one comes to Munich as the nearest 
 point, and as a consequence, when we were 
 there enjoying all the comforts of a hotel home 
 which had been reserved for us for many months 
 in advance, others of our fellow countrymen, 
 as well as those from other lands, were thankful 
 for the high-priced privilege of riding around 
 all night in a hack, or the free favor of a bench 
 in the park, but without a feather bed to cover 
 them. Fortunately the nights are short, just 
 as they are in Berlin, and the wayfarer can 
 have no reason to be lonesome as long as he 
 has the price of a stein of beer, for the gardens 
 
DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 183 
 
 with their bounty of music and refreshment do 
 not close much before the morning begins to 
 open. Perhaps this is a reason for a part of 
 the reputation of Bavaria as the place where 
 more beer per capita is drunk than in any other 
 on the face of the earth. Statistics are most 
 astounding things and are not always justified 
 by visible facts. We read in a reliable publi- 
 cation that every one of the population of 
 Munich consumes on the average fifty one and 
 one-half gallons of beer per year. That means 
 pretty nearly a gallon a week for every man, 
 woman and child, and on the face of the returns 
 it did not look as though there would be much 
 time or disposition on the part of any citizen 
 to do anything else than drink, and it looked 
 as though Munich was no place for " Angels.' ' 
 But on examination we noticed that this vast 
 amount of drinking was done entirely " upon 
 the average," and as long as we kept off the 
 " average" we should be safe. And we learned 
 too that we could keep off the average, even 
 while visiting the most popular centers of 
 interest, the beer gardens themselves, for as 
 it is true that one can visit a deer park with- 
 out being called upon to eat venison, so one 
 can visit a beer garden without drinking 
 beer. But we ran against the most satanic in- 
 
184 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 vention in this connection. While we were 
 " doing " the city we were set down at what 
 is probably the greatest brewery in the world 
 and connected with it the usual garden and 
 music, and when we entered to see the sights 
 we had placed before us that distinctly German 
 product, the pretzel. Now there is nothing 
 in the whole range of thirst encouragement 
 which is in the same class with the pretzel. 
 That innocent-looking little, twisted-up con- 
 glomerate of flour, water and salt will waken 
 more visions of purling streams, crystal springs, 
 flowing fountains and — other things, than ever 
 came to the prophet of an oriental religion in 
 his maddest ecstasy. 
 
 One other product of Germany came within 
 the range of our vision while in Munich, and 
 that was the scarred student. I do not know 
 from what institution he came, but from ap- 
 pearance he had taken every degree and was 
 fitted for the battle of life; one eye was nearly 
 closed because of the drawing together of a 
 wound on his upper cheek, his nose had more 
 apertures than nature designed, and his whole 
 face seemed to have been the field for the dis- 
 play of hieroglyphic illustration with the rapier. 
 While not so common as in former times, 
 student dueling still holds its place in the life 
 
DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 185 
 
 of the student body, and is but the German 
 phase of student foolishness the world over, 
 when those who have the best opportunities 
 and from whom we have a right to expect the 
 most and the best, sacrifice to fun that which 
 they can never regain. And this " amuse- 
 ment " is looked upon with favor not only by 
 the German people but by the Emperor him- 
 self, who is an enthusiastic defender of the 
 " Mensur." It appeals to him as an oppor- 
 tunity to cultivate the militant spirit on which 
 his own policy if not his own throne rests. 
 For the trifling and transient glory of a student 
 association, this splendid specimen of young 
 manhood was to go through a lifetime of secret 
 regret, however open and aggressive his pride. 
 A scar may be the badge of honor or the in- 
 signia of folly. 
 
 But there is a brighter and a better side 
 to Munich, to which we had not time to do 
 justice, and yet which left its impression upon 
 us. We spent some hours in the National 
 Museum and found a collection of paintings 
 which added to our wonder at the prolific 
 genius of the Old Masters. We rode through 
 wonderful streets of fine residences and public 
 buildings which will compare favorably with 
 those of any of the great capitals of Europe. 
 
186 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 We paused before monuments enduring in 
 merit as well as of immediate interest. Here, 
 as everywhere where life has lasted long 
 enough, we saw that art and religion had been 
 wedded, and in the churches the Masters had 
 left their undying sign, and in the galleries 
 religion had been the inspiration of the works 
 which command the admiration of the ages. 
 " Modern art " is everywhere, but as compared 
 with the products of the older times, it is not 
 ripe, and seems but commonplace. The reason 
 is that modern art has not reached for so high 
 an ideal, and though oftentimes it appears to 
 have been technically more true, it yet lacks 
 that soul which gives to it life and im- 
 mortality. 
 
 In our hotel, which stood at one side of the 
 principal square of the city and to enter which 
 we must pass through one of the old gates in 
 the ancient wall of the city, which stands as 
 it has stood for hundreds of years, a great rude 
 bulwark, and yet spanning the new street with 
 an arch of beautiful proportions, we found the 
 proprietor to be a German, and yet he had 
 spent fifteen years in the city of Chicago, and 
 when he touched hands with one who knew 
 and could talk of the buildings and streets and 
 interests of our western city, which was but 
 
DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 
 
 187 
 
 a baby compared with his native town, his 
 face lighted with pleasure, and his mouth was 
 full of kind words and pleasant memories of 
 America. He was one of the many who have 
 come into our land poor in experience and in 
 purse, to return later to the Fatherland rich 
 in both, and to reproduce there something of 
 the spirit of the new world. 
 
 After all, the "Angels " are grateful to 
 Munich; it afforded what we most needed at 
 the time, rest and recreation, a relaxing of the 
 nerves, a preparation for the wonders yet 
 awaiting us there to the southwest, where rose 
 the snow-capped Alps of Switzerland with her 
 glories of scenery and of history. 
 
 In the early morning the sixty-five were off 
 for Hungary, the rest of us to visit William Tell. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 
 
 HAVE THEIR FILL OF SCENERY — TO SAY 
 NOTHING OF OTHER THINGS 
 
 r N proportion to its area Switzer- 
 land affords more different routes 
 to the upper regions than any other 
 country on the globe. We followed 
 some of them, and though none of us got high 
 enough to slip in at the gate of heaven, we 
 were mostly satisfied with the altitude, and 
 willing to postpone indefinitely any closer ac- 
 quaintance with the celestial city. Human 
 nature reveals its unselfishness even when it 
 takes the form of "Angels." It was but 
 natural to suppose that some members at least 
 of our party, with their strong religious pre- 
 dilections, would be prepared, and not only 
 prepared but eager, to grasp the opportunity 
 to solve the mystery of our future by leaving 
 this commonplace old world, to tread the golden 
 streets of the New Jerusalem. But with one 
 accord we denied ourselves the privilege when 
 the opportunity was given us, and came back 
 
 188 
 
THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 
 
 189 
 
 to this everyday world with a cheerful spirit. 
 We noted one curious thing about the trip to 
 the heights; while tradition has always told 
 us that to get to heaven we must keep on going 
 up, when we were on the loftiest summit we 
 learned that the quickest way to get there was 
 to plunge straight down. This is but another 
 
 ZURICH AND THE ALPS. 
 
 of the curious contradictions in which our the- 
 ology is continually involving us. 
 
 It was not long after leaving Munich before 
 we began to catch glimpses of the heights to 
 which we were bound, but really the first taste 
 of the genuine Swiss scenery came when we 
 skirted along the shore of Lake Constance and 
 looked out over its blue waters, and it dawned 
 upon us that this little country to which we 
 were going was a good deal more of a place than 
 
190 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 we had fancied. On almost any map which 
 comes to the hand of the ordinary traveler 
 Switzerland is just about five inches long and 
 three and a half inches wide, and the lakes 
 an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide, 
 and yet we rode for miles and miles along the 
 shore of Constance, and then made a dash 
 across country through hills which grew into 
 mountains as we watched, and came to our first 
 stop in the city of Zurich. 
 
 A good many things happened in Zurich, and 
 there was plenty of room, for this city numbers 
 one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants 
 and has all the conveniences and beauties of 
 any modern city; in all that goes to make 
 prosperity and fulfill the demands of present- 
 day life, Zurich is quite up to date, and wholly 
 uninteresting, but the things the modern city 
 is trying to hide are still there, and if one can 
 find them they are well worth while. 
 
 We had thought to end everything connected 
 with the Liberal Congress at Eisenach, but in 
 the city of Zwingli it is impossible to keep one's 
 thoughts entirely on the secular. We must 
 needs see the " Gross-Munster " in which four 
 hundred years ago this great preacher thundered 
 against the sins of his day, and in the presence 
 of that dignified old pile, which the centuries 
 
THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 191 
 
 have done their best to destroy with their 
 improvements, there came a thought or two 
 about the place of the church and the minister 
 in the development of all that is best in civiliza- 
 tion. It is not a little irritating to hear the 
 superficial crying out against the ministry as 
 " nonproductive," when we have but to go 
 back a little way in history to discover the 
 primacy of the ministry of the Christian 
 Church in every form of creation of which 
 modern civilization is productive. Here is this 
 city of modern wonder in its recent achieve- 
 ment, boasting of its commercial greatness, 
 rejoicing in everything which goes to make 
 life easy and comfortable; and yet the best 
 things about Zurich trace their beginnings back 
 to the minister who preached the gospel with 
 fearlessness, and fixed the principles of his 
 faith in the hearts of his people, where they 
 took root and grew and are bearing their fruit 
 to-day. At the eastern end of Switzerland, 
 Zwingli; at the western, Calvin; not far away 
 in southern Germany, Luther, — men of differ- 
 ent types, men of so distinct theology that they 
 were unfriendly, men who were only groping 
 for the light which came so gloriously later, — 
 these were the forerunners of religious liberty 
 and of civil freedom, and in spite of all their 
 
192 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 limitations, and what to us were their strange 
 theological notions, and often their intolerant 
 spirit, they are the men who stamped their 
 image in enduring history, while those who in 
 their day, just as their descendants do to-day, 
 cried out against them, and thought they were 
 doing nothing for the world, that they were 
 nonproductive, have disappeared and left no 
 sign. 
 
 Some day we shall begin to know the truth 
 that things seen are temporal, things unseen 
 eternal. The old church stands there in the 
 new city because of the unseen spirit which 
 dwells within it, because it has a soul and it 
 lives, while other things decay. All that is 
 best and enduring in Zurich centers around 
 the message of the Gospel, which coming to it 
 in olden time has been translated into life. 
 
 There is another wonderful church in the 
 city, Kreuz-Kirche, and to it we were invited 
 by the liberal-minded pastor, who desired to 
 express his cordial greetings to the delegates 
 from America. He had been with us at 
 Berlin, and could not let us pass through his 
 own city without showing his hospitality. And 
 so we climbed what, without the made steps, 
 would be an almost inaccessible cliff, on which 
 had been built one of the most magnificent 
 
THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 
 
 193 
 
 KREUZ-KIRCHE. 
 
 and certainly one of the most unique modern 
 churches in all Europe. We could but wonder, 
 as we climbed, how it was ever expected that 
 a congregation would 
 be so devoted as to 
 make that ascent 
 every Sunday, and 
 yet when we stood 
 at last before the 
 great entrance and 
 looked within, and 
 heard the glorious 
 music from a sweet 
 and powerful organ, 
 and saw the welcom- 
 ing hand extended, and later heard the gracious 
 words of the pastor, translated into our own 
 language by one of our own number, and still 
 later listened to an address in beautiful English 
 by an eminent citizen of the city, all voicing 
 welcome and worth, it was easy to feel the lure 
 of the place. And when we came out, each 
 with a souvenir in his hand and a delightful 
 memory in the heart, and paused again on the 
 steps, where groups of Swiss women were 
 seated, all busy knitting, having come from 
 their homes in the valley below to feel the 
 inspiration of the place, or to see the strangers, 
 
194 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 and we all stood in silence, looking off over the 
 city which lay at our feet, away across the beau- 
 tiful Lake of Zurich, which stretched for thirty 
 miles away through the mountains, and yet 
 beyond, making a jagged horizon, rose the splen- 
 did peaks we had come thousands of miles to 
 see, we felt there was a reason why the people 
 should come to this place to worship. 
 
 And the thought came to me that it is 
 possible that we make our churchgoing too 
 easy, so that it is not appreciated and people 
 do not care for it. We in this country feel 
 that we must not have any steps to climb 
 and no hard floors to walk upon, and no hard 
 seats upon which to sit, and when we have 
 made the way easy, behold, the people do not 
 come. When our people go away we follow 
 after them, running hither and thither wherever 
 they go, setting down a church building right 
 before them, thinking to trap them, like birds, 
 and we do not catch them. But there stands 
 the old church of Zwingli just where it has stood 
 for many centuries. The people have drifted 
 far away, and yet generation after generation 
 they come back to respond to the call of wor- 
 ship. And that new and marvelous church 
 which crowns the cliff, a thing of beauty and 
 a marvel in our sight, though it be so inacces- 
 
THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 195 
 
 sible, will, I prophesy, not want for worshipers 
 when the centuries have mellowed and ripened 
 it, and it takes its place among the immortals. 
 Among all the incidents of this fruitful 
 summer, there is nothing which lingers more 
 fondly in my heart than our moonlight ride 
 on the lake. It was late when we came down 
 from the heights where we had worshiped, and 
 by the time we had finished our supper it was 
 nine o'clock, and then we saw the great yellow 
 moon rising over the dark mountain line of 
 the horizon, and presently its light was dancing 
 over the waters of the lake and every ripple 
 seemed to be a golden finger beckoning to us 
 to come. It was simply irresistible, and a 
 dozen of us secured a little motor boat, and 
 pushed out of the river Limmat, on both sides 
 of which the city is built, into the great lake, 
 the surface of which was like liquid precious 
 stone, held in place by the long clasps of gold 
 which reached out from every light along the 
 shore. We looked back to the bewilderment 
 of electricity which the city showed; we looked 
 forward to mountains made so changeable and 
 mysterious by the shifting shadows that they 
 seemed to have life; we followed the shores set 
 with the cottages and little villages, and felt 
 thrilling along the rays of light which streamed 
 
196 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 out from them something of the home spirit 
 which was there. And then one among us, 
 rich of life and sweet of voice, one who loved 
 the old songs and sang them because she loved, 
 lifted her voice and sang one after another of 
 those songs which are a part of the home life 
 of America. And sometimes we all joined in 
 some familiar strain, and there went dancing 
 over the waves of the Lake of Zurich the spirit 
 of our own home life to answer the message of 
 light from the home of the Swiss. 
 
 Such was our introduction to Switzerland, 
 and nothing could be more fitting. There are 
 a good many harsh and practical things in this 
 little country. There are many rugged moun- 
 tain roads as well as woodland paths beside 
 which the flowers bloom; there are blotches 
 of blood upon the country's history; there are 
 shadows of awful struggle for social and civil 
 liberty; there are being worked out among 
 these hard conditions some of the greatest and 
 most vital problems of human life; there no 
 doubt are to be found numberless instances of 
 the sacrifice of lives in the frightful struggle 
 with poverty; but we were on a summer journey, 
 and I chose to see the beautiful and the good. 
 I am no student of race conditions and will not 
 burden my soul with statistics. Already I love 
 
THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 
 
 197 
 
 the mountains and adore the lakes, already the 
 spiritual and the sentimental and the poetic 
 possess me, and I am a willing captive. Per- 
 haps this is all but a new " Sentimental Jour- 
 ney." Well, so let it be; I had rather be 
 William Tell dead than Emperor William living. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 
 PROVES TO BE THE WORLD IN MINIATURE 
 
 HE man who drove William Tell into 
 the land of fable should be hanged 
 beside the murderer of Santa Claus 
 and both their bodies buried in the 
 sands of the sea, " where the tide ebbs and 
 flows twice in twenty-four hours." I do not 
 know that the ebb and flow of the tide would 
 add anything to their punishment, but the 
 phrase has a sort of shivery sound, and I am 
 willing to make their fate as horrible as possible. 
 They deserve it. To banish an ideal is a 
 greater crime than to kill the real, for the real 
 without ideals is better dead than alive. 
 Switzerland is the whole world in miniature. 
 The spirit of William Tell is the soul of Switzer- 
 land. Without that soul to hold together all 
 these little states or cantons, with their differ- 
 ent languages, customs, costumes, manners and 
 peoples, there would be no Switzerland, but 
 some little fractions of territory added to the 
 surrounding nations. 
 
 198 
 
THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 
 
 199 
 
 Once upon a time there dwelt at the head of 
 the Lake of the Four Cantons, in the little 
 town of Altdorf, a man in whose soul burned 
 the spirit of freedom and he refused to recognize 
 the authority of the Austrian governor, and, 
 
 SWISS CHALET 
 
 alone, he defied the oppressor. He was put to 
 a test of skill that was a trial and punishment 
 combined, and then, continuing his rebellious 
 spirit, he was made captive, but made his 
 escape, and he and those whom he inspired 
 with a like spirit won the independence of 
 their country. Through long years and genera- 
 
200 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 tions he was known as William Tell, and the 
 story of his courage made him the hero of the 
 whole world. In his native town a great 
 statue was erected to mark the spot of his de- 
 fiance. Out of his spirit of independence grew 
 a republic, which maintained its life in the 
 face of bitter and powerful foes. For more 
 than five hundred years it has endured and 
 has been a leavening influence among the 
 nations of the whole world. And then there 
 came a little bit of a man who had nothing 
 better to do than to hunt round after what he 
 called " truth." He found that a great many 
 of the incidents connected with the story of Tell 
 were not facts; he could not locate William's 
 grandfather, and it was doubtful about his 
 having any grandchildren. His mother-in- 
 law had no place in the town records, his bow 
 and arrow were not preserved in the museum, 
 and even the apple, core and all, had dis- 
 appeared. Therefore there was no William 
 Tell, and never had been. 
 
 I am always sorry for those people whose 
 truth is no larger than facts. Poor is the 
 nation which has no history other than facts. 
 The dreams and visions, the hopes and ambi- 
 tions, the heroism and idealism, the myths and 
 legends, the sentiment and emotion, — these are 
 
THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 201 
 
 the things which not only make nations, but 
 they make nations and about everything else 
 worth while. A mountain is a fact, but it is 
 only a pile of dirt and stone as long as it is 
 nothing but dirt and stone. 
 
 We found William Tell at home all through 
 Switzerland, and he gave us a cordial welcome 
 into the life and wonders of his big little country, 
 which is really the world in miniature. About 
 twice the area of the state of Massachusetts, 
 it contains about every form into which this 
 old earth can twist itself, and in the "season" 
 about every phase of human development — 
 and undevelopment. The porch of one of the 
 big hotels comes pretty near being a horizontal 
 tower of Babel, and the Swiss themselves have 
 to be linguistic gymnasts in order to get along 
 with their conglomerate language. All of which 
 makes it easy to find one's way through the 
 country; the wayfaring man, though a fool, need 
 not err therein, for no matter what one says or 
 how he says it, some one is sure to understand. 
 
 We came from Zurich to Lucerne by way 
 of the Lake of Zug. It is a beautiful lake, 
 a real picture of a lake, lying there so cozily 
 among the hills, with the big mountains looking 
 over their shoulders to peep into its mirror. 
 It is such a satisfaction to find some things just 
 
202 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 right so that you do not have to say "if," and 
 Zug is beyond criticism. And not the least 
 delightful thing about it is its name. Why it 
 is called "Zug" I do not know, unless it is 
 because that is its name, — but why the name? 
 In our country it would probably be "Johnson's 
 Pond" or "The Sawmill Reser voir ," but "Zug" 
 is a nomenclatural triumph. It is short, sen- 
 tentious, easy to spell, and yet how it must 
 appeal to the poet because of its fruitfulness 
 in rhymes! 
 
 All the time we were getting deeper and 
 deeper into the heart of the real mountains. We 
 caught glimpses of majestic peaks between 
 smaller peaks, lost them again as we dashed 
 into a tunnel, and when we came out at the 
 other side we saw the same mountain made 
 into a new one as we looked from a different 
 angle. It is a rough country. Even the gods 
 as they tramp up and down the earth must 
 find the walking somewhat hubbly as they go 
 through Switzerland, and the railroads must 
 bore through more mountains than they climb 
 over. And when we swung into Lucerne, and 
 glanced about in every direction, we could 
 only think that at last we were fenced in by 
 the Almighty, and we were thankful that we 
 could not get away. 
 
THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 
 
 203 
 
 There is a good deal of rivalry among the 
 cities of Switzerland, each claiming greater at- 
 tractions than any other, and it would seem 
 that there is justice in the claim of all, for each 
 
 
 1 * 1*- -4* << 
 
 LUCERNE. 
 
 has some characteristic beauty, some unique 
 charm, some winning appeal, and a season is 
 all too short to "do" this little land and do it 
 justice. And yet it is safe to say that Lucerne 
 may be taken as a type, and having seen 
 
204 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 Lucerne and its surroundings you have got at 
 least the flavor of the whole country. 
 
 We saw Lucerne. We were not long in 
 getting at our sight-seeing after our arrival. A 
 hasty lunch at our hotels and then we all 
 gathered at the Glacier Garden to see the 
 beginnings of things. We had been hustled 
 about Europe to see antiquities which reached 
 back a good many centuries, but up here on a 
 hill back of the city there had been disclosed 
 some traces of the times before the years were 
 counted; so far away are these times that their 
 records are mostly very dim, and reveal them- 
 selves only to the student; but here is left a 
 page of the world's history all written over 
 with the mighty power and pen of the glacier. 
 The page is of rock, and yet that glacial pen 
 scratched the letters thirty feet deep and 
 punctuated the message with mighty bowlders. 
 And men had gathered there, most appro- 
 priately, relics of the earlier human life, well 
 over the edge of history, of that curious people 
 the lake dwellers, who were struggling for a 
 living on these same lakes beside which we had 
 been riding that very day, so long ago that 
 figures become meaningless. And as we looked 
 at the implements they used, the pottery, the 
 knives, the hatchets and other tools differing 
 
THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 205 
 
 from ours only in the crudity of their construc- 
 tion and the material of which they were made, 
 we wondered if there was very much difference 
 after all, for after all these thousands of years we 
 prepare food and eat it and we make clothes 
 and wear them, we build houses to live in, we 
 learn a few things and miss a good many more, 
 we love each other and fight each other, we live 
 a little while and make a few more tools for our 
 children to work with or throw away, and then 
 we die. And that is just what those lake dwel- 
 lers did. There must be something more to life 
 than the hard " facts " we can enumerate. 
 
 Just below the Glacier Garden is the Lion of 
 Lucerne, one of the most extraordinary pieces 
 of sculpture in the world. This great figure 
 of the king of beasts, nearly thirty feet long, 
 has been carved out of the solid rock. It is 
 not a freak thing, but it is genuine in its artis- 
 tic merit. It was conceived by a soldier, one 
 of the survivors of the Swiss Guards whom it 
 commemorates. The model was made by Thor- 
 waldsen, the monument itself by Ahorn, and 
 the question is, Who is the artist? The old 
 question ever being renewed, where are we to 
 place the credit for anything? Our human 
 interests are so tangled up with each other, 
 we are all so interdependent, the greatest lives 
 
206 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 stand upon the foundation of the smallest. 
 A child utters an inarticulate cry for justice, 
 and the listening minister writes a great sermon; 
 a clod of a man bends above his hoe, and a 
 painter makes an immortal picture; a primitive 
 people found a great city, mixing the plaster 
 for the walls with their blood, and centuries 
 later a lecturer on their achievement becomes 
 the idol of admiring audiences; a tramp steals 
 a piece of bread and goes to jail, and an actor 
 imitates him on the stage at three hundred 
 dollars a night. Sometimes we are all artists — 
 and also all clods. We sit before this majestic 
 figure of the lion, wounded unto death and 
 still majestic, and note the dainty vines and 
 delicate flowers which creep up out of the rock 
 to caress it. We study its reflection in the 
 pool below and think how " the foolish things 
 of the heart" glorify the harsh and cruel facts 
 of war. And then we turn away from the 
 fragments of antiquity, from the suggestions 
 of war and its cruelty and the dreadful struggle 
 of humanity to live, and look out over the blue 
 waters of the lake to the green hills and the 
 snow-capped mountains beyond, and feel that 
 here God has written one of his poems of cre- 
 ation, and life is not all prose. 
 
