YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

From the Library of
HERVEY D. LELAND, YALE 1885
Gift of
JAMES R. JOY, YALE 1885

LAZY TOURS
IN SPAIN AND ELSEWHERE

LAZY TOURS

IN SPAIN AND ELSEWHERE

BY

LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON
III
autf)or ot
" SWALLOW FLIGHTS," " IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS," " RANDOM
RAMBLES," " BED-TIME STORIES," " SOME
WOMEN'S HEARTS," ETC.

^

BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1897

Copyright, 1896,
By Roberts Brothers.

AU rights reserved.

FOURTH EDITION.
Ed

5Sntij£tsitg ^resst
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.

TO
SIR BRUCE AND LADY SETON,
THE WELL-BELOTED FEIENDS AND FREQUENT HOSTS OF
THIS LAZT tourist,
I INSCRIBE THESE PAGES. L. C. M.

Shall a Lazy Tourist apologize for laziness ?
Then forgive me, kind readers, that I have trav
elled in pursuit of pleasure, or of health, rather
than of " very hard facts ; " that I have recorded
impressions more often than details, and that I
have not even the saving grace to be ashamed
of having been a vagrant.
L. C. M.

CONTENTS.

Page
I. A LAZY TOUR IN SPAIN  1
II. IN SOUTHERN ITALY  49
Ar Naples  51
In Pursuit of Vesuvius  60
Sorrento Days  67
PoMFBii, Amalfi, and Pabstum  76
m. IN AND ABOUT ROME  85
All Roads Lead to Rome  87
Most Roman Part op Rome  97
Among Statues and Pictures  107
Among the mant Churches of the Eternal
City  116
Some Roman Villas  130
IV. ELORENCE the fair  139
Florence the Fair  141
From Florence to Paris  154
V. PARIS AND PICTURES  163
VI. RAMBLES IN SWITZERLAND  191
In Switzerland : At LucekSe  193
To, AND IN, Geneva  200
Chamount and the Mbr de Glace .... 213
Over the Tete Noire, to Chillon .... 220
A Postscript : At Ragatz  228

X CONTENTS. Page
VU. CERTAIN FRENCH CURES  235
At Aix-les-Bains  237
Beides-les-Bains .  254
Lights and Shades op Travelling in
Savoie  264
Les Voieons: A Paeadise on a Hill-Tof 270
VIII. HOW THEY CURE THEMSELVES IN
GERMANY .... ... 277
Maeienbad and Nueembbeg . . . 279
To, AND AT, Caelsbad . . . . 296
Feom Caelsbad to Paris  313
IX. AT WIESBADEN, AND AFTER ... .323
What one does at Wiesbaden ... . 325
To Paris, bt way of Frankfort and
Metz  248
X. AN ENGLISH "CURE," AND A GLIJIPSE
OF YORKSHIRE  357
TuNBRiDGE Wells  359
In Yorkshire  366

A LAZY TOUR IN SPAIN.

LAZY TOURS.

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN.
THE only bit of real estate I ever owned was
" a Castle in Spain." I have long been
familiar with its aspect. I have seen its shining
turrets in the crimson of sunset skies. I have
heard faint music, on winds blowing from the
East, which I felt sure was caught from harps in
its high windows; and mysterious scents have
reached me now and then, wafted, doubtless, from
its far-off gardens.
Erom my childhood I had longed to visit my
Spanish estates as pertinaciously as Columbus
longed to set forth from those shores of Spain to
discover this far-off new world in which I thus
discontentedly abode. But tales of expense, diffi
culty, and danger have been rife about the pleas
ant paths of Spain.
" You will find it such a fatiguing journey,"
said one. " The hotels are poor, the railway
trains crawl, and you '11 be poisoned with garhc."