 Many days could be spent in spying out 
 
THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 207 
 
 the curious wonders and charming features of 
 the city, and rich were the hours when, freed 
 from the obligation of seeing certain things 
 which were on the program, we wandered at 
 our own sweet will along the Schweizerhof 
 Quai, mingling with the multitudes from every 
 nation on the face of the globe, listening to 
 the music of excellent bands, or just sitting 
 and looking out over the lake to the living 
 mountains which were so sensitive to light and 
 shadow that they smiled or frowned with each 
 passing cloud. The water was alive with boats 
 of every description, and if one had not the am- 
 bition or strength to scale any of the heights 
 which beckoned from the clouds, there was a 
 great telescope with which he could circle the 
 whole horizon and see even the people picking 
 their way to the summits of Rigi and Pilatus. 
 The city embraces the head of the lake 
 with ever-lengthening arms, and extends far 
 up on both sides of the Reuss, over which 
 there are a number of fine bridges, two of 
 which are of particular interest. The Kapell- 
 bnicke, or Chapel Bridge, is quite unique; in- 
 stead of crossing the river at right angles, as 
 any ordinary bridge would do, it strays off 
 up the stream a considerable distance to an 
 old stone tower, then wanders on still farther 
 
208 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 up, until a good landing place is discovered, 
 when it turns sharply to the shore. It is a 
 very old bridge, dating back to the beginning 
 of the fourteenth century, and it is easy to 
 think that there must have remained a drop 
 or two of the old lake dwellers' blood in the 
 
 THE KAPELLBRUCKE. 
 
 builders, which made them so averse to getting 
 to the land when once they began to build. 
 It is a narrow covered bridge of wood, and 
 where the rafters form triangles in supporting 
 the roof the space has been filled in with one 
 hundred and twelve curious paintings, half of 
 them depicting the life of the patron saint 
 of the town and the other half scenes from the 
 
THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 209 
 
 story of the Swiss Confederation. Going one 
 way you can read biography, going the other, 
 history. These pictures have grown very dim 
 with age and dirt, and in the faint light which 
 comes through narrow apertures it is impossible 
 to judge of their merit. But there can be no 
 question as to their curious interest ; and whoever 
 walks twice across the bridge will have a lasting 
 reason in the back of his neck for remembering 
 them. The other bridge, Muhlenbrucke, lacks 
 about a century of being as old, and makes only 
 one bend in getting across the river. Its deco- 
 rations, however, consist of thirty-four pictures 
 by Holbein, showing "The Dance of Death." 
 The new bridges are wide and straight and 
 substantial, and the great tides of travel surge 
 across them, eager to get somewhere by the 
 quickest and easiest route. Only the leisurely 
 and the sentimental wander through the old 
 covered ways. There is so little time to do 
 anything nowadays. We spend millions to cut a 
 few hours off our journey and thus we cut out 
 many of the best pictures which the great Artist 
 of the universe has painted for our delectation. 
 To "get there" is a glorious achievement, but 
 to enjoy the getting there and to profit all along 
 the way is a lesson antiquity tries hard to 
 teach us, but we will not learn. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ON TOP OF THE EARTH 
 
 WHEN THE ANGELS HAD THE WORLD AT 
 THEIR FEET 
 
 |N a revolving globe, every one must 
 be on top sometime, but this earth- 
 globe is so big and so irregular in 
 its surface that it is only once in 
 a while that there are not greater heights be- 
 yond and once in several whiles when we can 
 have the sense of looking down on everything. 
 As a matter of fact, no one ever gets to the 
 real top of anything. But I am not looking for 
 facts but for sensations, and having found a 
 hump of earth from the top of which all the rest 
 of the earth seems to be at my feet, I shall 
 allow no devotee of the foot rule to rob me of 
 my glorious sense of achievement. 
 
 The first stage of the climb up the Rigi is 
 made on a steamer from Lucerne, and is not 
 difficult. With our trusty alpenstocks be- 
 side us, we loll luxuriously in our deck chairs, 
 with maps on our knees, and pick out from 
 the clouds the conspicuous peaks. On the 
 
 210 
 
ON TOP OF THE EARTH 211 
 
 right rises Pilatus, the nearest big mountain 
 neighbor to the city, and clothed with the 
 majesty and mystery of ever-shifting clouds, 
 behind which there is a fascinating legend con- 
 nected with the name. It is said that Pilate 
 after his crime in Palestine was filled with re- 
 morse and committed suicide; his body was 
 thrown into the Rhine and the Rhone and sev- 
 eral other rivers and lakes, but none of them 
 would endure it and each in turn became so tur- 
 bulent that the body had to be removed, and 
 finally it was placed in a small black-watered 
 lake on the summit of this mountain, where it 
 still remains quietly save when disturbed by hu- 
 man presence, when it makes things lively in 
 generating all sorts of weather excepting decent. 
 So Pilatus acts as the weather bureau for that 
 whole section of country and presses our own 
 " Old Prob " pretty close for reliability. 
 
 Hat Pilatus sinen Hut, 
 Dann wird das Wetter gut; 
 Tragter aber einen Degen, 
 So gibt's wohl sicher, Regen. 
 
 Which means, if Pilatus is capped with cloud 
 you can look for fine weather, but if he wears 
 his sword, look out for a soaking. 
 
 Beyond the "weather bureau" are Burgen- 
 stock, Stanserhorn and the Buocheserhorn and 
 
212 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 many other "horns" more or less exalted, 
 while at the left rears the rugged form of the 
 Rigi, the highest peak of this particular range 
 and named "Queen of the Mountains/' and 
 which was our goal. I can conceive of no 
 more delightful way of climbing mountains 
 than by steamer. We do not have to wait until 
 we get there before beginning our enjoyment, 
 for as we reached out from the Bay of Lucerne 
 
 THE RIGI. 
 
 into the greater lake there was unfolded be- 
 fore us an ideal panorama, fulfilling all our 
 youthful dreams of Switzerland. The lake it- 
 self is like a great blue cross filling a wonderful 
 valley a score of miles in length, with its two 
 arms reaching up two smaller valleys. Right 
 above us the sky was blue, while all around 
 the horizon a light mist smoothed off all the 
 rough corners and softened all the outline. 
 There was the slight motion of the steamer 
 
ON TOP OF THE EARTH 213 
 
 which we felt, but to our sight the great moun- 
 tain seemed to be coming nearer and growing 
 up higher and higher, until as we drew up to 
 the little wharf at Vitznau it towered above 
 us like a menace of conscience. 
 
 It was here at Vitznau that we left the 
 steamer and entered upon the second and more 
 strenuous stage of our climb. Here we girded 
 ourselves, as it were, for the steep ascent, and 
 grasping our trusty alpenstocks firmly and 
 drawing a long breath, we took our seats in 
 the funny little cars of the Vitznau-Rigi 
 cogged railway and started up. Climbing a 
 mountain by railway is different from climbing 
 by steamer; it has more of variety and there 
 seems to be enough more of danger to give 
 one several thrills, which we pay for and 
 expect. Our train was no "Twentieth Century 
 Limited"; its action was wholly dignified and 
 it carried us through space at a rate never 
 exceeding three miles an hour. It seemed a 
 little curious to start up a mountain by going 
 through a tunnel and then over a high bridge; 
 but I have noticed that it always takes several 
 mountains to make one, and we must either 
 get over, around or through these before we 
 can get at the real thing. But after these 
 obstacles were passed we simply sat still and 
 
214 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 watched the earth fall away from us, while 
 the horizon developed the quality of elasticity 
 and stretched wider and wider until it seemed 
 that if we continued far enough, the whole world 
 would be revealed to us. And perhaps it is 
 true that when we have at last risen high 
 enough into the atmosphere of heaven we shall 
 see all things as they are and know all things, 
 and then realize what fools we have been all 
 along the way. 
 
 There are several stations on the way to the 
 top. We knew when we had arrived at one, 
 not because there was any sense of stopping, 
 but because the earth below stopped falling 
 away from us, and small boys and girls in pic- 
 turesque costumes besought us to buy little 
 bunches of edelweiss, the Alpine flower which 
 so hides itself among the snowy crags that 
 none but the natives can find it. It is a nov- 
 elty rather than a beauty, like a bit of cotton 
 deftly arranged in the form of a star on the 
 end of a stick. But clustering about it are 
 associations which glorify it and make it 
 radiant with sentiment. 
 
 At the Rigi-Kulm, the upper station, a few 
 hundred feet from the summit, we left the train 
 for the third stage of our climb, and once more 
 grasping our trusty alpenstocks, we picked 
 
ON TOP OF THE EARTH 215 
 
 our way up over a good path, until at last we 
 stood upon the top of the earth. It is always 
 good to achieve. No doubt those in older times 
 who won their way to the top of this mountain 
 by their own hard effort experienced some 
 sensations denied to those of us who climbed 
 by boat and rail, but we have no quarrel with 
 them; sufficient unto the day are the con- 
 veniences thereof. They came in their way 
 and from their direction, and we by ours, and 
 we both arrived. It may be so when we 
 arrive, in the near or distant future, at those 
 supernal heights of our heavenly hopes, that 
 we shall be surprised to see some who started 
 from a different place, came by a different 
 road, used a different mode of conveyance — 
 and possibly they will be equally surprised to 
 see us. 
 
 The mist and cloud which for three weeks 
 had been hanging over the mountains, obscur- 
 ing the views and disappointing the viewers, 
 were lifted for us. For three hours the whole 
 wide sweep of the horizon's unbroken circle 
 was open to our admiring, even worshiping 
 eyes, and really I think I have never seen a 
 finer view, and I have seen many, if not most, 
 of the views in our own Rocky Mountains and 
 the Sierras. And yet the Rigi is not a high 
 
216 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 mountain; it is not half as high as Pikes Peak. 
 But a view is more than simply a matter of 
 altitude; it is the setting of the point of 
 view. We were on the shore of an enormous 
 ocean of frozen waves, and we looked away 
 over the vast reach of the magnificent billows 
 to where they broke in the titanic surf of 
 the Bernese Oberland. So clear was the air 
 that by pictures we could identify and call 
 the roll of that stately company of mountain 
 royalty, the Finsteraarhorn, the Mittelhorn, 
 the Wetterhorn, the Jungfrau and innumer- 
 able others. At our feet on one side curved 
 the beautiful Lake of the Four Cantons, and 
 on the other my old friend, the Lake of Zug. 
 Whichever way we looked there was some- 
 thing new to make keen an appetite which 
 else must have been palled with excess of 
 visual delight. 
 
 We stopped looking at last, and bought 
 postal cards and Alpine horns and foolish sil- 
 ver trinkets and bits of wood carving, nothing 
 in themselves, a waste of money no doubt, 
 and yet I find months afterward I have but 
 to look at one of the trinkets and it is my 
 magic lamp or ring, only it needs not to be 
 rubbed, even, to call up out of the depths of 
 memory the Switzerland which is a precious 
 
ON TOP OF THE EARTH 217 
 
 stone to which all the rest of Europe is but 
 the setting. 
 
 Near the top there is a fine large hotel, where 
 we ate a good dinner, though counting that 
 time lost which was spent indoors. And it 
 was a loss to us, for while we ate, the clouds 
 assembled and curtained the distant snow-clad 
 heights, so that when we came out much of 
 our vision had departed. 
 
 For those of ambition and physical strength 
 there is no need of using the railway in under- 
 taking this small mountain, for there is a good 
 footpath all the way and little danger either 
 of accident or going astray, but in these days 
 of hurry the saving of time is quite an item. 
 Twelve of our party were fired with the ambi- 
 tion to walk down the montain to Vitznau, a 
 distance of about seven miles, and as the foot- 
 path keeps close to the railroad track and 
 reaches each station, where it would be possible 
 to catch a train in case of need, they felt safe 
 in making the attempt. An hour later we 
 started, and at the second station we began to 
 pick up those who had fallen by the way. We 
 gathered in more at each succeeding stop, and 
 when at last we rolled into the station at 
 Vitznau we were met at the platform by the 
 survivors of the tramp, and they were four 
 
218 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 young girls, with thin, high-heeled shoes, the 
 soles of which had been worn through by the 
 sharp gravel of the path; while the men and 
 women who had started with them had come 
 to the conclusion that the glory was not worth 
 the effort — and the shoe leather. 
 
 The ride back to Lucerne on the steamer 
 through the twilight was like a benediction 
 upon the day. We were all tired with excite- 
 ment if not with physical effort, and to sit in 
 peace while the shadows drew the mountains 
 together about us, and look up to the heights 
 from which we had come and recall the splen- 
 dor of the vision which had been revealed to 
 us, would have subdued spirits quite antago- 
 nistic, but ours were willing. Another thing 
 which made its impression upon us was the 
 fact that, as a large group, this was the last 
 journey of the "Angels" together, for early on 
 the following morning we were to be scattered, 
 every one to his own desire. And desire called 
 some to further exploration of the mountains 
 of Switzerland, some to Paris and Antwerp, 
 to sail thence for home, and yet others to Italy. 
 There were many good-byes to be said, and 
 hopes universal that our paths should converge 
 and bring us all together again on the shores 
 of our native land. 
 
ON TOP OF THE EARTH 219 
 
 I wish we might have kept together, to land 
 an unbroken party at the port whence we had 
 sailed nearly two months before, for in all my 
 experience in traveling never have I seen a 
 more congenial and happy party. Coming 
 together as strangers on the Devonian, with no 
 bond of union save some similarity in religious 
 faith, there grew up companionships which 
 ripened into enduring friendships. We came 
 to know and to value each other, and I doubt 
 not that the richest achievements of our long 
 journey will be these friendships. 
 
 Would it were possible to include in these 
 records some accounts of the seeings and 
 doings of the other flocks of "Angels." I wish 
 it had been possible to have deserted the main 
 body and gone with the sixty-five to Hungary 
 and caught something of the uplift of the 
 splendid meetings held there in connection 
 with the four hundredth anniversary of the 
 founding of our sister Church. It was only 
 by the power of the will that we got away from 
 those who were to drink yet deeper of the joys 
 of Swiss scenery and life, and the pull on our 
 heartstrings was strong to take us to Paris 
 and Antwerp, but a stronger call came up from 
 the south, where the mystic charm of Italy 
 had been wooing me since childhood, and at the 
 
220 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 end of the land journey there would be a ship 
 awaiting to give us the long and restful voyage 
 through the Mediterranean, by Gibraltar and 
 the Azores, across a long summer ocean, to 
 our home. 
 
 ON TOP OF THE EARTH. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 
 
 THROUGH WHICH A GROUP OF ANGELS PASS 
 TO DO ITALY 
 
 ND so it was that a party of about 
 a dozen chosen "Angels" left Lu- 
 cerne in the early morning of what 
 proved to be one of the hottest 
 days of the summer, for the long flight to Milan, 
 via the St. Gothard Tunnel route. The lake 
 was alluring in the early morning light, and as 
 we looked over its clear blue waters and sensed 
 the joy and liberty and freshness of the steamer 
 trip through the Lake of the Four Cantons to 
 Fluelen, it seemed almost criminal to incarcerate 
 ourselves in close railway carriages. But we 
 were the slaves of time; our master commanded 
 and we obeyed. But for the heat, it would have 
 been willing obedience; for while the first stage 
 of our journey by water, less than a quarter of 
 it, would have had its delights, we should have 
 missed, because of a night ride over the balance 
 of the route, what proved to be one of the 
 most interesting experiences of our whole tour. 
 
 221 
 
222 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 I am often impressed with the kindness of 
 necessity which we so persistently fight. The 
 thing we are denied almost always gives place 
 to something better, if we do not blind our 
 eyes with foolish tears so that we cannot see it. 
 Had we gone by boat we must have gone over 
 the route of the previous day and have seen 
 "the Queen of the Mountains" only from the 
 
 AMONG THE CLOUDS. 
 
 same point of view, and that is not fair to the 
 mountain. 
 
 Mountains are like people, they need to be 
 looked at all around. They are full of moods; 
 they have character; they are as responsive 
 to conditions as a sensitive human face; they 
 are so alive that it is no wonder that people 
 who are much with them come to love them 
 and confide in them and commune with them, 
 and sometimes, when the mountains have been 
 cruel and denied them good weather, or slain 
 a loved one, they hate them. These great 
 solid and stolid mountains are fickle often- 
 times. They woo their lovers to the summit and 
 
THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 223 
 
 then cast them down to death; they coax their 
 worshipers along sunlit paths from home, then 
 suddenly throw about them a chill blanket of 
 mist and set the storm chasing them through 
 the gloom to destruction, amid peals of thunder- 
 ous laughter; they lay the bait of fairest flowers 
 among the crags, and send the avalanche to 
 crush the victims they decoy. Mountains 
 smile upon you one minute and frown the 
 next; they throw aside their garments with 
 utter abandon, and an instant later veil their 
 faces in excess of modesty; they cuddle ba- 
 bies in their lap and shield them with their 
 right hand, while with their left they smite 
 the armies of a nation. They fence in brethren 
 and fence out brothers. They tempt human 
 insects to swarm upon them, and scatter them 
 with the breath of the tempest. They sit 
 enthroned in regal majesty, and e'en while we 
 look they skip like young rams. There is 
 always another side to a mountain, as there is 
 to every question. 
 
 By taking the train we saw the other side of 
 the Rigi. From Lake Lucerne the slope is 
 gradual enough so that the cogged railway can 
 pick its way through much twisting and turning 
 to the top; but when we looked from the window 
 of our carriage at the other side, we saw cliffs 
 
224 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 rising sheer into the blue sky and leaning 
 towards us until our spirits shrank, if our eyes 
 were bold to face their brutal strength. But 
 how little we seemed, and what an absurd thing 
 was that foolish little train, with its snorting 
 engine scampering with all its might from the 
 foot of the mountain, for all the world like a 
 scared rat from the foot of a man ; and to make 
 the likeness still more real, it presently plunged 
 head first into a tiny hole in the rocks and came 
 out of the other side, to race through the trees 
 and grass along the shore of the Lake of Zug. 
 
 The people who name things in Switzer- 
 land must have a large sense of humor; there 
 is no other way to account for some of the 
 cognomens. "Immensee" is the name of the 
 town at which connection is made with the 
 St. Gothard railway, but we look in vain for 
 the huge place the name suggests, if it does 
 not mean, only to discover the coziest and most 
 charming little sort of a toy village. From 
 here the road follows the shore of the lake to 
 the southern end, then cuts 'cross country to 
 the Lake of the Four Cantons, and follows that 
 shore, affording the most wonderful views of 
 mountains, to Altdorf, which was the scene 
 of William Tell's heroism and is the beginning 
 of the mountain division of this road which 
 
THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 225 
 
 gives it fame as one of the scenic wonders of 
 the world. 
 
 Already we had been through more than a 
 dozen short tunnels, at each one being obliged 
 to close the windows with a jump to avoid being 
 covered with dust, and to open them on emerg- 
 ing, to prevent suffocation, for the heat was 
 becoming almost intolerable. But verily we 
 knew nothing of tunnels before, for presently 
 we were being twisted in and out of the moun- 
 tains in the most bewildering fashion. To give 
 a notion of what we did, I must quote from 
 an authorized description of the method used 
 in climbing up to the level of the great tunnel 
 which breaks through the range. " The railway 
 enters the mountain side; it makes a bend in 
 the turn-tunnel and comes to the surface again 
 at a level of one hundred and fourteen feet 
 higher. The line then crosses the Maienreuss 
 for the first time and plunges into the hill, 
 issues from it, follows the Reuss, then crosses 
 the river and disappears in the mountain, fol- 
 lowing the Wattinger loop-tunnel, on leaving 
 which the railway recrosses the Reuss and 
 Maienreuss a second time, enters another turn- 
 tunnel, to emerge and cross the river a third 
 time three hundred and thirty feet above the 
 first bridge." That is, these turn-tunnels are 
 
226 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 made not to get through but over the mountains. 
 They enter the earth and by making a long turn 
 a mile or two in length come out again many 
 feet above, so that in one instance we could look 
 almost directly down and see, hundreds of feet 
 below, two tracks we had come over. There 
 was simply a series of spiral tunnels through 
 which within a few hours we had risen more 
 than twenty-two hundred feet above the level 
 of the lake along the shores of which we had 
 been speeding but a little time before. And 
 yet we had not reached the great tunnel. 
 
 Nothing more startling can be imagined than 
 these flash-light pictures which were revealed 
 to us as we flashed out into the open and then 
 dived again into the darkness. And such 
 pictures! We were right in the heart of the 
 wildest and grandest of scenery, often poised 
 as a bird in flight far above a rushing torrent 
 of a mountain river, and yet always and always 
 there were the greater heights beyond, capped 
 with the splendor of eternal snows, or streaked 
 with the frozen torrent of the glacier. By the 
 time we had reached Goschenen, the northern 
 entrance to the greatest bore on earth, we 
 were fully convinced that tunnels are justly 
 called bores, for with the opening and shutting 
 of windows, and the disappointment at the 
 
THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 227 
 
 cutting off so abruptly of such splendors of 
 scenery, we were so far exhausted that we 
 rather welcomed the nine and a quarter miles 
 and twenty minutes of darkness of the great 
 tunnel itself. 
 
 There is something thrilling in being actually 
 in the heart of a great mountain as we were. 
 We were over three thousand feet above sea 
 level, and yet a thousand feet above us was 
 the village of Andermatt, not simply higher, 
 but right over our head, and at another point 
 the Lake of Sella was three thousand feet above 
 us. We were over half a mile high and yet 
 over a half mile underground. We thought we 
 should suffocate, but we did not. The reality 
 was not half so bad as thinking about it. It 
 was like most of the experiences of life. 
 
 And when we came out into the open again, 
 having passed from German Switzerland to 
 Italian Switzerland, there was an exhilaration 
 in the thought that the mountain fastness was 
 conquered; of course to others had been the 
 fighting, to us the victory. Far below us lay 
 the enticing beauties of the Italian lakes, and 
 villas and vineyards and olive orchards, and 
 history and poetry and art, and poverty and 
 ignorance and sin, and churches and palaces, 
 of course miles and miles beyond our sight; 
 
228 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 and yet we saw them all in anticipation as we 
 began to loop the loop down from the heights 
 we had scaled. For it took nearly as many 
 tunnels to get us down as it had taken to get 
 us up, but after the longest tunnel in the world 
 had been passed the others were but passing 
 irritations. 
 
 It is curious how humanity, being anywhere 
 on the face of this fair earth, immediately wants 
 to get somewhere else, and the greater the 
 difficulty in its way the more is its desire to 
 get there. The Swiss seem to have a perfect 
 passion for boring holes in these mountains. 
 Money and human lives do not seem to count 
 for much if they can only get a hole in the 
 fence with which their country is surrounded, 
 really not so much that they may get out as 
 that others may get in. The Swiss are a home- 
 loving people; they do not scatter over the 
 whole earth as do other nationalities, but they 
 have found that the tourist is about the best 
 crop they can raise, and they know that every 
 time they bore a hole in one of their big hills 
 lots of people will come to crawl through it. 
 We crawled through, and I am sure it was 
 worth the perspiration and the dust. 
 
 It was pretty good coasting all the way down 
 to the Italian lakes, and there is no flat 
 
THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 229 
 
 monotony after we get there. Though the 
 mountains are not so high and so fierce and 
 rugged as those about Lucerne, they were still 
 with us when we reached the Lake of Como and 
 made a fitting setting for one of the most 
 exquisite bits of water scenery I have ever 
 looked upon. It is not quite like anything 
 else, it is just "Como," and any one who has 
 ever looked upon it agrees that it has a charm 
 all its own. I believe the waters are a little 
 bluer, the hills a little more snugly placed; 
 the shores are carpeted with orchards and 
 vineyards reaching well up the heights, and 
 among the clumps of trees there are the most 
 artistic villas and castles, with whole villages 
 which seem to have been placed just right by 
 some great artist, and over the whole scene 
 hung low the Italian sky, of which we had read 
 and dreamed but did not before believe was real. 
 Hardly had we entered Italian territory 
 before we became conscious of an ever-increas- 
 ing number of churches, which seemed to have 
 been sown broadcast over the country, for they 
 were set here and there and everywhere with 
 absolutely no relation to the homes of the 
 people. Wherever there was a particularly 
 inaccessible piece of rock big enough to hold 
 a church and conspicuous enough to be seen, 
 
230 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 there would one be found, though there was 
 not a human habitation in sight for miles. 
 Sometimes connected with the churches would 
 be little groups of buildings, possibly the homes 
 of those who ministered, and the number and 
 location of these places of worship revealed, 
 on the very threshold of Italy, that we were 
 in a new religious world, or a world of religion 
 different from any we had known, for it was 
 at once evident that the religious motive of 
 these people was entirely apart from the needs 
 of man; it was one gigantic and pathetic cry 
 unto God. Whoever had enough of goods to 
 build and endow a church so that masses might 
 be said for his soul, built it as great as he could, 
 and so endowed it that coming generations 
 should spend their time in keeping him from 
 torments which no doubt he richly deserved. 
 Here was something that in essence violated 
 all our conceptions of the religion which Christ 
 brought to the earth for human service. Here 
 was the religion whose purpose was to inspire 
 to self-sacrifice, commandeered into the service 
 of self-seeking. For while these innumerable 
 churches represented uncounted millions of 
 dollars which had been sacrificed in their 
 building, the motive of their building was not 
 altruistic in any sense; it was to pay some vow 
 
THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 231 
 
 to some saint as a penance or a bid, so it did 
 not matter whether or not it ever came in 
 touch with human life. So we find in Italy 
 to-day more churches, more services of religion, 
 and less religion than in any other place on the 
 face of the earth. That is, from our stand- 
 point. Modern life has come to see the irrec- 
 oncilable antagonism between a million-dollar 
 cathedral and the poverty and sin and suffering 
 and ignorance which sit upon its marble steps. 
 Yet among other things we have come to 
 see these great cathedrals, and in the twilight 
 of a long and weary day, and yet a day of rare 
 experiences, we made our first goal on Italian 
 soil, — the city of Milan. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 MILANESE 
 
 ONE LONE ANGEL WISHES HE HAD STUDIED 
 
 ESPERANTO, BUT ALL FIND MUCH TO 
 
 INTEREST IN MILAN 
 
 |HE record of what we did and saw 
 in the various Italian cities would 
 make a large volume and yet it 
 must be condensed into what is but 
 a postscript to this already too long series of 
 chapters. Milan is a treasure-chamber and 
 Milanesian life is a mine full of pay-dirt. There 
 is no doubt about the dirt, but it is something 
 of an achievement to transmute it into gold. 
 
 My first experience was in trying to do a 
 bit of shopping in Italian. During our rapid 
 journeying I had somewhere missed connection 
 with my laundry and found myself on my intro- 
 duction to Italy shy of a "slumber robe." 
 But it seemed such a trifling matter to run out 
 to one of the big stores and supply myself that 
 I did not give an anxious thought to possible 
 difficulties. The clerk at the hotel, who spoke 
 good English, told me where to find the "shop- 
 
 232 
 
MILANESE 233 
 
 ping district," and with my phrase-book I 
 started on my quest. Stores from the outside 
 look pretty much the same the world over, and 
 it was easy to find a furnishing place. At 
 the door I lingered to locate what I wanted in 
 the phrase-book, but was surprised to find that 
 in all that work there was no word in Italian 
 corresponding to "nightshirt." Now I have 
 no doubt that this great and generally civi- 
 lized nation makes use of this important piece 
 of wearing apparel, but the maker of my 
 book had thoughtlessly omitted it, and I saw 
 at once that I must resort to the sign language. 
 I entered the store and was greeted by a "tall, 
 dark man" with much outward courtesy, but 
 he looked so much like the pictures of the 
 banditti that it nearly took my nerve, and I 
 wandered back and forth, he following in close 
 pursuit, hoping I could locate the object of 
 my search. 'Twas all in vain. I could see 
 everything else in the way of human raiment 
 but nothing that even approximated a night- 
 shirt. Then I resorted to signs. First I 
 thought I would impress him with the idea of 
 sleep, and after making a few passes in the air 
 to fix his attention, I slowly closed my eyes 
 and emitted a very gentle and musical snore. 
 Before I could get my eyes fully open he was 
 
234 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 speeding to another part of the store and 
 presently returned with joy beaming from every 
 pore and opened before me a cute little box 
 containing half a dozen tiny hemstitched 
 handkerchiefs. They were nice handkerchiefs, 
 and useful enough in their own place, but rather 
 inadequate for a nightshirt. So I shook my 
 head and came away, leaving him sorrowful. 
 
 I next found a big department store and 
 thought I might locate something there, but 
 there was nothing in sight, and so, selecting 
 the least dangerous looking of the " sales- 
 ladies/' I tried to make my wants known. 
 Here I did not want to employ the same sign 
 and so I bent my head over gracefully sideways 
 upon my two hands and closed my eyes. She 
 was an intelligent young person; intelligence 
 fairly radiated from her features as she flew 
 to another counter and came back with a 
 beautifully embroidered and beribboned sofa 
 pillow. I should have liked to buy it, for 
 she was so very charming, but one cannot 
 wear a sofa pillow. And so I shook my head 
 and tried to indicate that my sleep involved 
 the whole body and not simply the head. 
 Again she was intelligent and brought me, with 
 a most charming smile, a long woven couch- 
 cover with much fringe about the edges and 
 
MILANESE 235 
 
 of as many colors as Joseph's coat. Then I 
 gave it up and returned to the hotel, and, find- 
 ing our very gentlemanly guide, who was an 
 English-speaking Italian, I explained what I 
 wanted and asked him to go out and secure 
 it regardless of expense. On his return the 
 package was sent to my room and I was free 
 of care. But when, late at night, I undid the 
 bundle, there was revealed a garment which 
 was undoubtedly intended as a sleeping robe, 
 but it was different from what I expected. It 
 was decollete to a most shocking extent; all. 
 around the neck there was the daintiest of lace; 
 the absurd little sleeves only came to the elbow, 
 and they too were finished with lace. The 
 upper part of the thing had a sort of frieze of 
 embroidery which was mostly holes, through 
 which there was run a bit of blue ribbon, and 
 to end it all, around the bottom was a dado of 
 flounces, which, designedly or not, served as 
 an effective hobble. In addition the whole 
 thing was what is called, I believe, so " sheer" 
 that it was more like a dream than a reality. 
 I examined it with care and painful interest, 
 but I did not wear it; I hung it as far back 
 as possible in the closet of the room, and so 
 far as I know, it is there yet, and I had better 
 luck shopping in Venice. 
 
236 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 We found one most sensible man in Milan; 
 he has the quality of adaptability developed 
 to the highest degree. The weather in the 
 city was intensely hot and we resorted to every 
 possible device to be comfortable, but there 
 is only one man there who has achieved a real 
 success in meeting the climatic demands, and 
 that is one Saint Bartholomew. He is standing 
 away up near the altar in the big cathedral and 
 has been standing there for several hundreds 
 of years. He is rather shocking at first sight, 
 for we found him with a pleased expression on 
 his face and carrying his skin over his shoulder. 
 Most people had taken off about everything 
 the law allowed, but Brother Bartholomew, 
 with the help of an ancient sculptor, had really 
 had his skin removed and was carrying it 
 about thrown carelessly across his shoulders. 
 He was not pretty to look at, but that day he 
 certainly looked comfortable, and we honestly 
 envied him. 
 
 The great wonder in Milan is what men have 
 done with marble, and this statue is but an 
 exaggerated specimen. For more than a thou- 
 sand years these people have been making the 
 most wonderful lace with stubborn marble for 
 its thread. One needs but to get far enough 
 away from the cathedral to find this thought 
 
MILANESE 
 
 237 
 
 realized; from the opposite extreme of the 
 Plaza, all thought of weight and solidity dis- 
 appears, and its lines seem to be traced in the 
 most delicate filament; it rises from the earth 
 not as a stable pile of stone, but as an effer- 
 vescent foam, from the crest of which it would 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 not surprise one to see a passing wind catch a 
 globe of it and roll it across the pavements as 
 from the crest of an ocean wave the tempest 
 clips a bit to whirl along the sands. And yet 
 how secure it is! Quite as much if not more 
 
238 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 than any other European cathedral this one 
 in Milan is well set. Others try to outdo each 
 other in piercing the clouds, but so wide is this 
 foundation that, though the building is really 
 glorious in its height, it does not impress the 
 onlooker in that way so much as in the marvel 
 of its detail. Two thousand statues are here 
 enlisted for ornamentation and support and 
 the plan calls for fifteen hundred more before 
 it is complete. There is hardly a line in the 
 great building which is not created with the 
 lines of the human form. Here men have 
 toiled for a lifetime to complete one or two 
 figures in marble of some one more or less 
 distinguished in the religious life of the place 
 and perhaps witnessed their placement and 
 died happy in the thought of achievement, 
 when as a matter of fact their work was im- 
 mediately lost in the vast multitude of other 
 figures which are but congested here. I can 
 conceive of no place in which a statue, however 
 great it be, might be so thoroughly lost as in this 
 multitude. A far better chance of reaching 
 distinction have those that were buried at 
 Pompeii and Herculaneum than those buried 
 in the vast hosts which make and adorn this 
 splendid pile. 
 Yet there is a suggestion here which clings. 
 
MILANESE 239 
 
 As these men work to build their product into 
 the great whole, where the individual achieve- 
 ment is lost, so do we all build our part in this 
 greater life, and it too is lost to sight of men 
 and yet in the completed creation but serves to 
 make the infinite plan more nearly perfect in its 
 symmetry and beauty. Nothing is lost which 
 hath the vitality of truth, though to our weak 
 human eyes it may never appear apart from 
 the great whole. And we do not know what 
 an important place our little creation may have 
 in the whole, until we fail, and then appears 
 the blot upon the whole. There is a statue 
 in this wonderful cathedral, made by an ob- 
 scure artist, whose name even has long since 
 been forgotten and his work is passed by with- 
 out a thought by the procession of hundreds 
 of thousands whose feet are wearing away the 
 marble floors, but if some night a thief were 
 to select and carry away that figure, instantly 
 all eyes would be turned upon the place where 
 it was. So perfectly has it blended in the per- 
 fect whole, it could not be seen until it was 
 taken away. And so it shall be with our poor 
 little handiwork when in the fullness of time 
 its importance shall be revealed. In this great 
 temple of God's creation we are all statues 
 filling some little niche, supporting some great 
 
240 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 arch at which the world wonders, or capping 
 some splendid corner, it matters not what or 
 where, in the infinite plan, more nearly perfect 
 than the one being evolved in the Milan Cathe- 
 dral; there are no mistakes; there are none so 
 little as not to be vital, none so great as to 
 take unto themselves the glory. 
 
 We spent hours in this marvelous building 
 and under the direction of a voluble guide 
 gathered far more information than we shall 
 ever be able to digest. We brought away only 
 impressions which are far more gratifying than 
 figures for home consumption. It is not easy 
 to think of the place as old when it is so far 
 from completion, and when, after toiling up 
 the long stairs to the roof, we find a colony of 
 people and animals actually living there, work- 
 ing out their little lives in making this great 
 thing live. And it seemed that one must spend 
 a lifetime there before he could begin to under- 
 stand even the alphabet of the great story 
 being wrought into marble. This particular 
 building was begun nearly six hundred years 
 ago, and though the plans have been modified 
 in the passing centuries, as different artists 
 tried to place their own personal impressions 
 upon it, it has developed along consistent lines 
 of gothic architecture and is to-day the largest 
 
MILANESE 241 
 
 gothic church in the world, and if one could 
 get through the mass of ornamentation, it 
 would be one of the most impressive interiors. 
 But really it requires a distinct act of the will 
 to see it in any of its detail, there is so much of 
 it; but when one can concentrate his attention 
 on any one feature, be it statue or sweep arch, 
 he will be rewarded ; this however is a work of 
 months or years, while to get aside and take 
 it as a composite, something of the harmony of 
 a great piece of music is felt. Just let your- 
 self go, forget' the surroundings, forget the 
 wretchedness of its history, shut out the sounds 
 of a rushing traffic and screen off the religion 
 with whose forms you can have no sympathy, 
 curb the demands of your reason, and then 
 
 'Tis only in the land of fairy dreams 
 Such marble temples rise, bright in the gleams 
 Of golden sunshine. Truth here repeats 
 What fancy oft has pictured forth in sleep. 
 
 There are eighty churches in Milan, many of 
 them worth seeing, but we saw only a few. 
 Instinctively we turned to Santa Maria Delia 
 Grazie, not to see the church, or the pictures 
 within, of which there are some of value, but 
 to see in the Refectory what is probably the 
 best-known picture in the world, "The Last 
 
242 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 Supper/' by Leonardo da Vinci. It is but a 
 wreck of a picture, painted directly upon the 
 wall of the building, nearly five hundred years 
 ago, and the wall was not equal to the responsi- 
 bility, and so, through dampness and lack of 
 care, there is left but a faint trace of its former 
 glory. And yet this trace is sufficient to thrill 
 one with a new sense of the reality of the Gospel 
 story. Every one has seen some of the many 
 reproductions of this work, so it is only neces- 
 sary to say that the incident selected to be thus 
 perpetuated is when Jesus says to his disciples, 
 "Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall 
 betray me." It is a marvelous study in ex- 
 pression, and though the picture has so often 
 been copied, it seems that no one has been 
 able to catch its spirit; as in trying to picture 
 life the chief element is always left out, so this 
 picture seems to have that marvelous quality 
 which none may take away. 
 
 I was greatly impressed with the almost 
 miraculous preservation of the painting through 
 all these centuries. Placed on a wall that itself 
 was subject to decay, and then, still more 
 dangerous to its welfare, being in the care often- 
 times of the wholly unappreciative, and with 
 the waves of conquering armies sweeping over 
 the city, seeking destruction and loot, and 
 
MILANESE 243 
 
 especially the moment of greatest crisis, when 
 Napoleon's soldiers stabled their horses in this 
 room and in order to make easy egress cut a 
 great opening through the wall, the top of which 
 cut away the lower portion of the table, it is 
 marvelous that it has been preserved, and all 
 may count themselves fortunate who have the 
 privilege of standing in reverence before the 
 original, or even what there is left of it. There 
 is a great statue of Leonardo da Vinci in 
 Milan; it too is a fine work of art, and it would 
 be surprising if the city did not honor itself in 
 such an attempt to honor its greatest man. 
 But the name and fame of this painter do not 
 need statues, for he made his own monument 
 when he conceived and executed this picture 
 which connected him with the life of the 
 Eternal. How many kings have risen and 
 fallen, how many great church officials have 
 ruled from their chair of state! But they are 
 gone into the land of forgetfulness, while all 
 over the world childhood and age pause before 
 the picture and, with the Master, eat the bread 
 of remembrance. 
 
 The time was altogether too short in the 
 galleries, for we found some of the best of the 
 Old Masters to claim our attention, but we 
 found too, as we had in other places, that we 
 
244 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 were confused by the abundance of greatness, 
 so that we could bring away little in the way 
 of appreciation of specific things. To see 
 galleries which are worth while, one needs 
 leisure, the leisure of weeks where we had days, 
 and yet I fancy that having spent weeks, we 
 should have come away quite as unsatisfied 
 as we did with days, for pictures which have 
 stood the test of centuries because they were 
 living things, are so like people, whom we 
 have to know in all lights and shadows, and 
 in all moods of our own, before we really 
 know them. 
 
 We drove about the whole city, to the Royal 
 Palace, the Library and other public buildings, 
 but particularly to see the people. I confess 
 that we forgot it was Sunday as we were sight- 
 seeing, for there was nothing in the attitude 
 or manner of the people to indicate a day of 
 rest and worship. Within the churches there 
 were elaborate services going on before a 
 handful of worshipers, mostly women, while 
 all about strayed the curiosity seekers, not to 
 disturb, for in these great buildings and where 
 the service is not directed towards the people, 
 it matters little who come and go. 
 
 A strange land to us, but no more strange 
 than ours to them. We pity them not more 
 
MILANESE 
 
 245 
 
 than they pity us. We would save them and 
 make them happy; they are sorry that we know 
 not happiness. From our modern civilization 
 we come to dig up a few roots of the civilization 
 which was before our world began. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 ON THE RIALTO 
 
 THE STRANGE ADVENTURES WHICH BEFELL AN 
 
 ANGEL UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF 
 
 LAUNCELOT GOBBO 
 
 IOMING from Milan to Venice we 
 found one of the most delightful 
 stages of our journey through Lom- 
 bardy, where, much to our surprise, 
 we discovered the Lombardy poplar really is 
 at home, lifting its verdant spire here and 
 there as from a cathedral of emerald. So 
 many things in this life carry deception in their 
 names, as for instance the Irish potato, which 
 having its origin in America, had to bring the 
 whole Irish nation over to justify its name. 
 But more novel to us were the miles and miles 
 of mulberry orchards through which we passed, 
 the leaves thereof being for the feeding of the 
 silkworm, which, in turn, makes the great 
 Italian silk industry, which, next to the tour- 
 ist, is probably the greatest national financial 
 resource. We came through Padua, but did 
 not stop long enough to find the office of that 
 
 246 
 
ON THE RIALTO 
 
 247 
 
 "learned Doctor of the Law, Bellario," who 
 connived with Portia for the downfall of Shy- 
 lock at the court in Venice; he has probably 
 moved before this time. 
 
 But after passing Padua the grip of Venice 
 was upon us, and as we struck out over the 
 long salt meadows and across "the longest 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 bridge in the world," and there on the horizon, 
 low down, showed the irregular sky line of the 
 city, I was reminded of the approach to Atlantic 
 City, N. J., when, just at sunset, we near that 
 famous modern resort. But it was only a 
 suggestion and was impressed upon my mind 
 because after that moment we literally de- 
 parted from this base world and entered into 
 
248 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the realm of fairyland and dreams, where 
 nothing is like anything ever seen or done 
 before, where all our straight-line standards 
 become wabbly, realities are dissolved in mist 
 and the unexpected becomes the expected. 
 Venice is a stupendous grab bag of surprises; 
 we thrust our hands in without the slightest 
 notion of what we shall get, being sure of only 
 one thing, — that there is a prize in every 
 package. 
 
 We came out from the station, following the 
 porters with our luggage, to find ourselves 
 right on the shore of the Grand Canal. When 
 you arrive in Venice you are there; you do not 
 have to take some other sort of a conveyance 
 to reach what you have come to see, for stand- 
 ing there in the doorway of the railroad 
 station, real Venice is at your feet; the canal 
 bordered with its palaces and churches and 
 its surface literally covered with an immense 
 fleet of gondolas, and poised upright on the 
 stern of each, the graceful gondolier, scarce 
 moving his hands, but making his long boat 
 glide here and there, dodging in and out among 
 the hundreds of others, with a skill that seems 
 almost diabolical in its keenness. 
 
 But we could not stand on the outside and 
 look at this city of dreams; we must plunge 
 
ON THE RIALTO 249 
 
 into the midst of it, for our guide was calling 
 us to take our places in a gondola. Already 
 our luggage was on board another, and was 
 speeding away down the canal, and in a moment 
 we too were apportioned four to each boat, 
 and to an accompaniment of more or less 
 musical cries, were extricated from the mass 
 of wriggling black boats which seemed almost 
 serpentine in the sinuosity of their movements, 
 and were off to our hotel. This gondola was 
 our omnibus, or our carriage, our baggage 
 wagon, our furniture van, and had we been 
 fortunate enough to have died there, would 
 have been our hearse. There are no horses, 
 no automobiles, no other means of conveyance 
 than these gondolas, save that now some 
 sacrilegious dogs have started a line of little 
 steamboats to ply upon the Grand Canal, but 
 thank fortune, they cannot go through the 
 little narrow canals which wind and wind into 
 the deeper mysteries and delights of old Venice. 
 We followed the Grand Canal perhaps a 
 third of its length and then turned suddenly 
 to the left, through a little opening scarcely 
 wide enough for two boats to pass, and from 
 this into another, and so on and on, until our 
 minds were as bewildered as in a crystal maze, 
 for three-quarters of an hour, then suddenly 
 
250 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 we burst forth into the Grand Lagoon, almost 
 in front of the Doge's Palace, and were placed 
 alongside of the steps of the Hotel Danieli, once 
 the famous old palace of Nani Mocenigo, which 
 was to be our home during our stay. 
 
 We could barely wait to finish our dinner, 
 good as it was and hungry as we were, before 
 getting out of doors into the midst of what 
 seemed to us a veritable carnival of pleasure, 
 and yet as we learned was but the ordinary 
 life of the city in the off season. The hotel 
 adjoins the Doge's Palace and the old prison, 
 between which hangs the famous Bridge of 
 Sighs. Along the Rivi degli Schiavoni — the 
 wide footway following the water to the 
 Piazza San Marco — we joined the slowly 
 moving procession, picking our way among the 
 little tables and chairs which push out from 
 the cafes to the very edge of the water. Music 
 was everywhere and drinking and eating seemed 
 to be the only object of life. Excepting for a 
 few gondolas loaded with produce, moving 
 along the canal, there was no sign of anything 
 having a serious import in life. Around the 
 great Piazza of San Marco the stores were all 
 aglow with light and seemed in the flush of 
 business, and yet among them all there was 
 nothing more serious to sell and buy than 
 
ON THE RIALTO 251 
 
 pictures and laces, and watches and jewelry, 
 and more things to eat and more things to 
 drink, and through it all moved the multitude, 
 to feed the lust of the eye and ear, but so far 
 as could be seen, not to buy. We saw and 
 wondered, and wondered at what we saw. 
 How did they live? What did they live for? 
 How were they to keep it up? Who would 
 pay the bill? And yet never, excepting among 
 the old slaves of our own South, have I seen 
 such universal happiness and freedom from 
 care, — a race untouched with responsibility. 
 
 Yet what has this race done? It was late 
 at night, nearly twenty-three o'clock as they 
 measure time in Venice, when we started for 
 bed. I say started, for I know not how many 
 got there. As for myself, I sat at my window 
 looking out over the waters of the Grand 
 Canal and thinking of the palaces and towers 
 and massive structures these people who seem 
 so free from care had set up here on these bits 
 of sand, which they must first fence in from the 
 sea. Greater and greater grew my wonder as 
 I thought how, more than a thousand years 
 before, away back in the ages which were dark, 
 the light of genius was burning here in the 
 hearts and minds of these careless folk, and 
 they were creating an art and literature and 
 
252 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 a city towards which the feet of a new world 
 should turn. 
 
 I was roused from my musing by the open 
 window by a strange call which made its way 
 to my ears through the singing and the laughter 
 in the cafe below. It came again, seemingly 
 from off the Grand Canal, and was probably 
 a call from one of the gondoliers, but it seemed 
 familiar, and I listened to catch it more clearly, 
 and it came: 
 
 "Sola, sola! wo, ha, ho! sola, sola! " 
 
 And then I remembered having heard it 
 on the stage in Philadelphia, long ago, when 
 Henry Irving and Miss Terry were playing 
 the "Merchant of Venice/' and I knew that 
 out there in the night Launcelot Gobbo was 
 calling me. I caught my hat and hurried out 
 to the bank of the canal, just in time to hear 
 again the call and to locate it with the gondo- 
 lier of a shadowy boat moving slowly by. 
 I whistled and caught his attention and he 
 drew up to the steps. He was a trim-looking 
 youngster, with rather a flashy costume, and 
 no end of assurance as he accosted me in good 
 English: "I pray you, sir, what wouldst thou?" 
 
 I was not greatly astonished, because I had 
 already recognized him, and so I said as I took 
 a seat in the gondola, " Launcelot Gobbo, I 
 
ON THE RIALTO 253 
 
 would to the Rialto go, and see your old master, 
 Shylock." 
 
 Without an instant's hesitation he pushed off 
 and sent his gondola spinning along the Grand 
 Canal, past the gardens of the palace, the 
 Palazzo Guistiniani, where Wagner wrote his 
 "Tristan and Isolde/' past palaces innumerable, 
 the names of which he told but which I have 
 forgotten, for I was interested in getting him 
 to talk of himself, and finally he told me that 
 he was a direct descendant of the original 
 Launcelot, and that through all these centuries 
 his people had been gondoliers and had kept 
 their own peculiar cry, and that once a year, 
 when the moon was right, they could take a 
 passenger to the Rialto, where old Shylock 
 would appear, and I was the fortunate one. 
 And then he would speak no more of himself, 
 but became the commonplace guide, telling 
 me of palaces and their history and the works 
 of art they contained, until we reached the 
 bridge of the Rialto, where he set me ashore, 
 saying he would return for me at exactly half 
 past twenty-four o'clock, and he slipped away in 
 the darkness. 
 
 I knew not where I was excepting that there, 
 swung across the canal, was the familiar Rialto 
 bridge, which marks the center of that part 
 
254 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 of the old city which was known as the Rialto, 
 or "Exchange," as we should call it. I knew 
 not where to go or what to do, so sat down upon 
 the steps leading to the landing and glanced 
 about, and as I did so it seemed that there were 
 people moving about thepiazzetta, and presently 
 
 THE RIALTO BRIDGE. 
 
 they took clearer form, and I could easily 
 recognize, having seen them on the stage in 
 Philadelphia and Boston, Antonio and Bas- 
 sanio and Gratiano and Salanio and Salarino 
 and Lorenzo and a lot of others who had no 
 names. And then I began to feel that I was 
 being deluded, and so pinched myself and stood 
 
ON THE RIALTO 255 
 
 up and turned around, and when I looked 
 again they were all gone. But looking across 
 the steps at the capstone on the other side, 
 there sat a withered-up, gray-haired and 
 bearded old man, whose knotted hands were 
 clenched together with a grasp like that of 
 death. I nearly started from my seat, and then 
 I recognized the old Jew, Shylock. I remember 
 at the time that I did not wonder how he got 
 there; it seemed self-evident that he must have 
 come up from the water, and so I sat and 
 looked at him until I found my nerve, and then 
 I asked, "Art thou Shylock, the Jew, who was 
 condemned in the court of Venice?" In a 
 voice weak and yet distinct he answered, "I 
 am." And then I said, "How came you here 
 so many long centuries after you should have 
 finished your career on earth?" And then he 
 told me the story, running something like this, 
 translated into modern speech. 
 