4 LA2Y TOUKS.
"And you'll not be free from danger," said an
other. "Bandits have been banished from the rest
of the civilized world to survive in Spain. They
may take possession of your train any fine day.
You '11 still find the ' robber purse,' which Wash
ington Irving speaks of, a necessary precaution."
" And then the expense," croaked a third. " You
can't go without a courier, and he '11 pillage you
right and left."
"And then you'll never find your castle, you
know." But it was only Mrs. Gradgrind who said
that ; and I did not mind Mrs. Gradgrind.
Suddenly, in Paris, I made up my mind to go.
Four other rash ladies came to the same resolu
tion ; and we looked about for a courier. We
chose him at last for his pious face. He was the
Vicar of Wakefield, in German, — at least, that is
how he impressed me; but the Wise Woman of
our party said he was a Sunday-school superin
tendent off home duty, and disposed to treat us
with a sort of paternal care, as if we had been the
lambs of his flock.
It was a frowning October morning when we
left Paris, and by the time we got to Tours it
rained most spitefully. We defied the rain, how
ever, and drove about the town, and back and forth
across the beautiful river, which flows through
Tours as the Arno flows through Florence. We
went to the cathedral, and lingered under the
great tent-like cedar of Lebanon in the Arch
bishop's garden, and then drove out through the

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 5
sullen rain to that Plessis la Tour which the
readers of "Quentin Durward" know.
The next day it rained still, and it rained all day
long, while on we journeyed. We drove through
a pouring rain at night to our hotel in Bordeaux,
and started away from it the next morning in
the same cheerful condition of the weather. But
the sky had cleared before we got to Biarritz ;
and after that the sun shone on us for seven
weeks to come, with only one brief and appro
priate interruption.
Biarritz the beautiful ! No wonder the Empress
Eugenie built her villa there in the days of her
glory. Part of that villa is a restaurant now, and
looks like " a banquet hall deserted," — or it did
in the late October when the Biarritz season was
coming to an end ; but there is hardly a more
superb view in Europe than can be seen from its
windows. Biarritz, like Tours, is a place to ga
back to; but we had little time to linger there.
Were we not en route for Spain, the country of
beauty and of bandits, of love and of fear ?
On the 26th of October we entered our promised
land. We went through the custom-house at
Irun. We had been forewarned that the exami
nation would be rigorous and disagreeable, and
that our papers especially would be subjected to
the closest scrutiny. On the • contrary, not a
paper was examined, and nothing could have been
more perfunctory than the whole performance.
The officers consulted somewhat over a seal-skin

6 LAZY TOUES.
cloak belonging to the Nut-brown Maid ; but
whether they were admiring or condemning we
could not tell. They folded it up respectfully
at last, and marked the box that contained it as
passed. It was on this occasion that the Nut-brown
Maid confided to me that she had a passport which
had cost her time and trouble and a national
bank-note for five dollars; and of which, therefore,
she was extremely desirous to make use. The
officers of the customs grieved her by not asking
for it; and I must mention here that for a lady
travelling in Spain a passport is as unnecessary
as a marriage certificate.
We journeyed on from Irun through the lovely
Basque country. The Wise Woman grieved that
we were thus hurrying through the abode of these
gentle, serious, handsome Basque folk, whose lan
guage, they claim, is the oldest in Europe. But
the rest of us were happy, if only there had not
been so many tunnels to shut out from our view
the wonderful mountain scenery. The railway
from Irun to Burgos is said to be a masterpiece
of engineering. Shall I ever forget how that
afternoon sped on, leading us from beauty to
beauty, until at last the royal Spanish sunset
came, kindling the skies to crimson, and touch
ing the hill-tops with a baptism of blood and
fire ? And then we saw visions. Down one west
ern slope we were sure we saw Don Quixote ride,
and on the hill-top opposite it was a true giant.

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 7
and not a windmill, that confronted the faithful
knight. And in the heart of that western glory
surely we saw a castle,
" With its battlements high in the hush of the air,
And the turrets thereon,''
and each woman of us believed herself its rightful
chatelaine. We were tired enough when we got to Burgos,
at a late hour in the evening; and I fear we
grumbled unduly as we jolted on through the
rough streets the long, long way to the hotel.
Why it is that all over Spain the railway stations
have gone into the country on a vacation, and you
have to drive a Sabbath day's journey before you
get into town and find your hotel, I have not yet
been informed ; but, even here, I have faith in the
good intentions of the Spanish people.
Our Vicar of Wakefield had telegraphed for
rooms for us beforehand; and on arriving, chilled
to the bone, at the Fonda del Norte, we found a
bright fire burning, and we found Mat^o. Mat^o
was our chambermaid ; and for good-humor, bright
ness, and black eyes, it would be hard to name her
peer. She and the fire consoled us. The beds
were clean and soft, and we laughed at the idea
of Spanish discomforts until breakfast. But the
breakfast, oh, the breakfast! Thie tea was bad;
the eggs deserved respect only for their age ; the
bread was sour; and the butter, — it is a horror
to remember. All over Spain the butter is vile,