 " You will recall the disaster which came 
 upon me and my house, as told fairly well by 
 that Englishman, Shakespeare, when the great 
 injustice was done me by the court of Venice 
 and I was robbed of both my goods and my 
 opportunity. Why, had justice been done me 
 I should have had ownership of every part of 
 this great city long before this time. Already 
 
256 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 I had my eye on universal possession, when, 
 owning everything, I should administer it for 
 the general good, but there was a man named 
 Antonio, also a rich man, who stood in my way, 
 and he must be removed, and that was why 
 I wanted to kill him, not, as every one said, be- 
 cause he was a Christian; what care I for that? 
 not because he called me dog and spit upon me; 
 what do I care for that? but because he stood 
 in my way of universal possession. You will 
 recall what I say in Act III, scene 1, "I will 
 have the heart of him, if he forfeit, for were 
 he out of Venice, I can make what merchan- 
 dise I will." And so I sought to kill him under 
 the law. Then came that woman — since Adam 
 it has ever been a woman — disguised as a 
 learned Doctor of the Law and tricked us all 
 with her words, and made me a pauper, and 
 there was naught for me to do save throw 
 myself into the sea and die. But because of 
 my great benevolent thought of the good of 
 man when I possessed all things, it is the 
 pleasure of the gods to allow me to come up 
 once a year and sit here and tell my story to 
 whomsoever will listen, till I see coming over 
 the bridge yonder that treacherous Portia, 
 when I must go back for another year to sleep 
 beneath the dark waters." 
 
ON THE EIALTO 257 
 
 He paused, and with eagerness I asked as to 
 what he meant by his great benevolent pur- 
 pose of owning everything and then adminis- 
 tering all; what would the people say to that? 
 He looked at me with pity, and then he said: 
 'Yes, I should have owned everything, houses, 
 lands, boats and jewels and food and clothing, 
 and having everything, I could apportion it 
 so that all would have enough and none would 
 have too much. But alas, as you say, the 
 people would object. They killed me, an 
 angel of benevolence, and then allowed a 
 new and greater Shylock, one hard, cold 
 and unfeeling one which hath no personality 
 and no heart, to do exactly what they denied 
 me. He has a new name, I believe, in these 
 days, and is called "Trust" or "Corporation," 
 but his purpose is like mine, just to own 
 everything in all this world, and to adminis- 
 ter it, not as I would have done, for the 
 good of man, but for his own selfish ends. 
 And behold, he destroys everything which 
 gets in his way; human hearts are but to 
 make the pavements over which he stalks, 
 and he has taken your cities and your streets, 
 he lights your houses, he brings you every 
 drop of water you drink, he clothes and 
 feeds you, and carries you all over the world 
 
258 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 in what you call railroads, and all for what you 
 pay him. He builds great theaters in which 
 great actors enact my life, that the world may 
 point the finger of hate and scorn at me, and 
 forget the new Shylock who grips them all in 
 a hand of steel. Alas, poor deluded race, to 
 howl at the puppet Shylock, while the new and 
 real Shylock takes pound of flesh and blood 
 and all!" 
 
 "But," I cried, "Shylock, you are not fair; 
 you do not know the new conditions; you — " 
 
 Shylock gave a cry of horror, and grasp- 
 ing his long white beard with one hand, with 
 the other he pointed towards the bridge and 
 shrieked, "See, she comes, Portia!" 
 
 I followed the direction of his finger and saw 
 no one, and turned back to him; but he was 
 gone, and there were but a few bubbles on the 
 surface of the Grand Canal where he had prob- 
 ably gone down — or it may be they were made 
 by the oar of Launcelot Gobbo as he brought 
 his gondola up to the steps and invited me to 
 a seat in the bow. 
 
 Launcelot did not take me home by the 
 Grand Canal, but through about every dark 
 and dismal passage in the whole city, and all 
 the way he would speak no further word. I 
 sat patiently for what seemed hours, knowing 
 
ON THE RIALTO 259 
 
 I was in his control, but at last he brought me 
 near to the landing of the hotel and demanded 
 three thousand ducats before he would let me 
 land. It was a beastly outrage, but it was so 
 late, and rather than to have a scene I paid 
 him and went quickly to my room and to bed. 
 
 At the breakfast table the next morning I 
 told my adventures in some detail, and there 
 was one minister there and he a Liberal, with 
 a supposedly open mind, who said quite frankly 
 he did not believe it. But I said to him, "You 
 just wait till we get out in our gondolas to-day; 
 I will show you the canal, and the bridge, and 
 the stone steps, and even a long black gondola, 
 with a tall dark young man wielding the oar, 
 and furthermore, when we get back to America, 
 I will show you in Act V, scene 1, of the ' Mer- 
 chant of Venice,' the call of Launcelot Gobbo ? 
 'Sola, sola! wo, ha, ho! sola, sola!' " 
 
 What more could I do? 
 
 :oc^|»o«=^ 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 ROUND ABOUT VENICE 
 
 DEMOCRATIC ANGELS IN THE PALACES OF 
 PRINCES 
 
 |IVING in a palace was a novelty to 
 most of us, and brought into sharp 
 contrast with the commonplace 
 wooden house of New England, its 
 peculiar features were deeply impressed upon 
 our minds. Even in sleep our dreams had 
 something of a royal purple tint, and if we did 
 forget for a time, when in the morning, as we 
 arose and missing the rug, we landed our bare 
 feet on the cold stone floor, we were instantly 
 recalled to our exalted station, and felt some 
 of the exhilaration of royalty. For actual 
 home comforts commend me, I pray you, to 
 the good old-fashioned, Yankee farmhouse, 
 where if we froze to death it was no more than 
 we expected, and this was sure not to happen 
 in the middle of August. 
 
 There are things about these old palaces 
 which are of more than passing interest, — the 
 rooms with their lofty ceilings, the walls of 
 
 260 
 
ROUND ABOUT VENICE 261 
 
 pure white or of fading tint and fresco, often 
 adorned with pictures of more or less value, 
 and the great halls, none of which are so poor 
 as not to have some statues by way of decora- 
 tion and about which are set curious pieces 
 of furniture dating back anywhere in the 
 centuries. A hundred years, more or less, 
 seems to stand for so little here. In our 
 country anything one hundred years old im- 
 mediately claims our respect as an antique 
 of real worth, but here in Venice anything less 
 than four hundred years old is deemed almost 
 frivolous. 
 
 If we could only know! I wandered about 
 an antique shop and handled bronze and iron 
 door fixtures, bells, lamps and candlesticks, 
 and the dealer never hesitated an instant in 
 pronouncing this thing thirteen hundred years 
 old, and that eight hundred, and something 
 else five hundred. One could load a trunk 
 with these sacred relics, if he had the price, but 
 when you are charged seven francs for an old 
 bronze door-knocker with nothing but the word 
 of the dealer that it was not made last week in 
 the back shop, the appeal to credulity is more 
 than Yankee blood can stand. Every one is 
 warned, before going to Venice, not to pay the 
 price asked for anything, for the dealers expect 
 
262 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 to come down; they are disappointed if there 
 is not a bit of "bargaining." It really seems 
 that dealing is a game rather than a business, 
 and that they are all in it for the fun rather than 
 for the money. It does not take long for the 
 tourist to "get into the game/' and to like it. 
 I dropped my good American watch on the 
 stone floor of our palace and broke it, — the 
 watch, not the floor, — and rather than have 
 it "doctored" before I got home, I bought a 
 new one. I bought a "Swiss watch" for a 
 dollar and sixty cents, which I afterwards 
 found sells in America for nine dollars, but 
 instead of being puffed up with my achieve- 
 ment, I was filled with shame that I did not 
 get it for a dollar and a half. 
 
 Venice seems to be made up very largely of 
 palaces and churches. Along the Grand Canal 
 there are very few buildings which sometime 
 have not been palaces. A good many have 
 been "converted," and are now serving as 
 hotels, or warehouses, or art galleries, or mar- 
 kets or stores, or pensions. The last is the 
 foreign name for the "boarding house"; it 
 sounds well, and is cheaper than a hotel, and 
 if one is to make a long stay in any place, far 
 more desirable, as it affords an opportunity 
 to get close to the people, in fact quite as close 
 
ROUND ABOUT VENICE 263 
 
 as one dares to in many instances. But in 
 spite of their " conversion" the palaces are 
 really very attractive, more so on the outside 
 than inside. For in those days when men were 
 building palaces and had the time, the tem- 
 perament, the artistic sense and the money, 
 whether it was their own or not, they created 
 some worthy and enduring "fronts" which are 
 well worth days and weeks of study. There 
 is much beauty of design, marvelous delicacy 
 of treatment, and particularly a command of 
 stubborn marble which gives it the ductility 
 of life. The ivy which clambers over one of 
 our old churches shows hardly more flexibility 
 and versatility than a piece of marble in the 
 hands of one of those old Venetians. 
 
 There is nothing in the world, so far as I 
 know, more thoroughly ideal in the way of 
 aesthetic enjoyment than to drift slowly along 
 the Grand Canal and just study the fronts of 
 these palaces so rich in art and history. It 
 would take a book of considerable size merely 
 to catalogue them, and with the exception of 
 a few which were especially fixed by some 
 historic connection, there remains only a con- 
 fusion of color and form, and yet a confusion 
 that in itself is artistic and rich in most ex- 
 quisite memories. 
 
264 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 I recall, however, the Palace of Guistiniani, 
 which that wretch Launcelot Gobbo pointed 
 out to me on my midnight visit, which dates 
 back to the fourteenth century and where 
 Wagner is said to have dwelt, but we found 
 near the other end of the canal the Palace 
 Vendramin Calergi, a marvelous creation of the 
 fifteenth century, where Wagner died, and to 
 which all Venice points as a sort of Wagnerian 
 memorial. In spite of the beauty and peculiar 
 architectural charm of these fronts, most of 
 us require the personal touch in some way to 
 hold them in memory. In Venice, as every- 
 where in the world, only the abnormal ab- 
 sorbs itself in material things apart from the 
 personal. The fact that our own W. D. 
 Howells lived for a time in the Palace Falier 
 fixes that fifteenth-century gothic building in 
 our mind's eye far more distinctly than either 
 the truth or beauty of its architectural lines. 
 We turn away from this, to find diagonally 
 across the canal the Palace Rezzonico, warmed 
 into an enduring place in our hearts by the fact 
 that Robert Browning died there in 1889, and 
 a little farther on, on the same side, is the 
 Palace Balbi, from the windows of which Na- 
 poleon and Josephine used to watch the pano- 
 rama of aquatic life. But now it is occupied 
 
ROUND ABOUT VENICE 265 
 
 by one "Guggenheim, dealer in pictures and 
 antiquities." And we secretly wonder if there 
 is any connection between him and one " Gug- 
 genheim, Senator from Colorado, and owner 
 of almost everything under the surface of the 
 earth." There is the palace where Byron 
 lived, the palace where Dante lived; even the 
 home of Desdemona is pointed out; you have 
 but to stay long enough to discover that nearly 
 if not quite every one who ever amounted to 
 much is associated with some palace in Venice. 
 And we do not wonder, for the witchery of the 
 place is almost sufficient to call the dead to life. 
 And yet we turn from the many palaces to 
 the one which, more than all others, by picture 
 and story has been woven into the life of the 
 world. Just over the bridge, crossing a tiny 
 canal, from our hotel, and we were beneath 
 its balconies, and from this point of view it 
 was wholly unattractive, for it seemed more 
 like a prison than a palace of residence, and all 
 along in its shadow, at almost any time of day 
 or night, there were men and women sitting 
 on the pavement, or lying in grotesque form 
 and sound asleep. And they were not of the 
 courtier class, such as we had seen on the stage, 
 and when in our boyish dreams we had visited 
 palaces. They wore no silken or any other 
 
266 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 kind of hose, their garments were not of satin 
 or of velvet, their locks were not perfumed 
 with anything more fragrant than sea water, 
 they bore no slender sword. They were just 
 dirty, wretched-looking, everyday men and 
 women who knew little and cared less for the 
 secrets of the centuries which were hidden 
 
 HOTEL DANIELI AND DOGES PALACE. 
 
 within the walls against which they slept. 
 But they were content and, perhaps, slept as 
 sweetly outside as ever princes had slumbered 
 within. 
 
 To see the Doge's Palace one must get a long 
 way off, it may be out on the Lagoon, and see 
 it as a part of the picture; then the simple 
 beauty of its lines is revealed, and the delicacy 
 of its coloring, due to time quite as much as 
 
ROUND ABOUT VENICE 267 
 
 to art, appeals to all that is fine in one's nature. 
 In certain lights, the revel of color which we 
 connect with all Venetian pictures is not an 
 exaggeration, for sky and sea bend their 
 charms to meet the upreach of man's art- 
 yearning, and every blot is veiled, and all is 
 beautiful. There can be nowhere in the world 
 a more completely entrancing picture than the 
 view from the Lagoon through between the 
 two great palaces to the Piazza San Marco, 
 with the center of the picture filled with the 
 graceful lines of the new Campanile. 
 
 But don't get too close, or you will see 
 through the veil. If we could but come from 
 the Lagoon into the Doge's Palace with our 
 eyes shut, there would be no break in the 
 charm. But probably we need to have it 
 broken. Too much beauty is like too much 
 sweet or too much of anything. It is good to 
 feel the drawing of the baser as well as of the 
 best, though we may respond but to the best, 
 for the best will be a little better because of 
 the contrast. And so with open eyes we crossed 
 the Piazza to enter the palace, passing from 
 sunshine into shadow, but also passing from 
 human shadows into human sunlight. 
 
 Something over one thousand years ago a 
 palace was first built on this site, which was 
 
268 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 destroyed during wars or insurrections, as were 
 four others which followed it. The present 
 building is four or five hundred years old, and 
 has the virtue, or the fault, of looking about 
 the same age as everything else in the city, 
 including some of the people. There is a 
 grand entrance, called the " Porta della Carta," 
 because the official bulletin board was hung 
 there in the olden times, before the advent 
 of the newspaper. Through this gate we come 
 into the court, from which entrance is had 
 to the various rooms. Two staircases, the 
 "Giant's" and the "Golden Stairs," lead up to 
 the several balconies, the latter being reserved 
 for the feet of royalty alone. The Hall of the 
 Grand Council is the chief interest, for here 
 sat the representatives of the noblest families, 
 to whom the government of the republic was 
 committed. No assembly has been held since 
 1849, and now but heroic memories fill the 
 great area of the hall, aided by a wonderful 
 series of historic pictures, many of them by 
 the Masters. 
 
 The Republic of Venice is no more. It was 
 never a republic according to our understand- 
 ing of the term, but in its day it was a long 
 reach ahead towards the ideals even we have 
 not yet realized. The Doge was not a Presi- 
 
ROUND ABOUT VENICE 269 
 
 dent — simply an executive officer; he was 
 a ruler, and to a considerable extent his will 
 was absolute. But there were some things 
 about that old government which foreshadowed 
 the true principles of democratic rule. And 
 Venice takes its proper place in history as 
 one of the rungs in the ladder on which the 
 world is climbing to better things. There was 
 one feature of the Venetian government which 
 deserves particular mention, and that is pre- 
 served in the "Hall of Scrutiny," in which the 
 Senators cast their votes. There might have 
 been secret caucuses in those days as now, but 
 when it came to the actual voting the ballots 
 must be cast in the open, and any one in the 
 republic, and even strangers, might look on 
 and see how each man voted. No doubt great 
 progress has been made in every form of 
 government of nations, large and small, but 
 when we look back over the centuries along 
 the course of the struggles of men, how pitiful 
 appears the pride of the man himself! Behold, 
 a people calls one of its number to serve, and 
 he struts his brief time before the multitude 
 and feeds his ears with the applause, and if he 
 is able, has his form reproduced in marble, and 
 then he dies, and before another century is 
 gone he is forgotten, and his statue, if it have 
 
270 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the merit of true art, takes its place in its niche, 
 to help a coming student or stir the curiosity 
 of the passing tourist, but if it be simply a 
 reproduction of the man, it chinks a hole in 
 the wall of a new administration. Well, even 
 the pitiful clinging to life, which leads us to 
 transmute ourselves into something more en- 
 during than flesh and blood, makes its con- 
 tribution to human welfare and happiness. 
 But it may be that we are all building better 
 than we know, and those who fall into the 
 ground and die bring forth more fruit than 
 those who stay on top of the earth and calcify. 
 The Piazza of St. Mark is the center of 
 Venetian interests. You can see every person 
 in Venice if you remain long enough in the 
 Square. It really seems that all are bound 
 to come there sometime during the twenty- 
 four hours of the day. I do not blame them; 
 I should have liked to continue coming for 
 days and days, for never have I seen a more 
 varied and brilliant panorama of human life 
 than is unrolled there. So common are the pic- 
 tures of the place, with the feeding of the 
 doves, the front of St. Mark's Church, the 
 marvelous old clock, the flagstaffs, the Cam- 
 panile, and more than all else, the kaleido- 
 scopic shops, that even the newly arrived 
 
ROUND ABOUT VENICE 271 
 
 American does not feel strange; it is just what 
 we expected, only perhaps a little more so. 
 
 St. Mark's Church for some reason does not 
 appeal to me as some of the other great cathe- 
 drals; perhaps it is so shut in that it does not 
 have a fair show architecturally. If it were 
 set out by itself, on some great height, it would 
 be more impressive. And the inside too is 
 disappointing, possibly because there is so much 
 of it, and it is such a conglomerate of good 
 things that none of them can receive their 
 full value. For instance, there are over two 
 acres of mosaics, and therefore not to be 
 enjoyed any more than one can really enjoy 
 two acres of violets or roses. To this great 
 building have been brought the offerings of the 
 faithful from every clime; the good, religious 
 old Venetian pirates looted the temples and 
 mosques of the East and brought the spoil 
 to lay on the altar of their devotion, and among 
 these pious thieves were a couple who stole 
 the body of St. Mark the Evangelist from the 
 temple he himself had founded in Alexandria 
 and brought it to Venice, and it was buried 
 beneath the altar, and St. Mark became the 
 patron saint of the city. Just what would 
 be St. Mark's honest opinion of the process of 
 his exaltation is not given prominence in the 
 
272 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 annals of the Church, but he has this consola- 
 tion, that if one must remain for several thou- 
 sand years upon this earth, there is perhaps 
 no better place in which to spend them than 
 in the palace of the Queen of the Adriatic. 
 
 It should always be moonlight in Venice, for 
 only when the full moon sheds her mystic 
 light does the real magic of the place tangle 
 up and make captive the senses, and we sur- 
 render the last restraint and give ourselves 
 willing subjects in a fairyland. On one of 
 those rare nights, when every condition was 
 right, we " Angels," in our gondolas, joined 
 what seemed an endless procession of these 
 graceful black crafts, and made our way to the 
 head of the Grand Canal, and became a part 
 of such a musical carnival as can exist nowhere 
 else on the face of the earth. A large platform 
 was anchored in the stream, and this was 
 laced all over with thousands of little lights, 
 until everything material about it was hidden. 
 Upon this platform were a fine orchestra and 
 a number of the best singers obtainable, and 
 the resources of the city were drawn upon to 
 provide this entertainment. 
 
 As early as we were in getting to the center 
 of interest, already there were hundreds of 
 gondolas crowding upon the platform, and 
 
ROUND ABOUT VENICE 273 
 
 from every direction hundreds more were 
 coming. Many of them were beautifully deco- 
 rated with lights and bunting, and from all 
 came the sound of laughter and voices of 
 pleasure. It was but a few moments before 
 the whole canal was literally packed from shore 
 to shore with gondolas lying side by side and 
 end to end, so close that presently men with 
 sweets to sell ran from side to side as if the 
 way were bridged. Then at a signal there 
 was silence, and the music, like the moon- 
 light, seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere. 
 After a few selections, the singers' platform 
 was loosed, and the whole living raft of gondolas 
 moved slowly down the canal for perhaps a 
 quarter of a mile, where a stop was made and 
 another concert given; then on again for an- 
 other quarter of a mile, and so on through the 
 whole length of the canal and the length of 
 the night, up to midnight, until we were drunk 
 with music and novelty, and cared not whether 
 it ever came to an end. 
 
 This musical festival is provided by the city 
 several times a week, and the whole population 
 enters into its pleasure and splendor; many 
 of the palaces along the way are brilliantly il- 
 luminated, and colored fires glorify the shores. 
 It is not the least of the marvels where so many 
 
274 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 gondolas come from; really, there are thousands 
 of them, and how they can all come together 
 in such close proximity and hold their forma- 
 tion through the whole course of the musical 
 procession is beyond our understanding. The 
 only explanation of the wonder is that greater 
 wonder, the gondolier himself, who has the 
 most perfect control of his craft under all 
 circumstances. He guides it with the accuracy 
 of a bullet from a well-aimed rifle; he stops it 
 when going at a rapid speed with a suddenness 
 that is bewildering; he turns corners so close 
 it makes you catch your breath; and all with 
 never a sign of any special strain upon mind 
 or muscle. He does get excited at other 
 gondoliers, and their verbal battles are fierce 
 to listen to, but after a little become but a part 
 of a great harmony, where, so far as can be 
 observed, life is free from care and just becomes 
 one long, sweet song. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 
 
 IN WHICH FOUR ANGELS ADVENTURE INTO 
 FLORENCE AND SOUTHERN ITALY 
 
 T Venice we parted from the last 
 large group of "Angels," and four 
 of us took our solitary way, without 
 a guide, into the new and strange 
 fields of southern Italy. That we might save 
 time and money, and get an early morning view 
 of the Apennine mountains, we took a night train 
 for Florence. We secured all we sought, — and 
 some other things. There was no sleeper on the 
 train, but as we must leave Venice very late, and 
 be on the lookout very early, the few hours in 
 the compartment seemed but a trifle to those 
 who had imbibed the habit of the Berliners, of 
 turning night into day. Experience has taught 
 me, however, that there are two ends to a night, 
 and that that period of time has different aspects, 
 determined by the end from which the obser- 
 vation is made. The "perfectly glorious time," 
 which extends to four o'clock in the morning, is 
 apt to reveal some shadows to the backward look. 
 
 275 
 
276 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 We had a novel time if not a glorious time 
 on an Italian night train, but we were sure the 
 next morning that we had had enough. We 
 had thought to secure a compartment to our- 
 selves and so be very independent, but the lure 
 of Venetian life made us late in getting to the 
 station, and so when the train pulled out we 
 found ourselves facing the biggest Italian in 
 Italy and his family. We glared at each other 
 fiercely for a few minutes, and then realizing 
 that it did not matter, began chatting with each 
 other in our best American. The Italians were 
 perfectly still for some time, and then the man, 
 making the discovery in some way that we were 
 Americans, suddenly straightened up and began 
 whistling our national hymn, "America." He 
 whistled a verse, and then he sang a verse, and 
 then we applauded; then he smiled, and we 
 smiled; he invited us to take a drink — of 
 water, and then we were good friends, though 
 we had no means of communication save by 
 the sign language, of which I had become sus- 
 picious. But so far as companionship without 
 speech is possible, we have only pleasant mem- 
 ories of the big Italian and his family. We may 
 not say so much of the last hours of the ride, 
 for, in spite of ourselves, we did get deadly 
 sleepy, and there is no twist possible to the 
 
THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 277 
 
 human form which will make it conform with 
 comfort to the angles and motions of the Euro- 
 pean railway compartment for any consider- 
 able length of time. And it was suggested to 
 me, in that novel, if foolish, experience, that 
 one can get a pretty fair notion of the boundless 
 reach of eternity between the hours of two and 
 four o'clock in the morning. 
 
 But this " eternity " came to an end, and with 
 the coming of the dawn in the midst of the 
 Apennines came a reward which compensated 
 in no small measure for the expenditure of 
 energy in what proved to be a long and weary 
 vigil. I have to confess, however, that even 
 the most glorious scenery loses not a little of 
 its charm when seen through sleepy eyes. An 
 overdraft on body, brain or bank is pretty sure 
 to make trouble of some kind. 
 
 The Apennines are usually compared with 
 the Alps, because travelers are either coming 
 from or going to the Alps when they see them; 
 but they should not be compared. There are 
 points of likeness to be sure, as between all 
 mountains, but the Apennines have sufficient 
 individuality and character to stand alone. 
 While there are crags and peaks, cliffs and 
 chasms, these mountains of Italy touch one 
 gently and appeal to the sentiment. Of course 
 
278 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 a history of the heroic has been written on their 
 slopes and in their recesses, but we forgot the 
 battles in the contemplation of the beauties. 
 They do not aspire so high as to thrill the am- 
 bitions; their mood is to appeal to the emotions. 
 The feelings they awaken do not thrill so much 
 as impress. Their lines are not sharp and clear- 
 cut, incisive; they are soft in outline; they do 
 not command, they woo. 
 
 The railroad after quitting Bologna follows 
 quite closely the general course up the river 
 Reno until it is lost among the fountains on the 
 heights, and then through many tunnels — 
 
 
 THE ARNO, FLORENCE. 
 
 between the two cities some forty or fifty — 
 the train is carried out upon the other side of 
 the range and we look down into the great 
 valley of the Arno, the heart of Tuscany, in 
 which throbs the life of "Florence, the fairest 
 city in the world." 
 
THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 279 
 
 We all know how the cities of Italy are en- 
 titled: Rome, the eternal; Genoa, la superba; 
 Naples, la bella; Venice, the queen; Florence, 
 la gentile, — the city of fair flowers, or the fair 
 flower of cities. We came with eyes eager, 
 heart and mind receptive; and disappointment 
 awaited us. Had we spent but one day in 
 Florence, we should have brought away no trace 
 of enthusiasm; but fortunately we were spared 
 that fate. That first day had its place, but it 
 was like learning the alphabet as the way into 
 literature. We were like bees in the bottom of 
 a great bowl, in which had settled the dregs 
 containing sweets enough to sustain life, but 
 affording no vision of the majesty and beauty 
 beyond the rim. 
 
 The cathedral is the center of every Italian 
 city; it matters not whether the city began 
 there, to reach out in all directions, or beginning 
 elsewhere, groped its way back to attach itself 
 to the heart of its interests. And it seems so 
 unfortunate, from an aesthetic standpoint, that 
 the cathedral in these cities has seemed to 
 be as fateful in some instances as the railroad 
 station is with us, in calling into its shadow, not 
 the best and noblest in life and its achievements, 
 but almost the worst. Whatever can do so, 
 provided it has not the spirit of life within itself, 
 
280 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 seeks to engraft itself upon something living. 
 And so to get near to these wondrous creations 
 the path led through the common and not in- 
 frequently through the wretched. 
 
 Naturally we wanted to get at the "heart 
 of things" first, and therefore went at once to 
 the cathedral. There is a rivalry through all 
 Europe in securing the earliest beginnings of 
 the religious life, and Florence puts up a claim 
 which, if sustained, must give her the victory, 
 in insisting that "the site of its cathedral has 
 always been sacred ground." This position is 
 pretty safe, for while the Florentines may not 
 be able to prove their contention, no one else 
 can prove to the contrary. But they have his- 
 tory to show that as early as 315 A.D. there was 
 a recognized Bishop, Felice by name, and pre- 
 sumably he had a place of worship, and not un- 
 likely it was on this spot. The present build- 
 ing dates back for its beginning not much over 
 six hundred years, and has been in process of 
 erection practically ever since, or up to twenty- 
 three years ago, when it was officially finished. 
 Of course during that time many architects 
 have had a hand in it, but the original artist set 
 his seal upon it by having a purpose to build 
 "a temple which was to exceed in magnificence 
 anything the world had ever seen," and the 
 
THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 281 
 
 soul of his vision was a dome of such magnifi- 
 cent proportions and exquisite lines that it 
 could never be surpassed. And he was suc- 
 cessful, for even Michelangelo admitted that 
 while he might make a sister dome, he could 
 not make one more beautiful, and the dome of 
 St. Peter's at Rome falls short of this in some 
 measurements. It is a misfortune, however, 
 for the cathedral at Florence, that there is but 
 one place from which the real grandeur and 
 beauty of this dome is manifest, while the dome 
 of St. Peter's dominates all Rome. 
 
 Approaching the cathedral from the front 
 but a faint suggestion of its glory is manifest, 
 and even when inside it takes a long time and 
 observations from many points before one can 
 grasp its dignity and feel its sublimity. Prob- 
 ably there has been more discussion about this 
 interior than about almost any other in Europe, 
 all because the thing is so big we have to grow 
 up to it before we can know and appreciate it. 
 And in the end we come back to "the dome, the 
 dome/' always "the dome/' and we realize 
 how wise and farseeing was that old architect 
 who long ago sounded a note to which the cen- 
 turies have been keyed. 
 
 Within and without are works of art, mostly 
 lost in the confusion of numbers. Beside the 
 
282 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 cathedral, but entirely detached, stands the 
 Campanile, the " Bell Tower/' which, aside from 
 the coloring, is one of the most beautiful towers 
 
 THE CAMPANILE. 
 
 in Europe. It is the work of Giotto, who, in 
 1334, received instructions to surpass in mag- 
 nificence everything in the world, and in the 
 grace of its lines and the intricate beauty of its 
 decorations there can be little question of his 
 
THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 283 
 
 success. To my thinking, there are two towers 
 in the one: one the glorious shaft which we see 
 from a distance, so full of grace that it seems 
 to have lost the quality of weight, and it would 
 hardly surprise one to find it suspended in mid- 
 air like the prophet's casket; the other that 
 which we find in the closer view, when the 
 stories told in decoration are read with the eyes 
 held close, as when we read a book. And these 
 two towers in one really fulfill the poet's fancy, 
 "The city of Florence blossoming into stone." 
 
 And yet in the very midst of this glory, right 
 upon the steps of the cathedral to which the 
 centuries had been given, for which lives had 
 been sacrificed, and to which millions in money 
 had been devoted, the appalling poverty and 
 dirt and distress of wretched Italy awaited us, 
 personified in a ragged and unkempt and thor- 
 oughly miserable woman, with a still more 
 wretched, diseased and seemingly dying baby 
 in her arms, to beg for centesimi. Alas, poor 
 Italy! — rich in art and religious symbolry, 
 while the heart of humanity perishes with 
 hunger at thy gates. 
 
 The oldest building in Florence is connected 
 with the cathedral in its office, though sepa- 
 rated from it in fact. It is the Baptistery, dat- 
 ing back some twelve or thirteen hundred years, 
 
284 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 and is, if one can think it without being irrev- 
 erent, like a small "roundhouse," from which it 
 would not surprise one to see locomotives issu- 
 ing, until near enough to see the great bronze 
 doors, when there will be revealed the miracle 
 of what man can do with metal, weaving it into 
 a tapestry of delicate beauty, until the remark 
 of Michelangelo is appreciated, when he said, 
 "Such doors are worthy to be the gates of 
 Paradise." 
 
 All about the Piazza and reaching far up the 
 streets which ray out from it, are the shops, and 
 in little niches between them places for the sale 
 of wines, quite as common and occupying the 
 same place in the life of the community as the 
 soda fountain does in America. None of this 
 section is attractive to the eye, though there 
 are some fine shops, where jewelry and books 
 may be secured. But it was in this section 
 that we lost our hold upon "beautiful Flor- 
 ence," and we thought it was redeemed only 
 by the historic associations. For right here in 
 the midst of the busy and sordid life of the com- 
 mon every day, we were continually running 
 across some marker upon the life of the great 
 in the great past which had belonged to the 
 city. This was the city of Dante. They have 
 a stone in the street marking the place where he 
 
THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 285 
 
 used to come to sit and look upon the cathe- 
 dral, which appealed to his imagination. Here 
 in the midst of the rush of modern living is 
 the house in which he lived and wrote after he 
 had dreamed out the nightmare of his Inferno. 
 Never has there been an instance so pronounced 
 of a mind being obsessed with a theology until 
 it really took material form in the imagina- 
 tion and accompanying the imagination, an 
 ability to picture with words so that all the 
 world should see all it saw, and sometimes a 
 little more. And it is extraordinary how im- 
 pressionable is the mind of the world, in that 
 it has been shaped and directed in its theo- 
 logical thinking not more by the Bible than by 
 the weird and extravagant imaginings of a 
 Dante and a Milton. 
 
 Here, too, Michelangelo, the master of mas- 
 ters in nearly every department of art, dwelt, 
 and his house is marked; but even more is he 
 remembered in the Piazza named in his honor, 
 from which it was our privilege later to discover 
 the real and the beautiful Florence for which 
 we searched in vain where the crowd most did 
 congregate. 
 
 There is a deal of curiosity connected with 
 four historic names to which Florence gives 
 honors in these days. Remembering the re- 
 
286 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 ligious history of the city, the religious tem- 
 perament of the people, how she stands next to 
 Rome . in the devotion and sacrifice made to 
 sustain and exploit the Romish Church, it is 
 almost startling to note the changes which the 
 years have brought about, and see the pride 
 with which the citizens associate their city with 
 the names of Galileo, Amerigo Vespucci, the 
 Brownings, and Theodore Parker. It was in 
 this city that the works of Galileo were burned 
 and he was compelled under fearful suffering to 
 recant his scientific conclusions in public speech, 
 but reasserting them in whisper in the same 
 breath. To-day Florence cares for the house 
 in which he lived, for a temple, tomb, tower and 
 villa through which to preserve his memory. 
 The really great navigator, though not the dis- 
 coverer of our country, but from whom we re- 
 ceive our name America, was born in Florence 
 and is remembered to honor. And then those 
 wonderful leaders of the new literature of the 
 nineteenth century, the Brownings, and that 
 heroic American leader of the new religious 
 thought and life and of the larger Christian 
 Church, Parker. Strange anomaly! We went 
 out to the Protestant cemetery where the 
 bodies of Mrs. Browning and Theodore Parker 
 are buried, that we might pay the tribute of 
 
THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 
 
 287 
 
 our American gratitude and devotion to these 
 who have contributed so much to the deeper 
 and truer life of our country. 
 
 There is a significance in the presence of the 
 body of Theodore Parker in Florence greater 
 than many realize, for though that body may 
 never pass the walls which surround the ceme- 
 tery, the spirit of Theodore Parker is abroad all 
 through Italy. Strange as it may appear, it is 
 a fact that that priest-ridden country is to-day 
 the home of the greatest religious revolt of the 
 present century; a revolt against all that is bad 
 in the Romish Church, and a spirit of splendid 
 adventure after that which is rationally and 
 ethically Christian. 
 
 It was after our return from the commercial 
 and historic Florence that we felt our disap- 
 pointment, and felt that "the fairest city of 
 the world" was but a figment of the imagina- 
 tion of the poet. But there came a new day, 
 after a good night's rest, and a new Florence, 
 when, under wise guidance, we saw the real city 
 to which the yearning feet of the best life of the 
 whole world have turned. We found galleries 
 the equal of anything the world over and, com- 
 petent critics say, better than any others. So 
 far as one may judge by the names of the artists, 
 there is no more complete collection, and for 
 
288 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the lover of art here is the companionship of 
 the best the world has known. 
 
 But we found the Florence of which we had 
 read and dreamed, not associated with the 
 galleries and their treasures; we found it only 
 when we got away from the center, up along 
 the hills which hold the city in their arms. 
 When we crossed by the Ponte Vecchio over the 
 
 PONTE VECCHIO. 
 
 river, we tried hard to see the poet's "Sunny 
 charms within the Arno's breast," but found 
 only rather painful suggestions of the yellow 
 Schuylkill which flows through our own city of 
 Brotherly Love. But beyond, among the gar- 
 dens and the palaces, through the broad streets, 
 which lift one gently through marvelous winding 
 ways, up and up, to reveal, as through vine- 
 framed windows, ever more and more charming 
 
THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 289 
 
 scenes, until at last we came to the Piazza 
 Michelangelo, and looking over the walls, we 
 knew why Florence was called the fairest city 
 in the world. From that point none of the 
 soil and dinginess was visible, there came to us 
 no sense of the shadows which gathered in the 
 alleys and drear places of the town, and even 
 the mud which on closer view discolored the 
 river Arno, from this point only changed it 
 into a little golden river, which most fittingly 
 flowed through a fairyland. 
 
 It takes us long to learn the lesson that we 
 must not get too close to that which we would 
 love, and some never learn, at least while on 
 the earth. We press our flowers so hard against 
 our heart that they are crushed, and we cast 
 them from us with a shudder, wondering why 
 we ever loved such misshapen things. Perhaps 
 we shall know more sometime, when some wise 
 guide takes us over the river and up on the 
 heights, and we look out over this world we 
 have been criticizing, and up into the heaven 
 we have been questioning. It may be just as 
 we found a new Florence and the real Florence 
 when we got the right point of view. Perhaps 
 there will be a new heaven and a new earth 
 when the former things shall have passed away. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 
 AND EVEN THE ANGELS GET THERE AT LAST 
 
 'N going from Florence to Rome we 
 followed the Arno up towards its 
 source in the mountains which am- 
 phitheater Tuscany, and then, plung- 
 ing through many tunneled gates, we found the 
 headwaters of the historic Tiber, which we fol- 
 lowed down to the Eternal City. It is a most 
 interesting journey. Historically, it follows the 
 route of Hannibal, the road at one place running 
 close along the shore of Lake Trasimeno, which 
 was the scene of one of his great battles, in 
 which the records show that fifteen thousand 
 Romans were killed in three hours, and the 
 brook, since called Sanguinetto, which flows into 
 the lake, ran red with blood. All this happened 
 twenty-one hundred years ago, and I am deeply 
 impressed by the comparison between ancient 
 and modern warfare as disclosed in the reports 
 of the present conflict going on in our neigh- 
 boring country of Mexico, in which an engage- 
 ment between the government troops and the 
 
 290 
 
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 291 
 
 rebels extended over a period of two days and 
 there were "no casualties on either side." 
 Thus do we see what strides civilization has 
 taken, how war has been robbed of its terrors 
 and made ladylike and enjoyable. But what 
 would Hannibal think? What would he think 
 of some of the battles of the more ambitious 
 nations, in which the destruction of half a 
 dozen mules and the wounding of one man is 
 spoken of as a scene of carnage? What would 
 Hannibal think of our new methods of warfare 
 in which, in the hands of a truly great civiliza- 
 tion, bacteria are more powerful than bullets, 
 and the spore mightier than the spear? 
 
 Nothing could be more archaic than the cities 
 and towns along this delightful way. The pas- 
 senger needs to pinch himself occasionally to 
 be sure he is awake and not dreaming the 
 Arabian Nights scenes which are unfolding be- 
 fore him. Walled cities belong so entirely to 
 the past and to romance, that it requires a con- 
 scious effort on the part of the live Yankee to 
 believe that he is not the victim of an illusion 
 as he sees perched far up on the side or the 
 extreme top of a mountain a most picturesque 
 pile, from which it would not surprise him to 
 see emerging a company of armored knights 
 going forth to battle with an enemy approach- 
 
292 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 ing from another mountain fastness. It is an 
 anomaly we realize, that behind those old walls, 
 some of them dating back into the centuries 
 before Christ, modern people are living, modern 
 interests are being pursued, and in some things 
 the people are quite as progressive as we are. 
 In the field of art they are, of course, far ahead 
 of us. Here is the town of Assisi with a popu- 
 lation of only five thousand, yet in the churches 
 are some examples of the work of the Old Mas- 
 ters. There are other things besides. But 
 place over against this town an American com- 
 munity of equal numbers, and where can we 
 find one in which there is a suggestion of estab- 
 lishing anything which can hold a permanent 
 place in art? And then, on the other hand, 
 where can you find in America a community of 
 like size showing such wretchedness in poverty 
 and degeneration? We have come at life from 
 opposite standpoints. Those old Italians built 
 churches to glorify God, and they sacrificed 
 themselves in doing what they believed would 
 be glorious in the sight of God; they sought for 
 beauty and grandeur, and with a transcendent 
 purpose they attained a transcendent result. 
 We of America and to-day seek to glorify God 
 through service to man, and verily we have 
 our reward; we would put a perfected humanity 
 
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 293 
 
 as our offering against the perfection of design 
 and coloring of the old Italian. As in most 
 things, both are wrong and both are right. 
 They need the perfecting of humanity, we need 
 the perfecting of the sense of design and color, 
 of beauty. And so it takes all the ages and all 
 the peoples to make a man, and all the peoples 
 and all the ages to glorify God. 
 
 Assisi is distinguished as being the city of 
 St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan order 
 of friars. Here is the original monastery, 
 which, aside from its historical associations and 
 some moderate art treasures, typifies the change 
 which has taken place in Italy, for it is now a 
 school. It was early in the thirteenth century 
 that the order was founded, but before the 
 beginning of the nineteenth century there were 
 nine thousand monasteries and one hundred and 
 forty-five thousand monks. St. Francis is said 
 to have died seventeen years after he estab- 
 lished this mighty society, and the years follow- 
 ing to the number of five hundred were filled 
 with controversy as to what had become of his 
 body, and then it was settled by the discovery 
 of a stone coffin containing some remains, and 
 these were pronounced genuine by a vote of 
 the cardinals, announced by the Pope, and 
 "all skeptics in the matter being henceforth 
 
294 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 declared liable to excommunication/ ' none have 
 presumed to question. 
 
 This place I have used not because it is re- 
 markable in any way, but because it is not; it is 
 simply typical of hundreds of towns of Italy, 
 differing but in the name and fame of their 
 saint, or of some peculiar product, and is a 
 miniature of the larger cities, even that of Rome 
 itself which we were approaching. Here is a 
 whole nation giving itself to the expression of 
 a religious idea. It does not matter how that 
 religious idea may appeal to us; it may involve 
 the wildest absurdities, or violate our every 
 conception of truth, yet there is no understand- 
 ing of Italy without the recognition of this 
 fact, that back of all its achievements in art, 
 in music, in literature, in war, in peace, in 
 industry, in commerce, in virtue and in sin, 
 there has been a religious motive; remove that 
 and what is there left of Italy, that is, of old 
 Italy? 
 
 Within the last few years a new Italy has 
 been born, which is writing a new story. The 
 old and the new are living here side by side, not 
 altogether in amity, and nothing strikes one 
 more forcibly than the incongruities to be met 
 at every turn. The Protestant world comes 
 to study the achievements of Rome, and the 
 
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 295 
 
 Roman robber invokes the aid of his saint that 
 he may be prospered in his nefarious schemes. 
 Wealth and poverty walk hand in hand, and if 
 they do not sleep in the same bed, there is only 
 a very thin wall separating them ! Such beauty 
 and bounty as few places in the earth can afford, 
 coddling as a mother does her children, dirt, 
 disease and death. Less than half a century ago 
 nearly all the landed property and many of the 
 industries and commercial enterprises of the 
 nation were in the hands of the Church, and 
 naturally it would be supposed that their man- 
 agement would be nearly ideal, but instead, 
 every possible abuse was fostered. Neglect and 
 corruption sapped the life of property and 
 people to the point of famine, while the 
 churches and religious orders flourished in 
 luxury. Then came the revolt of the people; 
 there grew up an attitude of defiance towards 
 not only the church but also towards religion, 
 and as a result, Italy to-day, supposedly the 
 home of religion, is really the nursery of free 
 thought, or perhaps no thought, for very largely 
 the people are in an attitude of indifference to 
 the church, practically telling the religionists to 
 attend to their own affairs of the soul, and the 
 state will look after the material welfare. Fifty 
 years of this has resulted in the new Italy, 
 
296 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 and the whole country has been transformed. 
 Cities are modern in their equipment; they have 
 all the comforts and conveniences of life; travel 
 has generally become safe and pleasant; and the 
 health conditions have been so improved that, 
 with an occasional lapse, there is nothing to fear 
 in visiting Italy even during the heated term. 
 
 But let no one imagine that ideal conditions 
 are already established. Improvements have 
 been made through the separation of Church and 
 State, but other evils have arisen to take the 
 places of those eradicated or modified. It is 
 true that the cities have been transformed, and 
 there is a new face to the land, but these trans- 
 formations have cost such vast sums of money 
 to secure and are costing such vast sums to main- 
 tain, that the taxes have become almost prohib- 
 itive of enterprise. It is estimated that the State 
 takes thirty per cent of the income of the peo- 
 ple, and that it must do this to provide the 
 improvements demanded and to maintain the 
 great standing army and the vast navy which 
 are deemed necessary. And with these heavy 
 taxes have come public abuses of the most ex- 
 travagant type. In one commune where the 
 tax levy was four thousand four hundred dollars 
 it cost thirty-six hundred dollars to collect it. 
 The methods of the assessors are open to the 
 
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 297 
 
 most severe criticism, and furnish the oppor- 
 tunity for the most rank corruption. And in 
 spite of the great sums of money which reach 
 the government, and of the great works which 
 have already been performed, the uplift of the 
 people is yet far in the future; generations and 
 not years merely are to measure the time of 
 Italy's redemption. 
 
 These things I read and these thoughts I 
 thought during our long rides in Italy, which 
 brought me to the conclusion that the problem 
 of the relation between Church and State had 
 not been settled by Italy, and to the further 
 conclusion that to separate Church and State 
 is a blessing, while to separate religion and gov- 
 ernment is a curse. When the Church uses the 
 State for its own selfish ends, it is quite as 
 much a looter and a grafter as an individual 
 who despoils his country; while the government 
 which tries to get along without religion as the 
 elemental motive and the guiding principle is 
 doomed to failure. 
 
 In figuring the creative forces m the world's 
 development we cannot omit the power of the 
 Romish Church. It does not matter what may 
 be our own attitude, or how violently we may 
 protest against her motive and her method, she 
 is a factor in human history not to be left out. 
 
298 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 To-day we are witnessing the curious fact that 
 she is declining in her strongholds and gaining 
 in new territory. Italy, France, Spain and 
 Portugal have laid the hand of power upon her 
 and commanded her to keep within her own 
 realm; they have had the experience of her un- 
 restrained control; they have watched while 
 other nations passed them in the race for pros- 
 perity and advancement, and realizing at last 
 the blight that was upon them have risen to 
 cast it off. And just as it always has been, and 
 perhaps always will be, they are sure to cast 
 off with the organic Church those great moral 
 restraints and religious inspirations, which are as 
 essential to governmental as to individual life. 
 They are casting off the sources of their own 
 wealth that they may open up the sources 
 other nations enjoy, and they will accomplish 
 what they seek. But when they have secured 
 material prosperity they will use it to try to 
 buy back the wealth which to-day they are 
 sacrificing, just as our people of great wealth 
 are eager to spend it in securing even little 
 fragments of the glory of the Old World. That 
 is, with all its faults, we cannot fail to recog- 
 nize that the Romish Church, perhaps through 
 its own selfishness, through its own violation of 
 the spirit of the Divine Master, in compelling 
 
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 299 
 
 men to serve it, instead of itself serving man, has 
 created an art, a literature, a music, and has set 
 the ages awondering at the temples it has 
 erected for its dwelling place. And we can say, 
 all these things it should have done and not left 
 the other undone. For when it built its temples 
 out of human hearts and paid for its art with 
 food from its children's mouths, it courted mat- 
 ricide. 
 
 It takes the nations of the world long to learn 
 to strike a balance and rightly apportion values. 
 The great lessons of life are not easily or quickly 
 learned. We have been studying Christianity 
 for nineteen hundred years, and barely know 
 the alphabet. But there is progress. The rise 
 and decline of Romanism are steps along the 
 way. To climb upwards Italy steps down to 
 the commercial ideals of other countries; to go 
 forward other peoples go back to study Rome. 
 The great trouble with the world is that it tries 
 to walk on One leg. It needs two. In the old 
 days, religion was incidental to the Church, and 
 the Church was glorified in structure and adorn- 
 ment; in the new day, the Church is to be inci- 
 dental to religion and, serving religion through 
 all kinds of establishments, shall aid the bring- 
 ing of the kingdom of heaven into individuals 
 and governments, until they are full rounded 
 
300 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 creatures, neither sacerdotal nor socialistic, but 
 both; neither material nor spiritual, but both. 
 It takes both body and soul to make a man or 
 
 ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. 
 
 a government. The old Romish Church had 
 soul, but tried to embody it in things instead 
 of embodying it in man, and it could not live, 
 any more than the material body of Italy will 
 live without soul. 
 
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 301 
 
 After all, what are we struggling for when we 
 build our walls and palaces and tombs? For 
 hours we have been traveling through the old 
 cities and towns of Etruria, or what is left of 
 them, — a bit of the wall, a fragment of the 
 art-yearning of souls which lived centuries 
 before the Christian era. We touch a relic 
 with our hand and our hand touches another 
 human hand away across the ages, the hand of 
 one who was thinking in an elemental way the 
 same thought we are thinking to-day. He was 
 saying that he wanted to be different from 
 others, a little better perhaps as he defined 
 " better"; he was saying that he would not be 
 like his brethren and live for a little and then 
 pass away; he would do something or make 
 something which should live through all the 
 years to come, and men through all time should 
 call him blessed. And so he made this bit of 
 pottery which we are holding in our hands, and 
 we are asking, Who was he? What was he? 
 Here is the work of his hands, but he is gone, 
 and left no trace, save as he made his contri- 
 bution to that great indefinite thing we call 
 life, which we, like all those who have gone 
 before, are hunting for, and working for, and 
 praying for. Who knows whether we are any 
 nearer to it than was the Etruscan potter who 
 
302 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 two thousand years ago swung into this world 
 out of somewhere and then swung out again 
 into another somewhere, just as we are doing? 
 He made his jug of clay and burned it in the 
 sun, and we are looking at it to-day. We make 
 ours of sand, — and to-morrow's rain will dis- 
 solve it. Have we made life any bigger and 
 better? 
 