8 LAZY TOUES.
on account, I imagine, of the sterility of the soil ;
but in most places the food, as a whole, is good.
We took the worst first, in the matter of provi
sions, in taking Burgos. But when our rather
forlorn breakfast was over, and we went out of
doors, it mattered little that to break our fast
had been a penance. Here we were, in Spain, in
Spain !
Had we been taken up blindfolded by some of
the genii that did transport duty in the time of
the Arabian Nights, and set down in Burgos with
out a word of forewarning, we could not have
mistaken our locality. Here were the dark-eyed
senoras of our long dreams; here "the stately
Spanish men ; " and here, above all, were the beg
gars, the gentle, persistent, picturesque Spanish
beggars, and it was escorted by a troop, a throng
of them, that we moved on to the cathedral, that
cathedral of which De Amicis speaks as a miracle
of boldness, genius, and labor, producing "the
effect upon you of /a superhuman voice which
cries 'I am.'" What vastness of space, what
splendor of design, what lavishness of ornamen
tation, what superb expression altogether of man's
faith and worship! One grieves only that the
grandeur of the vistas should be broken by the
choir, which is almost a church within a church.
Burgos is the town of the Cid, — the Homer of
Spain. Everywhere you come upon traces of him.
One favorite excursion is to his tomb. On the
way you pause at the Convent of Miraflores, buUt

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 9
by Isabella the Catholic in memory of her father
and mother, and containing their monument. It
is a desolate road that leads from Miraflores to
San Pedro de Cerdena, the beloved home of the
Cid, whither, when he was dying at Valencia, he
begged with his latest breath to be taken. Thither
was he borne, when all was over, upon his faith
ful horse Bavieca, who is said to have wept at
his deathbed. Upon Bavieca was the dead Cid
set upright, clad in his armor, and with that good
sword Tibona in his hand, with which, though
dead, he yet struck down a Jew who audaciously
plucked him by the beard. At San Pedro de
Cerdena was Bavieca buried, as the will of the
Cid commanded. "When ye bury Bavieca," he
wrote, " dig deep, for shameful thing it were that
he should be eaten by curs, who hath trampled
down so much currish flesh of Moors." The Cid
is no longer buried in his own tomb, which is in
the centre of the convent chapel. Here, indeed,
are the marble effigies of himself and of his faith
ful wife, Ximena ; but their bones are in a casket,
with a glass top, in the town hall at Burgos, where
my own eyes have beheld them.
It would be a mistake to leave Burgos without
seeing the beautiful Cistercian Convent of Las
Huelgas, founded by the wife of Alonzo VIII. as
a refuge for unmarried women of noble families.
Through the grating that shuts off the choir in
the church of this convent we saw some of these
white-robed Cistercians at their prayers. Was I

10 LAZY TOUES.
wrong in pitying them, I wonder? Some were
young and beautiful now, and others had been so
long ago ; but here they all were, women of noble
race, with their ardent Spanish eyes and their
pleasure-loving Spanish lips ; full, when they came
here, of all girlhood's restless dreams and longings,
and yet condemned by family pride and family pov
erty to this life of seclusion ; this finality of all
things, which has nothing beyond it save death.
The Wise Woman of our party decreed that .our
next stopping-place should be Valladolid; so we
made the journey thither from Burgos in an even
ing, found a comfortable French hotel, slept the
sleep of the weary, and awoke next morning ready
for a day of sight-seeing in Valladolid. It was a
very satisfying day to me, for it satisfied me that
I never want to go there again. The cathedral is
grand in its outlines, but so white and bare and
cold that I shiver to remember it. The interests
of Valladolid are all in the past tense. In the
fifteenth century it was the home of kings.
Charles V. adorned it with noble edifices, and his
son, Philip II., was born here. Cervantes lived
here once, but I believe that Cervantes was a
melancholy man. You are taken to his humble
house, and his " statue watches it from the square."
Here the great man worked, making clothes for the
king and his nobles, and thinking, meanwhile,
his immortal thoughts. You go also to see the
house where Columbus died ; the university, and
a whole list of other things, — among them the

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 11
convent buUt by Torquemada, the terrible con
fessor of Isabella the Catholic, and the Plaza
Mayor, where, under his influence, heretics used
to be burned for the glory of the Lord. The
court was at Valladohd then, and the court used
to go to see an auto-da-fe as now in Madrid it
goes to see a bull-fight; and the poor heretics,
arrayed in yellow shirts painted all over with
flames and figures of devils, made much amuse
ment for the fine folk.
The Museo of Valladolid has received more
praise than it deserves, for it is largely given
over to rubbish. It contains a few good pic
tures, however, — Eubens's " St. Anthony of Padua "
among them; and some wonderful statues in
wood from the two greatest wood sculptors
Spain has ever known, — Juan de Juni, who de
lighted in using his art to depict the morbid
and the terrible, and the gentle Gregorio Her
nandez, who, like Era Angelico, never began his
task without first saying his prayers.
In the afternoon we drove all about the dreary,
desolate town, which looks as if some caprice of
fate had set it down in the midst of a desert, and
which we were thankful enough to leave in the
gray of the next morning.
Our destiny that day was the Escorial, and on
our way we passed Medina, whete Isabella the
Catholic died in 1504, and Avila, where her
only son. Prince Juan, was buried. Juan was a
young prince of very noble qualities, and had

12 LAZY TOUES.
been most carefully educated by his royal parents.
In his twentieth year he was married to the beauti
ful Princess Margaret, daughter of the Emperor
Maximilian, whom he loved as well as if they had
not been the children of kings. Leaving him thus,
just married, and with every prospect of happi
ness, Ferdinand and Isabella hastened away to
another marriage, that of their daughter Isabella
to the King of Portugal. Meantime Prince Juan
was taken suddenly ill. King Ferdinand, by trav
elling rapidly, managed to reach his death-bed ; but
Queen Isabella, who was forced to journey more
slowly, only arrived after all was over. A^Tien
the young prince was near his end, his father
strove to cheer him with hopes of his recovery,
but he lifted his eyes as toward some vision of
glory that others could not behold, and said that
he was ready to leave a world which at the best
was so full of vanity and trouble ; and he prayed
only that the loved ones from whom he parted
might be as resigned to part with him as he
was ready to go.
There, in Avila, his sorrowing parents built his
monument, and placed on it the semblance of his
sleeping figure, " lying as he had smiled," — the
most touching of all sepulchral effigies. From
the car ven stalls which they occupied at Mass
the stricken father and mother used, thenceforth,
to look down on their best-beloved sleeping below,
and the sad eyes of one would seek the sad eyes of
the other, and the silent tears would start.

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 13
Avila is still surrounded by its perfect wall,
and is scarcely changed at all since the time of
Santa Teresa, who was born there in 1515. The
Eoman Cathohc Church regarded Santa Teresa as
especially raised up by Heaven to breathe new
life into their religion. She was born of noble
parents, who were also very pious ; only, biog
raphers say, that the mother was given too much
to the reading of romances, and it was no doubt
from her that Santa Teresa inherited her strong
bent to the romantic, as well as to the mystical.
From her earliest childhood she was constantly
reading the lives of the saints and martyrs, and
at eight years of age she set off from home with
her little brother to find the country of the
Moors, in the hope of being martyred by them,
but was captured and brought back by a hard
hearted and unromantic uncle.
When she was twelve years old her mother died,
and Teresa got possession of the deceased lady's
beloved library of romances, the consequence of
which was that the student of her character finds
in her a curious blending of religion and romance,
personal vanity and personal piety. One noble say
ing of hers deserves to be remembered : " I con
ceive," said she, " that the misery of damned souls
in hell consists in the impossibility of their loving
God or man." She believed that,, when she was
twenty she was caught up into heaven, and shown
a plan for reformed convents, which she returned
to earth to carry out. She founded seventeen