 It is most fitting to approach Rome through 
 Etruria, for Rome was the next link in history. 
 And so we followed down the banks of the 
 yellow Tiber at the tail end of that great pro- 
 cession of vandals, and warriors and chiefs, and 
 conquerors, and kings and emperors which for 
 more than two thousand years has been moving 
 upon the city, and all the while the yellow 
 Tiber has been running beside the procession. 
 It was running there ages and ages before the 
 procession started, and it will still be running 
 when the procession has passed. Sometimes 
 men have tried to harness and drive it, but it is 
 so patient, and waits a little, only the fraction 
 of an instant out of the eternity of its life, and 
 the hand upon the reins slackens, and the yel- 
 low water runs laughing away to the sea, bear- 
 ing upon its current perhaps the body of the 
 would-be driver. 
 
 Away back in the third century one of this 
 
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 303 
 
 procession of Masters got into the city, and 
 then to keep others out he built about it a 
 great wall which was so strong it withstood the 
 assaults of generations; even time but smoothed 
 off its corners and made more firm its founda- 
 tion, and in these later years it was a marvel of 
 antiquity, and men came to look upon it from 
 the world over, saying that here is something 
 that is real and enduring, But in the later 
 procession there was a new engine of a new 
 war, before which it was humbled, and it bowed 
 itself to the earth, and a modern locomotive 
 drew a train of modern cars through the breach 
 in the Wall of Aurelian, and we, being passen- 
 gers on the train, thus entered Rome. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 BEING IN ROME 
 THE ANGELS DO AS THE ROMANS DID NOT 
 
 'NSTEAD of being carried to a palace 
 in a garland-decked and rose-scented 
 litter on the shoulders of eight slaves, 
 while the populace howled an enthu- 
 siastic welcome to Rome, the " Angels" walked 
 across the Viale Principessa Margherita to a 
 very good modern hotel. Times have changed 
 since Nero returned from Greece with the prizes 
 won at the Olympian games. And the Ameri- 
 can "sovereign" is different too. There had 
 lingered a faint hope that there might remain 
 some traces of the old Rome we had read about, 
 and with books we nursed this hope as we ap- 
 proached the city; and it was with a distinct 
 disappointment that we were shown to rooms, 
 via an electric elevator, which, save for their 
 stone floors, bare walls and high ceilings, did 
 not differ greatly from those to be found in 
 any well-appointed inn the world over. There 
 seemed a bare chance that at dinner we might 
 conform and be conformed to the old customs. 
 
 304 
 
BEING IN ROME 305 
 
 We had pictured to ourselves the luxurious din- 
 ing hall, at the door of which we were to put 
 off our shoes, — and I believe one "Angel" did 
 secretly unfasten the lacing, — and within we 
 should see a group of people wearing tunic and 
 toga, and reclining on inlaid couches, while 
 slaves kept them cool with great fans, and rap- 
 turous music stole away their senses. And then 
 we were to be served with pelorious oysters, 
 turbot drowned in oil, Sicilian lampreys, boar's 
 head, flamingos, turtles, dormouse and the 
 peacock, washed down with spiced wines cooled 
 with snow brought from the Apennines. We 
 read about all those things in very well written 
 books by authors of good repute. But we kept 
 our shoes on. Conventional waiters in con- 
 ventional dress served us to what might have 
 been bread from Minneapolis flour, butter 
 from the cotton fields of Dixie, pickles from 
 Pittsburg, soup from Camden, fish from Glouces- 
 ter, beef from Chicago, potatoes from Maine, 
 corn from Michigan, marmalade from Florida 
 and peaches from California. The macaroni 
 and olives were Italian. 
 
 When we started for St. Peter's, as good 
 tourists do as soon as possible after arrival, we 
 again departed from the old Roman customs, 
 and instead of doing as the notorious Nero did 
 
306 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 when he went to his circus, — riding in a two- 
 wheeled chariot, driving three or more semi- 
 wild horses, with armed soldiers to guard the 
 way, he himself being dressed in a white sheet 
 with a golden girdle and a wreath of laurel for 
 a hat, — we plunged into the mob, and got 
 standing room on the front platform of a 
 trolley car, which gave us a joyous sense of 
 being at home during the rush hours in the 
 subway. 
 
 And really I think the trolley much more 
 comfortable than the chariot, and quite as dig- 
 nified. The chariots I have seen were marked 
 by a conspicuous lack of those modern conven- 
 iences, such as springs, which make driving a 
 delight; and while there may have been ex- 
 citement for the driver and entertainment for 
 the spectators in the bouncing about over the 
 rough pavement from curb to curb, as for me 
 and my house, put us down among the he- 
 retical modernists on the question of transpor- 
 tation. And yet those wretched old chariots 
 accomplished one of the marvels of human 
 achievement in the matter of road building. 
 Because the wagons were so bad the roads must 
 of necessity be good, and so the Roman roads 
 which were built two thousand years ago are 
 in good condition to-day, while those we build 
 
BEING IN ROME 307 
 
 to-day, — the next administration will tear up 
 and build worse ones. 
 
 We have grown some during the last twenty 
 centuries; even if we cannot build as good 
 roads, we do not destroy so many men in the 
 building. We have our troubles. Our country 
 is shaken from center to circumference because 
 we are paying our road builders only eighteen 
 cents an hour when humanity demands that 
 they get twenty. We work them, some of them, 
 nine hours a day, when common justice insists 
 that they shall not work more than eight. In 
 some way they get three meals a day of fairly 
 good food, and they have something to say as to 
 how they shall be governed. But in those old 
 days there was one man, sometimes there were 
 two or three men, at the head, and he or they 
 got results regardless of the cost in human life 
 and happiness. The lives of men were not as 
 valuable to them as are the lives of beasts to us. 
 The slaughter of a few thousand was but a 
 passing incident, and often that slaughter was 
 made to contribute to the amusement of those 
 in power. Of course old history pictures only 
 those who were on the surface; the great mass 
 which made the strong current of life have no 
 place, and all we know is that a thousand, or 
 ten thousand, or fifty thousand of the great 
 
308 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 unknown were sacrificed that one might sit upon 
 a throne or that another might be thrown down. 
 Once good roads were built of human lives that 
 a brute might ride in ease to greater power; to- 
 day, in spite of our selfishness and sin, we are 
 building good roads as the way for humanity to 
 come to its own. We have not the roads, and 
 the temples which adorn them, such as we 
 journey over the ocean to see, but there are 
 few of us who have not more of comfort in 
 daily life than the most extravagant of Roman 
 rulers enjoyed; there are few who have not 
 nobler aspirations and loftier ideals than even 
 the poets of the olden days dreamed. And yet 
 we spend years in filling the minds of our chil- 
 dren with the names and deeds of those squab- 
 blers for power, who rode through slaughter 
 to a throne which they disgraced. We teach 
 our children to catalogue this bloody crew 
 among humanity's great. And I wonder if 
 it is right and best. Have we nothing better 
 with which to fill the hungry minds of our boys 
 and girls than the stories of these "greatest 
 men in history/' whose claim to glory rests on 
 the fact that they were a little more demonic 
 and debauched than those whom they . dis- 
 placed ; who violated every principle of human- 
 ity and saturated the years with the blood of 
 
BEING IN ROME 309 
 
 their fellow creatures. A very little old Roman 
 history will go a long way in satisfying real 
 needs in the development of the young life 
 of to-day. 
 
 But we are in modern Rome, with its new 
 streets and new life and new interests; we are 
 riding on the front platform of a modern elec- 
 tric car, and the ground we are going over and 
 the buildings between which we are passing do 
 not seem historic, save as we catch a glimpse of 
 some old church or palace out of tune with the 
 present. The crowd of people upon the plat- 
 form are not so unlike our own crowds at home 
 similarly situated; they are a little darker of 
 skin and eyes, a little more intense in manner 
 and speech, but it is easy to fancy they are 
 talking about the same things and thinking 
 much the same thoughts as our own people do; 
 the world is not so very big any more. But it 
 was all strange and we felt a bit lost until we 
 suddenly swung out on a bridge over the Tiber, 
 and then all at once we were at home; we had 
 caught sight of a something familiar; we knew 
 where we were. It was like seeing a familiar 
 face in a crowd of strangers. 
 
 Such is the power of a picture upon the mind. 
 None of us had ever been there before; we had 
 not yet acquired any sense of location and of 
 
310 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 distance, and yet all at once we knew, just be- 
 cause at the other end of the bridge we saw 
 the splendid old Castle of St. Angelo, just as we 
 had seen it in pictures since childhood. We 
 found some things older, and some bigger and 
 some more glorious in every way, but somehow 
 this old castle has always caught and held my 
 fancy as the embodiment of Rome. 
 
 Built originally as a mausoleum for the mem- 
 bers of the nobility, nearly eighteen hundred 
 years ago, it has served as a fortress round 
 which have swirled the battles of the centuries, 
 and as a prison, harboring prisoners of inter- 
 national renown, and as a most picturesque 
 ruin it now commands the attention of the 
 world. It was not a disappointment. So often 
 the pictures of childhood magnify out of all 
 reason, but though I had dreamed this castle 
 into one of the biggest things on earth, as it 
 loomed before us from the bridge it measured 
 quite up to my dream. Of course it is not as 
 big as the Colosseum, but it is big enough to be 
 splendid in its dignity. The Emperor Hadrian, 
 who built it for his tomb and memorial, was a 
 good deal more successful than most of those 
 old fellows who gambled with the future for 
 the chance to live. His name is still connected 
 with his monument, though Pope Gregory, four 
 
BEING IN ROME 311 
 
 hundred years later, with the help of a vision, 
 transformed the mausoleum into a castle, 
 thinking probably that Hadrian had received 
 all he deserved of honor, and should get a bit 
 of punishment for his insult to the Christ who 
 he thought "might be given a niche in the 
 temple with the other gods/' That is more 
 than a good many who ought to know him 
 better, give him. 
 
 The Castle of St. Angelo may now be looked 
 upon as a sort of outwork to St. Peter's; in 
 
 CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO, ROME. 
 
 fact, there was once a protected way from the 
 Vatican, through which the rulers of the Church 
 might flee to the castle for safety. And follow- 
 ing along this old wall, we approach as nearly 
 as we may in the car the center of all the great 
 interests of the Roman Catholic world, the 
 Piazza of St. Peter, with its splendid colon- 
 nades, and before us in the center rises the 
 
312 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 largest church building in the world, and on 
 the right that palace of power and mystery, 
 the Vatican. 
 
 It matters little what may be one's religious 
 opinions, I am confident that no man of thought 
 can stand in that place indifferent to the sensa- 
 tions which the place awakens. It was another 
 instance of the revival of a picture established 
 in the mind by long association. Complaint 
 is often made that from this point the majesty 
 of the building, particularly of the great dome, 
 into which Michelangelo put his inspiration, 
 is lost, because the next architect so modified 
 his plans, by carrying forward the facade, as to 
 dwarf the greater thought. But I am not so 
 sure, for now the dome, its foundations being 
 hidden, seems to be suspended in the air, and 
 yet so perfect are its proportions, so thoroughly 
 well balanced, there is nothing unnatural in its 
 position, but it blends as harmoniously with the 
 sky as the drift of a cloud. 
 
 We crossed the Piazza, approaching the steps, 
 up which the great as well as the small have 
 crept on bended knees, with no small degree of 
 wonder if not of reverence. The thing is so 
 great, to have been made by man, — the ant 
 and the ant hill are outdone. For nearly two 
 thousand years these little insect men have 
 
BEING IN ROME 313 
 
 been building and tearing down, and building 
 again, all the time trying to fix a thought with 
 the solidity and endurance of stone, each gen- 
 eration bringing its contribution of a grain of 
 sand, which the next generation weighed in the 
 balance, and if found wanting it was cast away, 
 and thus with the patience of centuries this 
 pile was builded. To me it is not beautiful, 
 excepting in some details, but it is big, it is 
 grand, it is majestic, it is glorious, it is thrilling. 
 It is not a bit of music frozen into stone as is 
 the cathedral at Cologne; it is the solidified 
 cry of the multitudes of the teeming millions of 
 earth. 
 
 We climbed the steps, not on our knees, to 
 the vestibule, which itself is larger than some 
 of the greatest churches, being two hundred 
 and thirty-five feet long, sixty feet high and 
 forty-two feet wide. Here we were held up by 
 a custodian who made us understand that we 
 must leave our cameras before entering the 
 building, and that he would take care of them 
 for twenty centesimi, and thus unarmed, we 
 passed through the doors of St. Peter's. I am 
 not presumptuous enough to attempt a de- 
 scription even of my own impressions. One 
 needs to stand still at the entrance for several 
 hours and let his eyes adjust themselves to 
 
314 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 new measurements, else he will misjudge every- 
 thing. And after he feels that he has thus ad- 
 justed himself, and moves to a new and better 
 point of view, he will realize that he must 
 begin all over again. The extended nave has 
 eclipsed the splendor of the dome from that 
 point, but really it is better so, for such maj- 
 esty needs to be approached gradually, and as 
 one passes up the long nave the dome seems 
 to open, spread out and soar into such vast 
 proportions as to be unreal. And the mind 
 must be forced by some specific figures and 
 commonplace analogies before it can sense the 
 scale on which everything is built. Just where 
 the curve of the dome begins there is a latin 
 inscription done in mosaic, and the letters ap- 
 pear the normal size, but we look at our book 
 and discover that each letter is but a fraction 
 less than five feet high. And then there are 
 some medallions showing the Apostles, and they 
 do not appear at all out of proportion, and yet 
 we read that the pen in the hand of St. Luke is 
 seven feet long, and we can figure out that if 
 we were near enough we should discover that 
 the figure of the man himself must be nearly 
 forty feet in height. We have come up out of 
 the world of ordinary people and are dealing 
 with giants. We must fix new standards on 
 
BEING IN ROME 315 
 
 which to base our judgment. We must see 
 through new eyes. And this is the reason why 
 there are so many opinions about St. Peter's; 
 we cannot all make new eyes alike in the brief 
 time we have for the making. It is like a half 
 dozen people guessing at the apparent diameter 
 of the moon and no two agreeing, and yet the 
 moon itself is not changeable. 
 
 We lingered about the high altar gazing 
 down into the alleged tomb of St. Peter, and up 
 into the real inspiration of Angelo, studying so 
 far as we could the marvelous monuments and 
 mosaics which the ages have deposited here, 
 and wondered more and more at the strange 
 contradictions in the development of Christi- 
 anity. 
 
 More than fifty millions of dollars was here 
 expended in housing and adorning the religion of 
 Him who had not where to lay his head; much 
 the larger part of it used in exploiting and per- 
 petuating the greed and selfishness and vain- 
 glory of those whose pretense was the service 
 of the humble Nazarene. All for Christ, and 
 yet is the Christ so hedged about and masked 
 by those who should reveal him that none may 
 find him in this wondrous place. This gateway 
 to him is blocked and choked with art, and 
 music, and gold, and silver, and precious stones, 
 
316 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 till not one may enter to touch the hem of his 
 garment. This gateway through which he 
 should go out to bear the words of life to 
 starving souls is but the locked and barred 
 door of his prison, shutting him from those to 
 whom he came to minister. He came to give, 
 in the three short years of his ministry, out of 
 the nothing he possessed, a world-full of be- 
 nevolence and hope and cheer and happiness to 
 the children of his Father. This his church 
 through the centuries has lived but to grasp 
 and get for its own aggrandizement from these 
 same children, the blood of their body, the 
 thought of their brain and the inspiration and 
 hope of their immortal souls, and strew a land 
 with pitiful wrecks of humanity. 
 
 We stopped for a few moments at the Choir 
 Chapel, in which the daily service was going 
 on, to find a group of priests alone participat- 
 ing, and it was our experience in other churches 
 in other cities of Italy that the indifference 
 to church attendance in Protestant America 
 but faintly reflects the conditions which obtain 
 in Roman Catholic Italy. There the Church 
 has yet an appeal, but has lost its command, 
 save over those whose minds it has shadowed. 
 And still they are religious people; the yearning 
 they do not understand, of a soul . they do not 
 
BEING IN ROME 317 
 
 know, they would respond to, and the habits of 
 forms of devotion ingrained through genera- 
 tions are not to be broken. 
 
 We watched a father with his little child 
 approach the great bronze statue of St. Peter, 
 and, curious anomaly of the influence of mod- 
 ern training, we saw him carefully wipe the 
 bronze toe of the statue, which has been nearly 
 worn off by the kisses of the faithful, with the 
 dirty sleeve of his jacket, and then lift the child 
 that she might bestow her worshipful salute. 
 
 It almost seemed we were alone, the place is 
 so vast, and yet within its walls and the more 
 closely guarded walls of the adjoining palace 
 of the Vatican, there was a whole world living 
 by itself, apart from our world. They knew 
 not our world; perhaps we did not know theirs. 
 Who can tell? We all wall ourselves in more 
 or less, we all wall others out. Perhaps some 
 day the walls of separation will all be broken 
 down, and we shall know each other and shall 
 know the truth. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 ROUND ABOUT ROME 
 FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE FAMOUS 
 
 T was with a keen appreciation of 
 the persecutions the early Christians 
 had endured within the arena of the 
 Colosseum that the "Angels" en- 
 tered that historic place. The rush of the wild 
 beasts upon their victims, which for the Chris- 
 tians served as an initiation into the noble 
 order of martyrs and as a popular entertainment 
 to the multitudes upon the " bleachers/' was 
 hardly more fierce than the rush of the guides 
 and post-card venders upon our little group of 
 timid sight-seers. And we had no thunders of 
 applause to inspirit us. If one must be a mar- 
 tyr there is surely some compensation in such 
 a fine dramatic setting. Mostly we spend our 
 lives trying to get into the spot light on the 
 center of the stage; there is a disposition on 
 the part of some to be willing to sacrifice 
 friends, reputation and even life itself — if it 
 does not hurt too much — to command atten- 
 tion. Certainly there is a buoyant quality to 
 
 318 
 
ROUND ABOUT ROME 319 
 
 the spectacular which is to be reckoned in the 
 account. And so it has occurred to me that 
 the real martyrs of humanity's history are not 
 those whose story we can read, but the great 
 army of unseen and unknown who have fought 
 out their battles alone and in the dark, going 
 down through suffering to death in solitude 
 and silence. Almost any of us, though craven 
 by nature, would put up something of a fight 
 against a bloodthirsty tiger if there were sixty 
 thousand people looking at us. I fancy there 
 will be some revelations sometime in the great 
 hereafter, when things are seen as they are, 
 and we shall discover that heroism was no 
 more in the heart of the man leading an army 
 on the field of battle than in the heart of the 
 woman at home waiting for the return of "the 
 hero"; that she whose heart was being eaten 
 out by some great grief and she who had been 
 exiled into obscurity by her convictions of the 
 truth were no less martyrs than those who 
 were torn in pieces by lions in the Colosseum. 
 And yet, after our experience with guides and 
 post-card venders, I am disposed to give those 
 early Christians high rank among the heroic of 
 earth. 
 
 It was the off season when we were there, 
 tourists were not plentiful, and these modern 
 
320 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 "wild beasts" were very hungry and very fierce. 
 But we met their attacks with Yankee shrewd- 
 ness, bought their cards at fifty per cent dis- 
 count, and marched around the arena at the 
 head of a procession of petitioners for our 
 
 THE COLOSSEUM. 
 
 bounty. And when we sat in the seats of the 
 mighty, to witness the pageant which memory 
 invoked, they formed a restless frame for the 
 picture. 
 
 We did not visit the Colosseum by moon- 
 light, as all other tourists seem to have done, 
 chiefly because there was no moon in Rome on 
 
ROUND ABOUT ROME 321 
 
 our dates. It was sunlight, and sun heat too 
 away up in the upper registers, which made us 
 yearn for the shadow of a rock as in a thirsty 
 land, and wonder at the endurance of those 
 who participated in the strenuous games of the 
 long ago. Though the place did appeal to us 
 as, in a way, ideal for a baseball or football 
 contest, having a capacity equal even to the 
 demands of a Harvard-Yale battle, we doubted 
 the staying power of even the most hardened 
 American "fan" under that burning sun. 
 Perhaps the intensity of the heat had something 
 to do with the intensity of the game, for there 
 has been considerable of a change in the course 
 of the centuries. Now on great occasions, as 
 the opening of the season, the Mayor of the 
 city, or the Governor of the State, or even the 
 President of the Union, tosses a ball to the 
 players, in faint imitation of the time when 
 the Roman Emperor, in merry mood, figura- 
 tively speaking, tossed a human victim to the 
 tiger. 
 
 We Americans who are more or less appre- 
 hensive that the tide in our own country which 
 is setting so strongly towards sport as the chief 
 end of man, have but to read a prophecy in the 
 story of Rome to find reason for the appre- 
 hension. The thought which controlled Rome 
 
322 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 at the time of the building of the Colosseum 
 was, "Keep the people amused and you can 
 do anything with them. " And this wonderful 
 place was opened something over eighteen hun- 
 dred years ago with an entertainment lasting 
 one hundred days, during which ten thousand 
 animals were slain, and Titus thus "made him- 
 self good" with his constituency. The coun- 
 terpart of this with us is the ward boss, who 
 may not slay ten thousand animals, but once 
 a year he opens as many kegs of beer as are 
 necessary to accomplish proportionately the 
 same result. We are building larger and larger 
 arenas for pleasure, under the delusion that 
 recreation is better than creation, and that as 
 long as people laugh they are happy. But 
 Rome laughed her way to her decline and fall. 
 The Colosseum is a distinct satisfaction to 
 the eye; few of the creations of man exceed it 
 in size, and its perfect proportions make it 
 majestic. It is over a third of a mile around 
 it, and though it is but the ruin of its former 
 splendor, enough of it remains most clearly to 
 suggest the glory that was. Through fine 
 arches and arcades we possess the place; we 
 can enter the arena where the titanic sports 
 took place, or climb to the seats of the spec- 
 tators. And we are led to marvel at the skill 
 
ROUND ABOUT ROME 323 
 
 of the builders, for the centuries have but solid- 
 ified their work until it seems like one great 
 gray stone hewn into shape. And all this was 
 done at the command of a robber ruler, one 
 who sent his armies out to waste other lands 
 and bring home their riches to build a monu- 
 ment for himself. At his command thousands 
 sprang to fight, to die, and all for what? The 
 fighters of those olden days did not know, and 
 we have not yet solved the riddle why men 
 fight each other at the command of another. 
 It does not matter whether it is in the arena of 
 the Colosseum or on the field of battle; it does 
 not matter whether it was in ancient Rome or 
 in modern Europe. As we sat there looking 
 down into that old arena there seemed to 
 come forth two accoutered for battle; they 
 bowed to the royal balcony, and then fell to 
 destroying each other. For what? And when 
 one was dead the other bowed again to his 
 master, and awaited his turn to become the 
 next victim. It is not so very different in the 
 whole scheme of war. Some one commands, it 
 may be a king, or a president, or the news- 
 papers, it does not matter; the foolish men 
 shout and begin to kill each other, and perhaps 
 some one gets a laurel wreath; but the ruler 
 gets the crown, the women and the children 
 
324 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the tears, and ultimately the country gets the 
 penalty. 
 
 I suppose that when Titus opened this great 
 place of amusement in the year 72, and realized 
 that it was the supreme achievement of man up 
 to that time, he felt that he had fixed his fame 
 
 IN THE ARENA. 
 
 for all time, and yet, though the name had 
 been written all over the place and carved deep 
 in every stone, it would have little more sig- 
 nificance to-day than any other five letters of 
 the alphabet, for the personality back of the 
 letters would have disappeared under the accu- 
 mulations of the years, even as the arena of his 
 
ROUND ABOUT ROME 325 
 
 amphitheater has been turned into a cellar by 
 the waste of the centuries. 
 