14 LAZY TOUES.
nunneries and fifteen monasteries, in different parts
of Spain, beside her own especial Convent of St.
Joseph at Avila. She arrived at Toledo, with
only four ducats to found a convent, and when
people exclaimed at this she said, calmly, —
" Teresa and four ducats can do nothing ; but
God, Teresa, and four ducats can do anything."
She died in her sixty-eighth year, in her own
convent at Avila. Eoman Catholic legends assert
that the spirits of ten thousand martyrs were pres
ent at her death-bed, and the Lord Jesus came in
person to convey her to her heavenly home. Even
now, in her convent chapel, the nuns sit during
Mass upon the steps, rather than in the stalls
carved for their use, because they beheve that in
Teresa's life-time angels used to come down to oc
cupy these seats, and they wish still to leave them
free for the possible grace of such high visitants.
From Avila the railway climbs toilsomely along
the mountains up to the Escorial, passing through
sixteen enormous tunnels on the way. Just be
fore we reached the Escorial it began to rain.
This was the only rain that diversffied our seven
weeks of brilliant Spanish sunshine. Somehow it
seemed fitting that it should rain then and there.
In the morning we went across to that palace
so gloomy that, as Th^ophile Gautier in liis " Voy
age en Espagne " suggests, one can, after seeing
it, always console himself, whatever the trouble
of his life may be, by thinking that he might be
at the Escorial, and is not.

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 15
From far away you can see the gloomy pile, so
massive that it stands out from the mighty hills
behind it, and confronts you in all its stately
ugliness. It was built in the form of a gridiron,
in honor of St. Laurence.
Do you know his story, with its touch of grim
humor? He was broiled on a gridiron, in the
year 261, over a very slow fire. He bore the
grilling, while his life "held out to burn," with
scornful composure, and when one side of him
was well-done, he told his cooks that it was time
to turn him ; and suggested that they should
taste him, and see if he was most palatable well-
done or under-done. In memory, then, of this
grim saint, on whom he had called for aid during
the battle of St. Quentin, Philip II. resolved that
the Escorial should be built.
The first stone was laid in 1563, but the erection
was not finished until 1584; and in 1598 its
founder, Philip IL, died here, where for fourteen
years he had lived, more as a monk than as a
monarch, though he boasted that he was ruling
the world, with a bit of paper, from under a hill.
This mighty gray pile seems almost a part of the
strong hills ; and Ford says of it, that, cold as the
gray eye and granite heart of its founder, it would
have been out of keeping if placed amid the
flowers and sunshine of a happy, valley. The
largest number of the priceless pictures that used
to adorn it have been removed to the gallery at
Madrid, though many still remain ; and there are

16 LAZY TOUES.
rooms on rooms hung with tapestry that it is worth
a journey to see ; also the noble library is full of
interest, and the chapel is a miracle of stately
simplicity. Yet it is none of these which chiefly moves
you, but rather the all-pervading memory of one
thin-lipped, implacable man, who built this place
for his home and his tomb, — who lived here
mournfully, and died here awfully.
As you move on from place to place, you feel
that you are treading in his footsteps. I sat in
the very seat where he was sitting when news
was brought to him of the destruction of the
Spanish Armada ; and there was something right
royal in the way he received these tidings. Not
a muscle of his face moved, we are told ; and he
said quietly, "I thank God for having given me
the means of bearing such a loss without embar
rassment. A stream can afford to waste some
water when its source is not dried up."
The little inner room in which PhiUp II. died
opens into the chapel, and at this opening the
king's face used to be seen, during his last illness,
following the prayers with a sort of desperation.
It seems that at the end he was haunted by awful
doubts whether his bigotry and his persecutions,
by which he had thought he was doing God ser
vice, had not, after all, been a crime. The story
of his death, with all its terrible details, came
back to us as we looked from the little room
which had witnessed his agonies into the stately

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 17
chapel where his effigy, in gilt robes, kneels for
ever beside the high altar.
Then we followed him down into the Panteon,
that place of sepulture for kings and the mothers
of kings, where he sleeps peacefully, let us hope,
in that coffin of gilt bronze for which, with almost
his latest breath, he ordered a white satin lining
and a plentiful supply of gilt nails. This Panteon
seems to have possessed a singular attraction for
the Spanish sovereigns. They have not been dis
tinguished for hohness of hfe, yet they have been
wont, while living, to haunt the Panteon, and
look at their future resting-places. Maria Louisa
scratched her name upon her empty urn with a
pair of scissors, and Philip IV. used to sit in his
niche often during his lifetime to hear Mass.
The whole Escorial is pervaded by a sense
of almost supernatural gloom. You can hardly
breathe freely there, or speak in an ordinary tone
of voice ; and to get away from the place, and move
on to Madrid, is a relief.
The situation of Madrid is as little attractive
as it well can be. It was chosen for the capi
tal of Spain because that vandal, Charles V., had
the gout. The city is two thousand four hun
dred feet above the level of the sea, and its stim
ulating air so helped the royal great toes that
the august Charles exclaimed, " Herg shall be the
only Court ! " And here it is to this day. It
is a fascinating city, notwithstanding, with its
great plazas, its park, its prado, and its fine out-
2

18 LAZY TOUES.
of-doors statues, of which, perhaps, the best is
that of Philip IV., in the Plaza del Oriente, in
front of the royal palace which Velasquez him
self designed. From the windows of the royal
palace — one of the grandest royal residences in
the world — you can look off to the snow-capped
Guadarramas, and, beholding their icy splendors,
forget the pitiful httle play-river near at hand,
the Manzanares, concerning which some joker
suggested to one of the kings that he should
either sell his bridge or buy a river.
Whatever fault may be found with Madrid as
to its situation, it must be conceded that it has
one of the finest picture galleries in the world.
One of the finest, did I say ? I pause to ask my
self if I ever received as much pleasure from any
other. It should have volumes written about it
instead of a mere brief mention in the uncritical
diary of a lazy tourist. Here Titian and CoeUo
and Velasquez have handed down to us such
living portraits of the Spanish sovereigns of the
House of Austria that we know them all by
heart, beginning with Charles V. and his dog.
To have lived in this world and to die without
having ever seen the pictures of Velasquez, — that,
truly, were an evil fate. You can see Eaphael,
Titian, and even Murillo to excellent advantage
in many other galleries ; but here in this Museo
at Madrid is almost the entire work of Velasquez.
What is the sombre, splendid charm of this
wonderful Andalusian ? Partly, I think, that he

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 19
dared to tell the truth as no other man has told
it before or since. What other painter of royal
portraits ever made them as revealing as the Day
of Judgment ? Here they are, these kings and
queens, weak when they were weak, sensual when
they were sensual ; so human that you almost see
the blood throb in their veins. These buffoons
are the court fools of all time : this ..^sop, —
what is there in his face, with its sensitive humil
ity, its innocent shrewdness, its pathetic patience,
that I cannot look at it except through a mist ?
I do not like Velasquez in the few instances when
he paints religious subjects. He was a realist,
not an idealist ; and he should have left the holy
people to Murillo, who has so depicted the girlish
sweetness of her whom the Spirit of God over
shadowed that it is no wonder Spain gave him
the name of the Painter of Conceptions.
I knew little of Goya until I found him in this
gallery. He was the painter of bull-fights, and
peasants, and Spanish ladies who flirted behind
their fans, — a fiery Aragonese, whose delight in
bull-fights was so great that, during the latest
years of his life, while residing at Bordeaux, he
would go once a week to Madrid to see a bull
fight, and return without stopping even to salute
his old friends.
What is this cruel, fascinating sport, that it can
have taken such a hold on the Spanish people,
we asked ourselves ; and then we began to say
diffidently to each other that, being here, perhaps

20 LAZY TOUES.
it would be well to see it for ourselves. The
Wise Woman had protested against it with such
lofty scorn that, for dear consistency's sake, as I
think, she stayed at home; but the rest of us
went, and with us our Vicar of Wakefield with
his bland and patriarchal smUe.
The amphitheatre is an immense place, round
like the Eoman Colosseum, and the ring is sur
rounded by " terraced granite," and crowned with
galleries. Six bulls were doomed to die for our
entertainment, but I only out-stayed the taking
off of three of them. It was the last grand bull
fight of the season, and the audience was a bril
liant one. The young king and queen looked
down from their box of state ; old Isabella was
there with her daughters ; and adjacent boxes
were occupied by lords and ladies of high degree.
The first bull was very meek. His sole desire
seemed to be to be let alone. The picadores,
or mounted spearsmen, pricked him with their
lances, and he looked at them with an injured
air, as if he would fain have said: "How can
you ? I am a well-intentioned bull, and I de
serve nothing of this sort." One was divided
between disgust at his want of spirit and indig
nation that a creature so harmless and kindly
should be foredoomed to death. He waked up
slightly when the banderilleros came in with their
darts and their gay cloaks ; but, all through, one
felt that he was being butchered to make a Span
ish holiday, without at all taking his own part ;