 On Palatine Hill one stands on the founda- 
 tion of Rome and looks around and down upon 
 more history than from any other point in the 
 whole world. Here it was that Romulus, hav- 
 ing killed his brother Remus, established the 
 city 753 B.C. Here was the Temple of Jupi- 
 ter, here the palace of the Caesars; tradition 
 says that here St. Paul was brought before 
 Nero. From here we can look down on one side 
 upon the Colosseum from which we have just 
 come, upon the great Arch of Constantine 
 honoring the man who made Christianity the re- 
 ligion of the State, and away through the valley 
 between Mount Aventino and Mount Celio, to 
 the Appian Way. On the other, side, at our 
 feet, is the Arch of Titus, and from this stretch 
 away the wonders of the Roman Forum, at the 
 other extreme of which rises the Arch of Septi- 
 mius Severus and, intervening, such a group of 
 historic ruins as no place on earth of equal area 
 can ever dream of possessing. It is an experi- 
 ence to be coveted to be thus in touch with the 
 past, and for the mind that is open and the 
 imagination that is unfettered there are treas- 
 ures nowhere else to be disclosed. One thou- 
 sand, two thousand, twenty-five hundred years 
 
326 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 make little difference in that which is elemental 
 in human nature. Men loved and hated then 
 as now; they gambled with fame and fortune 
 even as they do to-day. And after all, they 
 got what food they wanted to eat, what clothes 
 they cared to wear, and such houses as they 
 desired to live in, and then fought over the 
 extras. And that is about what we do. 
 
 We were in the Forum. Two "Angels" were 
 resting amid the ruins of the Temple of Castor 
 and Pollux. Two more "Angels" were stand- 
 ing in the ruined Basilica Julia, and one of 
 them, an "Angel" of the ministerial persuasion, 
 was in deep discussion with an Italian of the 
 baser sort, who evidently had some complaint 
 to make about the presence of foreigners in that 
 sacred place. Now, when one is tired, I do 
 not know of anything more restful than wit- 
 nessing a discussion between an American and 
 an Italian neither of whom can understand a 
 word the other says, and I recall this scene as 
 one of the peculiarly bright spots in a summer 
 which was one continued story of good times. 
 When the Italian came upon the unsuspecting 
 "Angels," he delivered an address which, so far 
 as the American mind could grasp it, appeared 
 to be one of Cicero's philippics against Mark 
 Antony; anyway, from the gestures, it appeared 
 
ROUND ABOUT ROME 327 
 
 that it was desirable that the Americans were 
 to get out. To this the ministerial "Angel" 
 replied in a few well-chosen words, indicating 
 his determination to stay there just as long as 
 he chose to do so, having paid the necessary- 
 fee. The Italian then delivered another ora- 
 tion, accompanied by a pantomime which might 
 mean anything or nothing, but giving the gen- 
 eral impression that he was getting mad and 
 that something was about to happen. At this 
 point the "Angel" resting in the temple of 
 Castor and Pollux offered the suggestion that 
 the other "Angel" try one of his old sermons 
 on the enemy as a fit weapon to pit against his 
 classic eloquence. As a desperate man resort- 
 ing to desperate means, the harassed but 
 doughty ministerial "Angel" passed his hand 
 across his massive brow to revive his memory 
 and clarify his thought, and then with his best 
 pulpit manner and preaching voice he began 
 a sermon which was good for at least thirty- 
 five minutes, and I took off my hat to be 
 ready to take the collection as soon as he had 
 finished, but before he had got half through the 
 introduction the Italian was on the run up 
 the slope towards the entrance and, so far as 
 we know, is running yet. And I don't blame 
 him. 
 
328 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 After this encounter we wandered over 
 towards the Temple of Concord, thinking to 
 soothe our minds by the suggestions of the 
 place, only to run up against a very curious, not 
 to say distracting, memory. When coming 
 through London I had been made the victim 
 of one of the raids in the interests of "Votes 
 for Women," and had hardly recovered my 
 poise of mind on this most modern question 
 when my attention was called to the fact that 
 in this same Forum, in the year 160 B.C., or 
 somewhere in that vicinity of years, one Cato, 
 an emperor or dictator, arose to make a speech 
 in opposition to a petition of the women, in 
 which he said that the men ought to assert 
 their authority over their wives, whose be- 
 havior was so shocking that he felt an emotion 
 of shame when he was coming through the 
 throng of women in the Forum. It was a de- 
 plorable fact, he said, that they were no longer 
 willing to sit attentively and listen to the elo- 
 quence of their husbands and brothers, but 
 were so degenerate as actually to solicit votes 
 of the consuls and magistrates in favor of 
 themselves. Perhaps Brother Cato thought 
 he had settled that question once and for all 
 time, two thousand and sixty years ago, but 
 after all this time we have come to know that 
 
ROUND ABOUT ROME 329 
 
 no question is ever settled until it is settled 
 
 right. 
 
 Between the Temple of Antoninus Pius and 
 the Temple of Romulus there are excavations 
 being made, and away down below the founda- 
 tions of the oldest they have found some tombs, 
 
 TEMPLE OF ANTONINUS. 
 
 which probably belonged to the ancient Latins, 
 antedating Romulus. From these they have 
 brought out a good many skulls in a very fair 
 state of preservation, and they are set up on a 
 ledge of the old temple wall, just as the modern 
 housewife places her pet dishes around the wall 
 of her dining-room. The skulls interested me 
 
330 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 tremendously, for in all probability they once 
 carried the brains of the rulers and leaders of 
 those days. And as I paused before a row of 
 them I seemed to see a marked resemblance 
 to some of the leaders of to-day, and I am 
 positive that in some of the features I recog- 
 nized a Roosevelt, a Bryan, a Champ Clark 
 and an Uncle Joe. 
 
 We spent a good deal of time in the Forum, 
 and yet not nearly enough to satisfy. Every 
 step revealed new wonders, and it was easy with 
 the remnants of our Roman history, and an 
 agile imagination, to rebuild the ruins into some- 
 thing of their former splendor. Seated on a 
 fragment of the Temple of Saturn, in the shadow 
 of one of the Ionic columns still remaining after 
 its twenty-four hundred years of existence, it 
 is possible to witness in the mind's eye a 
 most remarkable procession of historic charac- 
 ters passing back and forth through this market 
 place of ancient Rome, and to hear with the 
 ear of fancy those orations which have fixed 
 the standards of classic literature. 
 
 There are other things in the Forum besides 
 heroic memories. Every few steps there are 
 holes of varying size, but slightly protected, 
 in some instances, by fragile wooden fences. 
 These are the excavations being made in search 
 
EOUND ABOUT ROME 331 
 
 for more knowledge, and while we commend the 
 object, it is well to have a care lest, by a mis- 
 step, we are plunged into the Pool of Juturna 
 where the gods are said to have watered their 
 horses. I was impressed with the lack of life 
 in the old place; though it is in the midst of a 
 great city, a silence broods here unbroken. 
 And so it was that I was intensely surprised, 
 while sitting on a bit of antiquity, to hear the 
 chirp of an unknown bird, and I looked eagerly 
 about to locate the fair visitor. I saw no bird, 
 but presently discovered that the shrill chirp 
 came from a wretched lizard which was sun- 
 ning itself and watching me. The instant it 
 saw that I saw it, it flashed from sight, with a 
 rapidity which would make a streak of light- 
 ning seem to be walking backward, right under 
 the stone on which I sat. I did not care about 
 that stone particularly; there were plenty of 
 others equally good, and so I went right away. 
 Of course the lizard was harmless, but he was 
 the most dangerous-looking harmless creature 
 I ever encountered, and really, it was time for 
 us all to go back to the hotel for dinner. 
 
 We started out one afternoon to see the 
 Pantheon. We could not get an English- 
 speaking driver, and so we had the clerk arrange 
 carefully with the driver that we were to be 
 
332 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 taken directly there; that was all we wanted 
 to see. We had a vague notion of its location 
 upon the map, but paid no heed to where we 
 were going until we brought up at the Colos- 
 seum, and the driver, with an expression of rap- 
 ture on his face, waved his hand towards the 
 great theater and shouted, "Ze Colosseum !" 
 I shook my head and explained slowly and dis- 
 tinctly that we wanted to go to the Pantheon, 
 and he drove on. Presently we found ourselves 
 in familiar surroundings near the entrance of 
 the Forum, and our driver, again in rapture, 
 waving his hand and proclaiming, "Foro Ro- 
 mano !" Again I shook my head and explained 
 that our one desire was to see the Pantheon. 
 He next landed us at the National Gallery, 
 when I nearly dislocated my head in indicating 
 that he had made a mistake, and once more 
 pronounced with great care the word "Pan- 
 theon. " Each time the fellow seemed to com- 
 prehend, but he took us to churches, and foun- 
 tains, and statues, and would have carried us 
 again to St. Peter's had I not threatened him 
 fiercely, and then finally, just a few moments 
 before it closed, he brought us to the Pantheon, 
 and pointed it out as if it were a new discovery 
 and it was just a happy thought of his by 
 which we happened there. We had an argu- 
 
ROUND ABOUT ROME 333 
 
 ment over the fare, but as I had all the money 
 I had the best of the argument. I paid him, 
 and left him saying some things which sounded 
 much better in Italian than in American. 
 
 We wanted to get into the Pantheon because 
 it is the oldest building along the whole course 
 of our tour. It was founded away back before 
 the beginning of the Christian era, and is sup- 
 posed to have been designed for baths, but 
 later it became a temple of Jupiter, afterwards 
 was dedicated to the Virgin, and now is the 
 resting place for a few of the most distinguished 
 of Italy's dead. It is of vast size, being nearly 
 two hundred feet in diameter, and is lighted 
 entirely through a great hole in the center of 
 the dome. There is nothing beautiful about 
 it, but it is interesting as a connection with 
 the past, and with that peculiar past when 
 the Romans seemed to take more interest in 
 baths than they do at present. There are the 
 ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, larger even 
 than the Colosseum, and the Baths of Diocle- 
 tian, but their glory has departed, and in ob- 
 serving some of the people it appears that the 
 practice of bathing has departed with the glory 
 of the baths. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 
 
 WHERE WEEDS AND FLOWERS GROW FROM THE 
 SAME DIRT 
 
 HE journey from Rome to Naples is 
 not unlike that from Florence to 
 Rome in point of scenery, but seems 
 to lack the distinctive historic points. 
 Probably there was just as much history made 
 south of the Eternal City as north, but history 
 which grips you is biographic. The individual 
 and not the mass, the single tree which rises 
 above the forest rather than the forest, is what 
 we see and remember. The altogether charm- 
 ing walled towns are all along the way, clinging 
 to the side, or perched upon the top of the 
 mountains, and are so luring that I have 
 pledged myself, if ever I go to Italy again, to 
 know thoroughly the life within those walls. 
 I do not believe we ever really know a country 
 until we get away from the artificiality of the 
 big cities and get close to the rural life. Italy 
 is rich in art, but what are all her galleries 
 compared to the living pictures, when real 
 
 334 
 
NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 335 
 
 models pose in real settings, both by nature and 
 by inheritance artistic, and having the added 
 charm of the capricious? Italy's art hides 
 Italy's nature; Italy's glory masks Italy's 
 beauty. Sometime we may get away from the 
 achievements to those who achieved. Some 
 day we shall find the real Italy and the real 
 Italian, off the beaten track, up the little can- 
 yons among the Alban hills, or within the walls 
 of unexplored cities. To one not addicted to 
 wine, what can be more picturesque than the 
 mad revel of the wine making, when boys and 
 girls and men and women with clothes of many 
 colors and much dirt, dance and sing about 
 the vat, in which others tread out the juice 
 with their bare feet? I remember the making 
 of cigars down on the west coast of Central 
 America, where the Indians sat around in a 
 circle on the dirt floor of their huts and rolled 
 the cigars on their bare legs. And I brought 
 home a box, and though that was many years 
 ago, and I have offered them to many friends 
 while telling the story of their making, not one 
 has ever been smoked. I am wondering now 
 if I should not have brought home a bottle of 
 Italian wine — in the interest of temperance. 
 
 Naples is Italy to the average American. 
 That is, as most of our immigrants are from 
 
336 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 the south of Italy, and from the lower strata 
 of society, we judge the country by them, and 
 over here we find literally the nest and breed- 
 ing place of these people in the city of Naples. 
 And yet what could be more unjust than to 
 judge the city by them? They do occupy sev- 
 eral sections, and they are very large sections, 
 but Naples is a very large city, larger than 
 Boston, and we might as well judge Boston by 
 her slums as Naples by her "old town/' down 
 near the Porta del Carmine. And yet the two 
 cities are not comparable. In Boston the divi- 
 sion line is sharply drawn between the geo- 
 graphical sections in which different grades of 
 life are located, while in Naples, a garden spot 
 for humanity, the weeds and the flowers grow 
 in the same dirt. 
 
 We spent some time driving through what 
 would be called the slum district, and it was 
 about as wretched as anything I ever saw. 
 Here were whole blocks of buildings in various 
 stages of decay, which were simply hives 
 swarming with human beings spreading out 
 into the street until it was with difficulty one 
 could pass; all sorts of trading were going on and 
 every form of petty industry. The confusion 
 and commotion of voices were almost beyond 
 endurance; the fronts of the buildings were as 
 
NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 337 
 
 dirty as the street itself; the heat and the odors 
 were almost sickening; and yet right in the 
 center of one of these slum tenement houses, 
 as we should call them, would be a great arched 
 doorway, sometimes with the huge doors closed, 
 but more often with them open, and through 
 the opening would be revealed the most ex- 
 quisite grounds and a magnificent palace, the 
 residence of the owner of the awful hive of filth 
 and depravity which formed the front wall of 
 his estate. 
 
 This condition of things is not confined to 
 Naples; other cities of Italy have something the 
 same custom, just adapted to their own pecul- 
 iar conditions. In Venice the family which 
 owns a palace and has met with financial re- 
 verses simply reserves to itself one floor, and 
 turns the rest over to whosoever will pay the 
 price, and within the walls of one building there 
 may be represented every grade of society from 
 the pauper to the prince. And here is the curi- 
 ous thing, that under these circumstances class 
 distinctions are maintained, while in our coun- 
 try, where, nominally, we have no class distinc- 
 tions, the city is hardly big enough to satisfy 
 our exclusive spirit. 
 
 We found the real Neapolitan life in any one 
 of many streets, for life is mostly on the street. 
 
338 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 We saw the old age which an artist might like 
 to picture because of its horror, when every 
 grace of face and figure and mind had departed, 
 yet struggling to continue life. Not two blocks 
 from our hotel — and we were in the "better 
 section" — was the dried-up fragment of an old 
 woman who had set a little stand in the street, 
 while she sat on the curb; on the stand were 
 twelve stubs of half -smoked cigars, which she 
 had picked up in the gutters, and she was try- 
 ing to make a living by selling them. The 
 artist who could reproduce that face on canvas 
 would be counted a master, and some rich 
 American would give thousands of dollars for 
 the painting. But the original! 
 
 Sometimes there swung out across the pave- 
 ment a group of laughing, shouting dancers, 
 young people and children, and they seemed the 
 very embodiment of southern Italy, thought- 
 less, care-free, a part of the sunshine in which 
 they danced, and it was beautiful, in the same 
 way a butterfly which flashes across your path 
 is beautiful, but you do not care to touch it. I 
 had always read of the rare beauty and grace 
 of the Italian girl, and sometimes she is beau- 
 tiful in her way; we can pick out features 
 which are exquisite, and I doubt not she will 
 average up pretty well with her sisters the world 
 
NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 339 
 
 over, but I was disappointed in her walk. It is 
 said that because she has been brought up from 
 childhood to carry burdens on her head, she is 
 straight and carries herself with wonderful poise, 
 whereas it seemed to me that her "poise/' which 
 very naturally came from the burden bearing, 
 was almost a deformity. Her walk is not 
 natural because it does not involve the whole 
 body; it is as if two legs were carrying about a 
 body which was being balanced on top of them 
 and with which they had no vital connection. 
 But then we cannot say much about women 
 walking any more; what with shoes and skirts to 
 hamper, our women are fast degenerating to 
 the condition from which their Chinese sisters 
 are seeking redemption. 
 
 But the children are pretty. The dirty little 
 rascals and witches will get you every time 
 with their big black eyes if you don't watch 
 out. I stepped into a store to buy some trifle, 
 and there on the counter was a baby boy not 
 more than two years old. His hair was in a 
 glorious tangle and half obscured his face, but 
 his eyes were shining through and they were 
 just snapping with jolly good fellowship. He 
 was sitting on the counter with his legs spread 
 wide apart; between them stood a big tumbler 
 of red wine, and he had some sticks of bread, 
 
340 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 such as we used to dip into sirup, and he 
 was sopping them in the wine and, as he 
 thought, having the best dinner ever. I think 
 I could have bought him for five lira, but was 
 afraid I could not get him through the customs 
 when I got home. 
 
 It seems to be a part of the nature of the 
 Latin races to gamble, and never have I seen a 
 people so infatuated with the lottery since, a 
 good many years ago, before the United States 
 had laid her hand upon the Isthmus, I watched 
 little children selling lottery tickets in the 
 streets of Panama. Our new country outgrew 
 this form of evil long ago, while Italy, with her 
 older "civilization/' not only permits but en- 
 courages the crime. The government is con- 
 scientious in its support, claiming that it is but 
 a form of tax which is more agreeable to the 
 people than making a direct levy, and that as 
 the people will gamble anyway, it is better for 
 the government to take their money and make 
 good use of it than to lose it to others. They 
 have something of a "case" against us in Amer- 
 ica, where the government, itself too good to 
 gamble, allows the stock broker and the mining 
 promoter to "do" the easy victim. 
 
 There are more than three hundred and fifty 
 churches in Naples, some of them beautiful, 
 
NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 341 
 
 some interesting, and more which are neither. 
 We in America get a wrong notion of church 
 architecture in Europe. We see the pictures of 
 a few of the many, and because of their pecul- 
 iar grace of design or historic association they 
 appeal to us tremendously, and we jump to the 
 conclusion that all churches abroad are beau- 
 tiful and interesting, when the fact is that 
 those we see in pictures are selected out of a 
 great mass because they are beautiful, because 
 they are different from the rest. There are 
 proportionately quite as many unattractive and 
 uninteresting churches in any country of 
 Europe as there are in America. There are 
 church buildings right here in the great city of 
 Naples which, if they were located in America 
 and were used as stables, would be torn down 
 by order of the Board of Health. And if an 
 artist were to go through our own country and 
 select certain conspicuous church buildings and 
 reproduce them in pictures, employing every 
 artistic accessory, and display them in a foreign 
 country as representative of America, we should 
 command a reasonable respect, at least until 
 some of our own people who have never seen their 
 own country, discredit it in the eyes of others. 
 In the matter of decoration we must ac- 
 knowledge that the European church is differ- 
 
342 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 ent from ours. Those people came at religion 
 from a different point of view and so they call 
 out a different form of expression, and when 
 able to secure it, have invoked the aid of the 
 greatest artists, so that it is possible to find 
 even in indifferent buildings works of the great- 
 est perfection; and people visit churches, not 
 always to worship, but to see the pictures, just 
 as they go to the National Gallery. 
 
 The National Museum at Naples, besides its 
 treasures of art, which place it in the rank of 
 some of the best of the land, has a peculiar in- 
 terest in being the depository of many of the 
 relics recovered from Herculaneum and Pompeii, 
 and for those who cannot visit the ruins of 
 these ancient cities the museum furnishes a very 
 satisfactory substitute. Besides the museum 
 there are collections of art in some of the many 
 palaces open to the public, and in the Univer- 
 sity, the Botanic Gardens, the Aquarium, and 
 many institutions of charity we find the higher 
 and better side of Neapolitan life. And here 
 we fall to wondering, as we have wondered all 
 through Italy, at the wide contrasts which are 
 constantly being forced upon our attention. 
 The thing we associate only with the highest 
 culture, and particularly with literary culture, 
 comes to consummate perfection in a land with- 
 
NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 343 
 
 out culture according to our definition. And I 
 am wondering if with our artificial culture which 
 we are carrying to extremes all the way up 
 from our primary schools through society and 
 the church, we have not destroyed in no small 
 measure that natural culture which is the 
 product of the unhampered human soul. 
 
 We found driving an exhilarating pastime in 
 Naples. There is not a moment of monotony 
 along the way. The horse is always almost on 
 the run, and as we were whisked around a 
 corner it was like a transformation scene on 
 the stage, for we passed from poverty to pros- 
 perity and back again to poverty in the length 
 of a block, or pausing anywhere, the democ- 
 racy of the street and the exclusiveness of rank 
 were sure to come within the range of vision. 
 
 But, after all, Naples the Beautiful retains 
 her name not so much because of what is inside 
 the city as of what is without. As a whole, the 
 city itself is not beautiful, but nowhere in the 
 whole world can there be found such a setting 
 for a municipal jewel. The Bay of Naples is all 
 that artists have painted and poets have sung, 
 and back of the city rises that inexhaustible 
 marvel, Vesuvius, ever dear to the Neapolitan, 
 because with it there is ever the chance he loves, 
 to gamble, and the stakes are life and death. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 UP VESUVIUS 
 
 THE ANGELS AGAIN SEEK THE HEIGHTS TO LOOK 
 INTO THE DEPTHS 
 
 HE temptation of the child to pat the 
 sleeping lion is almost irresistible. 
 Because we are all children we like 
 to climb Vesuvius. As long as the 
 lion is asleep there is no danger, but the trouble 
 is, he does not always wait for the breakfast 
 bell before he wakens; he is apt to be sudden 
 and spasmodic, to be governed by no time 
 schedule, and so there is introduced a certain 
 element of chance which appeals to the gam- 
 bling as well as the gamboling instinct. Some- 
 thing over eighteen hundred years ago this 
 great lion of a mountain on the shore of the 
 Bay of Naples was sleeping sweetly, as he had 
 been from all time, so far as any records show. 
 He was very cozy and attractive and a lot of 
 little child-cities cuddled up close and were 
 very happy. They stayed there so long that 
 some of them grew very big, and they never 
 thought of any danger; nothing had happened, 
 
 344 
 
up Vesuvius 345 
 
 therefore nothing would happen, was the way 
 they reasoned, and then all of a sudden some- 
 thing did happen. The great beast woke up, 
 and roared and stretched himself, and reached 
 out two great paws and put them down on 
 the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and it 
 was sixteen hundred years before those cities 
 again saw the light of day. But the old lion 
 turned himself and went to sleep again. It 
 would seem that even children would learn 
 their lesson sometime; but so soon do we for- 
 get, and it was only a few generations before 
 other child-cities were creeping up nearer and 
 nearer to the sleeping lion, confident he would 
 never wake again, or taking the chance that 
 it would not be in their time. But the old lion 
 was restless, and all through the centuries he 
 has been waking at intervals, and every time 
 he rouses some one gets hurt. And yet the 
 children of men continue to crowd upon him; 
 they even climb upon his back, and wander all 
 about him, going so far as to venture to look 
 down his throat. That is what the "Angels" 
 did — and they are still living to tell the story. 
 But we did not rush upon His Majesty with 
 rude haste. There is a railroad from Naples to 
 the foot of the mountain, the "Circumvesu- 
 viana," — the line is a little longer than its 
 
346 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 name, — and another from Pugliano to the foot 
 of the cone, and another, in process of con- 
 struction when we were there, to the crater. 
 Being wisely advised, we drove from Naples to 
 Pugliano, and as the morning was charming 
 and the temperature delightful, we enjoyed 
 every foot of the way. We realized something 
 
 ON THE ROAD TO VESUVIUS. 
 
 of the size of the city of Naples before we got 
 out of it, and were given an opportunity to see 
 certain sections and certain phases of life which 
 would never come in the way of the conven- 
 tional sight-seeing trip, but rejoiced exceedingly 
 when, outside of the city limits, we began to 
 twist and turn through the serpentine roads, 
 with their lava walls, over which and through 
 the gateways in which we could see and enjoy 
 
up Vesuvius 347 
 
 the beautiful gardens which foamed over the 
 walls in their luxuriance. We might not sit, 
 but at least we did literally drive under some 
 other man's vine and fig tree. 
 
 Before we reached our destination, we felt 
 that our mission was benevolent for whenever 
 we passed a group of houses there were flocks 
 of children who got no end of fun from the 
 curious Americans. Just what there was pe- 
 culiar about us I have not yet discovered, but 
 we were different in some way, and so gave 
 occasion for the youngsters to run at us and 
 shout "Hi!" Perhaps they wanted centesimi. 
 But I can remember back far enough to see a 
 little group of barefoot American boys who 
 shouted " Hi! " at almost anything which passed 
 along the road, and I fancy it is so the world 
 over, that boys must shout "Hi!" at something, 
 out of the very exuberance of boy nature, and 
 so it was a kindness to give them a chance to 
 shout. 
 
 At Pugliano we had reason to thank the 
 enterprise of Thomas Cook & Son for making 
 the ascent of Vesuvius both easy and pleasant, 
 for from this point the firm has built a fine 
 electric and rack railway, so that even the most 
 delicate can enjoy the glories of achieving the 
 heights. A little more than halfway up they 
 
348 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 have also built a good hotel, which in its own 
 location and its addition to the comfort of the 
 whole trip, is a decided contribution to the 
 pleasure of tourists. We are not to suppose 
 that Cook & Son have done this purely as a 
 bit of benevolence, but they have put in hun- 
 dreds of thousands of dollars as a business 
 enterprise, they expect to make money, and 
 deserve to, and yet every visitor will thank 
 them for the great benefit which is incidental 
 to their business success. 
 
 The first stage of the trip gives one but 
 little sense of climbing a great mountain, for 
 the grade is not heavy, and we are passing 
 through a continuous vineyard or garden or 
 orchard. This is the section where the grapes 
 are grown for a famous Italian wine; here grow 
 oranges, lemons, figs and olives, and there is a 
 wilderness of roses and other flowering plants 
 to give color to the scene, and it is only once 
 in a while that we catch through the trees a 
 glimpse of the smoking peak which is our goal. 
 And yet we are already on a solid mass of old 
 lava, the deposits of former eruptions. There 
 is a curious quality of the lava which, pouring 
 down the mountain at an eruption, is destruc- 
 tive of everything in its path, and yet after it 
 has cooled for several years it begins to disin- 
 
up Vesuvius 349 
 
 tegrate, and later forms a most fertile soil, 
 peculiarly adapted to the vine. So that when 
 a man's vineyard is swept away by the flow of 
 lava it is not all loss, if he can relocate his 
 "claim," for as soon as the lava hardens it 
 becomes good building material, and later re- 
 juvenates the land. 
 
 Mount Cateroni is a sort of by-peak of Vesu- 
 vius, which we have first to climb, and here 
 was where the real ascent began. And as we 
 were lifted up through ravines and carried along 
 precipitous cliffs there began to unfold below 
 a view of the country and the blue waters of 
 the Bay of Naples, which was far more fasci- 
 nating than the dull and gloomy mountain, 
 from the top of which ever waved a plume of 
 smoke and ashes. There is a pause for a few 
 moments at "The Hermitage," as the hotel is 
 called, and then we are quickly carried over 
 the last stage, past the Royal Observatory, to 
 the foot of the cone. This takes only about 
 ten minutes, and yet in that brief time we have 
 passed into a new world; every particle of 
 vegetation has disappeared, and all about is 
 a bare and desolate desert of lava and ashes. 
 Here are some of the most wonderful forma- 
 tions. In places can still be seen the current 
 of liquid rock which was sweeping along and 
 
350 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 then was caught with the chill of the air and 
 solidified into a motionless torrent, to endure 
 until another sweeps over it and hides it, as 
 others have hidden the ancient cities of the 
 plain. Then there are the huge piles of black 
 rubble, no man can tell how many hundreds 
 of feet deep, which reminded me of some of 
 the vast and desolate piles of black basalt rock 
 which cumber the earth in the canyon of the 
 Colorado in Arizona. The whole mountain is 
 a gigantic contradiction. We often see in the 
 kingdom of vegetation a clump of dead matter 
 out of which there is pushing some form of 
 ambitious life; but here is this mountain set in 
 the midst of glowing life and thrusting up a 
 pinnacle of death. 
 
 The cone seems to be about all ashes, and yet 
 the ashes are held in place by the jagged teeth 
 of the lava, but there are enough of them on 
 the surface to make walking even more of an 
 effort than plowing through a foot of snow 
 among the New England hills. But from this 
 point it was necessary to do some real climbing, 
 as the funicular railway was not running. 
 There were three ways of ascent, walking, 
 horseback riding, or being borne in a chair 
 upon the back of a man. The latter method 
 did not appeal in the least to the "Angels," so 
 
up Vesuvius 351 
 
 those who could secured horses, and the others 
 walked, with a man to push them over the 
 steepest places. It is really but a little distance 
 to the crater, not more than a quarter of a 
 mile, could one go direct, but that is quite 
 impossible, and so the path winds and twists 
 through several miles to take advantage of easy 
 lifts. In itself the climb is uninteresting, for 
 
 VESUVIUS. 
 
 such constant care must be given to the foot- 
 ing, lest there be a slide into some chasm, that 
 there is no possibility of seeing anything until 
 the extreme edge of the crater is reached, and 
 even here the greatest caution must be exer- 
 cised, lest a false step precipitate one down 
 either the inside or the outside. 
 
 But this was the point of achievement, and 
 standing on the narrow path, with an officious 
 guide, required by the government, watching 
 every motion, and turning you quickly away 
 
352 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 when a puff of sulphuric smoke is swept from 
 the depths, there is the chance to look down 
 towards the center of the earth, if not actually 
 into it, and the better chance to look off over 
 the surface of the whole round world which 
 seems to lie below you. On the whole the 
 crater is a good deal of a disappointment. Since 
 the last eruption the cone appears to be the 
 very perfection of a cone; it slopes up on the 
 outside in perfect proportions, and it slopes 
 down on the inside with almost equal perfec- 
 tion. It is impossible to measure the depth 
 with the eye, though there was hardly any 
 smoke to obscure the view; but it is a good 
 deal deeper than one would care to fall, and 
 there is sufficient mystery hiding in those depths 
 to give one a sort of creepy feeling and early 
 satisfy him with the conviction that he has 
 had enough. 
 
 The real value of the ascent of Vesuvius to- 
 day is in the really magnificent view which is 
 revealed. Right at the foot of the mountain 
 is the city of Resina, which is built on the 
 lava bed which covers Herculaneum more than 
 one hundred feet deep, and beyond, out in the 
 plain, is Pompeii, from which the blanket of 
 lava has been lifted, and all about are the 
 newer cities which are just waiting their turn 
 
up Vesuvius 353 
 
 to be sacrificed when the mountain shall again 
 rouse from its nap to readjust its position. 
 Beyond the cities and the green of vineyard 
 and orchard lies the glory of this whole coun- 
 try, the Bay of Naples, the most exquisite bit 
 of coloring, and from this distance there is not 
 a shadow to mar its beauty. And then there is 
 " Naples the Beautiful/' and from here none may 
 question the beauty, for all the squalor and dis- 
 tress are forgotten in the new city which is re- 
 vealed, as fair a picture as the sunlight falls upon. 
 The only blots upon the ascent of Vesuvius are 
 the governmental guide, whom every visitor is 
 obliged to take, and the multitude of unofficial 
 helpers who assail you with their appeals for 
 employment and then with appeals for "a big 
 tip." They beset you from every point; on 
 the very summit they insist you shall buy 
 wine, and all along the way they seek to get 
 you into trying positions, from which they offi- 
 ciously extricate you, with the plea for a a big- 
 ger tip." They offer to sell you pieces of the 
 thousands of acres of lava on which you are 
 walking, and to bottle up the ashes for you to 
 bring away, and no matter how much you give 
 they want more. Alas, the only creatures really 
 deserving of a tip were the horses, to which 
 we could not give even a bunch of grass. 
 
354 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 The descent is much more rapid than the 
 ascent, but not less difficult and dangerous. 
 The feet plunge deep into the ashes, and there 
 is a constant sense of insecurity. The horses 
 are wonderful in their ability to keep the path, 
 which at times is very narrow, and seem to be 
 most philosophical when a leg slips over the 
 edge, by a sudden twist recovering themselves 
 and moving on as if nothing had happened, 
 and they must often bear the handicap of one 
 or more people clinging to their tails. 
 
 We came down to "The Hermitage," where, 
 after a good wash and a most thorough dusting, 
 of which we were in desperate need, we enjoyed 
 the excellent dinner, and then went out under 
 the trees to look our fill of the ravishing scene, 
 forgetting the death and desolation at our back, 
 forgetting the weariness and the dirt, forgetting 
 even the irritation of the guides, in fact, for- 
 getting all of Europe, — for out there in the 
 blue waters of the bay is the great White Star 
 steamer, the Canopic, and to-morrow we are 
 going home. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE RETURN FLIGHT 
 ACROSS THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE ATLANTIC 
 
 'HEN the Canopic sailed away into 
 the sunset, and up out of the blue 
 waters of the bay slowly rose the 
 city, to sink again a little later 
 and softly blend with the shadowy line of the 
 horizon, "Naples the Beautiful" was revealed. 
 There are charming spots within it; from the 
 heights it seems to nestle cozily in the curve of 
 the shore line, but only from the sea is it to be 
 seen at its best. And fortunate is he who 
 from this point of view sees it as the rays of 
 the declining sun are leveled across it and 
 against the dark slopes of Vesuvius, and can 
 hold the picture in his grasp until distance and 
 darkness conspire to dissolve it. It is so truly 
 a spectacle that it requires a conscious effort to 
 force the mind to accept it as a reality. The 
 color "scheme" is far beyond the power of man 
 to assemble, it is on so vast a scale, and yet 
 there is not a blur upon its harmony. The blue 
 of the sea and the blue of the sky are laced 
 
 355 
 
356 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 together with old golds and bronzed reds and 
 held with tassels of olive greens, all shading 
 into each other until none can tell where one 
 ends and another begins. There is the level 
 of the sea, then the zigzag line of buildings, 
 next the billowing hills of vegetation, from 
 which sweep up the splendid slopes of Vesuvius, 
 from the cone of which waves the ever shifting 
 banner of the unconquerable forces within the 
 earth. 
 
 We clung to the rail until the last line of this 
 glorious picture was lost in the gathering dark- 
 ness, and then turned with a sigh of regret, 
 which was quickly transformed to a thrill of 
 joyous anticipations as we realized that after 
 all our journey ings our faces were set towards 
 home. We had been at the rail for hours, 
 having thrown our luggage into the stateroom 
 as soon as we came aboard. We picked as 
 good a place as could be found, to watch the 
 brilliant moving panorama of Neapolitan life 
 as it centered about a departing ship. Besides 
 the cabin passengers, the Canopic was to carry 
 eight or nine hundred in the steerage, until we 
 reached the Azores, when we were to add five 
 or six hundred more. Some of these emigrants 
 had come aboard at Genoa, but the most of 
 them climbed up the gang-plank while we were 
 
THE RETURN FLIGHT 357 
 
 watching at Naples, and they were accompan- 
 ied, as far as the law would allow, by the rest 
 of the population. There was much weeping 
 and wailing at the partings, but no indication 
 of mourning in the raiment worn, for the dock 
 was a veritable wild garden of color. Great 
 care was being exercised that no one violating 
 the health laws should get away; the medical 
 officer of the ship and another representing 
 the Italian government examined every pas- 
 senger, and repeated the examination at least 
 three times before the voyage was completed. 
 Though we seldom saw these people, save when 
 they were marshaled for counting, when we 
 landed at Boston, we turned through the gates 
 into future citizenship fifteen hundred men, 
 women and children who, with nothing but 
 their hands and a great faith in the land of 
 freedom and opportunity, would work out 
 their own salvation. Before many years some 
 of them would come sailing back in the first 
 cabin to live lives of ease and luxury in their 
 own sunny Italy, but of the great majority 
 only the grandchildren would return, and yet 
 it was worth the effort and the sacrifice and 
 the risk. 
 
 There was one group not sailing with us, the 
 members of which held our close attention and 
 
358 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 captured all our remaining Italian money. 
 These were the boys who swim about the ship 
 while she is lying at the dock and dive for 
 coins which are thrown into the water. They 
 are all good swimmers and the slickest divers 
 I ever saw. A coin will strike the water fifteen 
 feet from the head that is bobbing about; in- 
 stantly there is a rush, then a curving of the 
 body, and the boy disappears beneath the sur- 
 face without a splash, to reappear after an ago- 
 nizingly long time holding in his hand the coin, 
 which he immediately transfers to his mouth. 
 This is continued until his cheeks bulge like 
 those of a chipmunk when the nuts are ripe. 
 There seems no such thing as tiring these am- 
 phibious urchins, and nothing can discourage 
 them. While the blue water of the Bay of 
 Naples is worthy of the songs it has inspired, 
 the term does not refer to that portion in the 
 immediate vicinity of the dock. There the 
 refuse of the city seems to accumulate, a good 
 deal of it being on the surface, and through this 
 these boys must often dive for their coins. But 
 I did not see a diver fail to get what he went 
 after, unless another boy got there first. All 
 this was fun for the passengers and not less for 
 the boys, though it was strenuous work with 
 the spice of sharp competition and just a little 
 
THE RETURN FLIGHT 359 
 
 dash of danger. And yet these boys are of the 
 people who will not work along steady, legiti- 
 mate lines where the same energy would com- 
 mand large returns, but will spend two or three 
 hours in the water on the chance of winning 
 less than ten cents of our money. If we could 
 get at elemental motives, I fancy we should 
 find that very few things, whether they be big 
 or little, are done for money only. 
 
 The morning after leaving Naples we were 
 off the island of Sardinia. The name was famil- 
 iar; in my schoolboy days I could have located 
 it upon the map, but it had no significance, it 
 was simply an island, and in my mind, and on 
 the map, it was a very small affair. But for 
 hours we were sailing along under its bold 
 shores, and the day was waning when it sank 
 below the horizon. I looked up Sardinia and 
 discovered that this little, insignificant island 
 out in the Mediterranean was almost as big as 
 the state of Massachusetts and that a million 
 of people inhabit it; that it was no different 
 from the rest of the world; that there were 
 industries, railroads, schools and all things that 
 go to make up what we call modern civiliza- 
 tion. And yet it is not at all improbable that 
 there are those on the island, and among the 
 more enlightened too, who never heard of the 
 
360 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 state of Massachusetts, excepting possibly as 
 a suburb of Boston. Just across a narrow 
 strait from Sardinia is another island, not half 
 as big, and yet when you want to locate Sar- 
 dinia you say it is south of Corsica, just be- 
 cause out of Corsica came a man who changed 
 the map of Europe and shook the thrones of 
 the world. All of which leads to the observa- 
 tion that on this earth no place is big and 
 none is small, and the dream of redeeming a 
 world by environment reverses the verdict of 
 history. 
 
 We never fully realize how tired we are until 
 we begin to get rested. It was only when 
 lying in a steamer chair through the long, lazy 
 hours when we were sailing over the sunlit 
 Mediterranean, that I sensed the struggle 
 through which we had passed in trying to "do" 
 Europe in two months. We had accomplished 
 a good deal and were going home with bodies 
 reinvigorated, minds recharged and souls in- 
 spired, and yet how much we had missed! 
 And perhaps it was the weariness which turned 
 my thought in that direction, and made me 
 almost afraid to go home, because I knew that 
 as soon as I stepped my foot on my native land 
 I should meet that self-appointed regulator of 
 human affairs who would hold me up for what 
 
THE RETURN FLIGHT 361 
 
 I did not see. And my weary fancy conceived 
 something like this: 
 
 "So you have been to Europe; I suppose you 
 saw Berlin?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And of course you saw Cologne?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You certainly spent some time in Amster- 
 dam?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you were at The Hague?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And Munich, you saw Munich, didn't you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But didn't you find Prague most interest- 
 ing?" 
 
 " I did not visit Prague." 
 
 "What! did not visit Prague? Why, no one 
 should go to Europe without visiting Prague. 
 That is too bad; you missed the best of all; it 
 seems such a shame that you should have 
 wasted your time in those other places and not 
 seen Prague! Now, let me tell you, when I 
 was in Prague I — " etc. 
 
 But presently the lazy hours got in their 
 work and with rested body and refreshed mind 
 I began to be glad that there were a few things 
 we had not seen. It hardly seems fair to ex- 
 
362 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 haust poor old Europe in one trip; we want to 
 leave something to see next time. There was 
 that eminent old general, Alexander, who was 
 brought to tears because there were no other 
 worlds to conquer, and he brought his sorrow 
 on himself; he should have economized on 
 worlds and then they would have lasted longer. 
 But we are all in a class with him; we exhaust 
 the sources of our pleasure, our hope, our am- 
 bition or our love, and there is nothing left but 
 tears. There is nothing more pitiful in the 
 world than the young man returning from his 
 trip abroad entirely surfeited, having seen 
 everything; with no possibility of a new and 
 fresh sensation, his own conceit denies him 
 even the consolation of tears. So far as the 
 delight of a surprise can contribute to life he 
 is dead, and there stretches away before him 
 a weary desert of years which hold for him 
 nothing but burial. 
 
 Of course there were a good many wonderful 
 and beautiful things which we did not see, but 
 we are generous enough to allow privileges to 
 others, and we hope sometime to visit Europe 
 again, if not during the period of this life, then 
 when we are real angels, freed from the re- 
 straints of the flesh, and time and distance cease 
 to be factors we must consider; we shall then 
 
THE RETURN FLIGHT 363 
 
 want to find there something new. I am tired 
 of worshiping the god of discontent who an- 
 swers my prayers only with further dissatisfac- 
 tion. Perhaps we have only skimmed Europe 
 in this flight through a summer, but though it 
 be so, what we did get was the cream. And 
 in the story I am telling I might have stopped 
 anywhere along the way and written my fill of 
 the serious and weightier matters of life. But 
 this was a flight and not a plodding, and in 
 passing I have tried to catch some of the beau- 
 tiful and significant things and bring them 
 back for those who did not go. Would that I 
 had brought more. But at least I am assured 
 that I have made no pretense of bringing any- 
 thing else than what I have brought, — a bit 
 of sunshine out of our summer. 
 
 Our ship was a new world to us; our own 
 special party of American "Angels" was scat- 
 tered. While we were sailing from Naples a 
 large number were out on the North Sea, on 
 the Red Star liner, bound for Boston, and an- 
 other large party was just coming out of Hun- 
 gary. On the Canopic my lot was cast in a 
 stateroom with a Disciple minister and a Ro- 
 man Catholic priest, both returning from Pales- 
 tine to their homes in the central West, and 
 we found the companionship most agreeable. 
 
364 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 There were a large party of student tourists who 
 had been "doing" Greece, a group of opera 
 singers, and another of actors. There was 
 "Pepete," the Spanish bullfighter, on his way 
 to Mexico to pursue his profession in which he 
 proudly boasted he was making sixty thousand 
 dollars a year, — which is rather better than a 
 minister gets for preaching the Gospel. Then 
 there was the Italian "Due," who was coming 
 to our country to marry his third American 
 wife. Besides these of somewhat peculiar in- 
 terest, there were many charming people who 
 were inconspicuously just living out their lives 
 along the lines of simplicity and truth, who like 
 ourselves had just taken a flight abroad for 
 rest and inspiration and now returning, counted 
 these Mediterranean hours palaces of memory 
 through whose courts and galleries they strayed 
 at will. 
 
 After leaving Sardinia the first land we picked 
 up was the coast of Spain south from Car- 
 tagena, and this we followed, just far enough 
 away to be tantalizing, until we came in sight 
 of Gibraltar, which was still more tantalizing. 
 For though we watched the mighty fortress 
 rise like a shadow from the water, as it was 
 transformed from shadow to substance and then 
 sink away again below a new horizon which 
 
/ 
 
 THE RETURN FLIGHT 365 
 
 we were leaving, we could not stop, and all 
 intimacies with the curiosities and beauties 
 which cluster about the big British rock were 
 denied us. 
 
 And yet we had seen Gibraltar, and over on 
 the other side of the strait were the mountains 
 of northern Africa. We were passing through 
 
 GIBRALTAR. 
 
 the gates of what was in ancient times looked 
 upon as the "western boundary of the world," 
 but to us the threshold of greater worlds than 
 were ever dreamed of in those olden days. 
 But seeing only a passing glimpse, the glimpse 
 worked a magic in opening doors in the solid 
 rock through which we entered to stroll at will 
 through the mysteries which are denied to those 
 who really knock at the door. It really takes 
 
366 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 very little to connect us with great places, 
 events or men, if we know how to make the 
 most of our opportunities. I know a man 
 whose wife has a cousin who is the valet of a 
 millionaire man who has a wife who goes to 
 the opera in a decollete gown, and the man I 
 know poses as an authority on social questions. 
 I have seen Gibraltar, and henceforth no one 
 need be surprised to see me sitting in the seat 
 of the wise whenever arise international com- 
 plications which by any chance may involve 
 this key to the Mediterranean. And I claim 
 to have some right to a seat among the wise, 
 for the fact that I saw the "Big Rock" for a few 
 rich hours led me to post up on its whole his- 
 tory, from the time, hundreds of years before 
 the Christian era, when it belonged to the 
 Arabs and was known as Mount of Tarik, — 
 Mr. Tarik being the boss of his ward at that 
 time, — down through the reign of Moors, Span- 
 ish, English, Spanish again, English and Dutch, 
 and finally English, who have it fixed, so far as 
 we can see, for all time. But I am not going to 
 burden this final chapter with history which 
 any one can read, though few will read, for I 
 have my eye on another island out in the 
 Atlantic, where the ship is scheduled to stop 
 to allow us to pick oranges. 
 
THE RETURN FLIGHT 367 
 
 It is my sincere prayer that when this par- 
 ticular group of "Angels" enters the harbor 
 which indents the eternal shores better luck 
 may await us than was ours at the Azores. We 
 knew there were reports of cholera in Italy 
 when we were there, but it all seemed to be over 
 on the eastern coast ; it appears, however, that the 
 day after we sailed it was officially recognized 
 in Naples, and Naples was quarantined. The 
 news was sent by cable, which travels faster 
 than our ship, and so when we sailed into the 
 harbor at the Azores in the early morning and 
 were preparing to land we discovered that the 
 yellow flag had been hoisted on the Canopic 
 and round about us were a number of boats 
 in each of which there was a very small army 
 officer, with a very large sword and a very 
 fierce cigar, and we were quarantined. Now 
 just suppose something of that kind should 
 happen when the "Angels" enter the harbor of 
 heavenly rest! Suppose some wretch know- 
 ing something which may or may not be 
 true about us should cable ahead, and instead 
 of the cordial welcome we expect, even if we 
 do not deserve, we get the yellow flag. And it 
 may be we shall have to lie off there in the 
 sight of the promised land for several hundred 
 years, more or less, until the quarantine is 
 
368 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 lifted. Perhaps that will be worse than it was 
 with us through the long day when we idly- 
 rocked on the light swell from the ocean, and 
 looked longingly out at the green fields and 
 cozy-looking gardens, and saw in our mind's 
 eye the curious life which was throbbing in the 
 heart of the little town, which lay so sleepily 
 under the sun, — but it did not seem so to us 
 then. 
 
 We had made a good many plans other than 
 that of eating oranges. A native of the islands 
 had told us about a very charming drive which 
 we could take, and we had looked forward with 
 happy anticipation, until he told us that it 
 would probably cost us fifteen hundred reis per 
 hour for the carriage carrying four and that we 
 should need it about three hours. This rather 
 staggered us, for we were coming home from 
 Europe and cash was at a premium; but he re- 
 lieved our minds by translating the fifteen hun- 
 dred reis into one dollar and a half, and we 
 were ready to plunge, but alas, there was that 
 yellow flag! We had to content ourselves with 
 a distant sight of the land, an eager and satis- 
 fying taste of the fresh oranges which came on 
 board, and with watching the hundreds of com- 
 ing American citizens who were poured into the 
 steerage from boats loaded to the rail. And 
 
THE RETURN FLIGHT 369 
 
 then just before the time of sailing, a Portu- 
 guese warship came into the harbor, and right 
 alongside of us fired a salute of a whole lot of 
 guns to the governor, and then swept on up to 
 the dock where we could not go. The whole 
 thing was like a bit of opera bouffe, for the 
 sound of the guns was so very big and the war- 
 ship was so very small. But we were good- 
 natured and did not run her down with the 
 big Canopic, but took her salute as a kindly 
 farewell, and sailed away on the last lap towards 
 home. 
 
 It was a commonplace voyage across the 
 Atlantic, but the most restful thing in the world. 
 And so after sunlit days of quiet pleasure and 
 moonlit nights of peace, in the early morning 
 hours of a September day, two months after 
 we had sailed away, we moved slowly up 
 through Boston harbor, and there on the ex- 
 treme end of the dock we saw friends, and 
 "Angels" who had preceded us, and between 
 them they were holding the Stars and Stripes, 
 with which they waved a welcome home. 
 
 The returning traveler views with eager in- 
 terest the first sight of his native land, and yet 
 a chemical analysis will not reveal that the 
 land of America differs markedly from the earth 
 of Germany or the soil of Timbuctoo. But 
 
370 
 
 A SUMMER FLIGHT 
 
 when that shadow on the horizon begins to de- 
 fine itself as real earth, and stone, and trees, and 
 houses, and people, our chests swell out and our 
 eyes flash and we think eloquently, if we do 
 not speak, "This is mine own, my native land," 
 and we feel a thrill of the heart for which no 
 muscular contraction can adequately account. 
 This feeling may be nothing but sentiment, 
 nothing but foolishness, nothing which can be 
 converted into gold, but, after all, it is what 
 empires are made of. And it is worth a trip 
 abroad just for the sake of sensing it once. 
 The best of going away is the coming back. 
 We get a great deal more out of our trip after 
 we return than while we are working at it. 
 One piece of dirt differeth from another piece 
 of dirt in glory. And a bit of red and white 
 bunting with a few stars upon it is far more 
 beautiful, under some conditions, than the most 
 costly tapestry which adorns the walls of a 
 foreign temple. 
 
APR 26 1911 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 
 APR 26 1911 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 020 967 974 7