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 21
and even the matador, whose office it was to give
him his death-wound, performed his task a little
scornfully, as if it were hardly worth the trouble.
The second bull was a different fellow alto
gether. As a young American on my left ex
pressed it, he was " all there." He had a sul
len, determined, desperate nature. He gored two
horses to death, hterally in an instant, just uplift
ing them and running them through with his
mighty horns. He made sullen plunges at the
banderilleros, and he pushed the great matador
himself to the end of his resources ; but at last
he lay there dead, and the team of mules dragged
him out of the arena. He was as black as an
undertaker's horse ; and he had been solemn and
indignant and scornfully defiant all the way
through. The third bull was a httle red one, as fiery and
aggressive a creature as can possibly be imagined.
He did not chance to hurt the horses, but he
made swift plunges at the cloaked banderilleros,
which it took all their skill to escape ; and once
he even leaped the barrier, and caused a precious
consternation among the audience for a moment.
This brilliant creature made hot work for the
banderilleros, and held even the matador for a
long time at bay; but at last he gamely died,
and the black mules dragged him away, as they
had done his brothers before him.
By this time I thought I knew enough about
bull-fights, and I left the king and queen and

22 LAZY TOUES.
their court to behold the other three combats
without me, and went away to walk on the prado
and reflect. My sympathies were all with the
bulls. They were the only creatures who had no
least show of fair play. They alone were doomed
with absolute certainty from the start. Even the
horses might escape ; and at worst their torture
was but for a moment. The men were only in
just enough danger to make the thing exciting,
and there were ninety-nine chances out of a hun
dred that they would come off scathless ; but the
bull, let him bear himself never so bravely, was to
be made an end of.
There was one feature of the spectacle that was
so picturesque that, at the risk of being called
inhuman, I must own to enjoying it. When the
banderilleros came in with their gay cloaks and
their darts, it was a pretty sight to see their en
counter with the bull. They would give him a
little prick, just enough to attract his attention,
and he would turn to attack them. One second
they were there, behind their satin cloaks, and the
next they were safely over the barrier, and their
enemy, making his plunge against them, found
nothing. And then, if you had seen his contempt
for such artful dodging! "Surely," he said to
himself, " this butterfly-looking creature, all green
and gold, was here, and where is he ? " And then
he would look round, and see another gorgeous
mantle, and make another vain spring against the
empty air. There is no denying that the grace

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 23
and agility of these men was a pretty sight.
Their figures were faultless. Their dazzling cos
tumes glittered in the sun ; and their movements
were grace itself. I kept thinking of a line of
Harriet Spofford's, —
" Ye riders bronze your airy motion," —
and I thought if but these motions could be
bronzed, we should have such a group of statues
as the world has not yet seen.
But I was glad to leave it all behind me, — the
heat, and the noise, and the confusion, and the
cruelty, — and go out into the tranquil afternoon.
It was pleasant, later on, to drive in the Buen
Eetiro, the Hyde Park of Madrid, to meet the
sunset. The king and queen had seen the last
bull killed, and were placidly driving together,
and there, in the park, you met all the beauty and
fashion of Madrid. What a French fashion it
was ! We had left senoras in mantillas at Burgos ;
here we found Spanish belles in Worth gowns and
Eue de la Paix bonnets. I had seen just such
costumes a month before in the Bois de Boulogne.
We went to the opera while we were in Madrid.
The Madrid Opera-House is one of the finest in
the world, and the performance is nearly always
good. Only the best singing will be tolerated by
a Madrid audience, — a fact of which I saw an illus
tration that was almost tragic. A young American
had come there, much heralded, and under an
engagement for six nights. She had already sung

24 LAZY TOUES.
one night before I heard her, and had failed to
please. For this evening another prima donna
had been announced, but she had been taken iU,
and the American girl unexpectedly appeared in
her stead. The rest of the company was as good
as could be desired, and met with a hearty wel
come. When the American sang, she was quietly
disregarded, save when, now and then, a distinct
hiss would come from some of the least fashionable
portions of the house. How I pitied her as I saw
her stand there, with all those hostile eyes looking
her over, all that sea of scornful faces turned
toward her ! How could she go on ? But not to
do so would have been to forfeit her engagement,
and lose all that was her due. Upheld by I know
not what sense of stern necessity, she steadily sang
her part through. When a scene was applauded,
she stood aside, with her pale face and her set
lips, knowing that no share in the applause was
for her. Not one expression of Spanish approval
or encouragement sustained her from beginning to
end. I felt that no gladiator fighting in an arena
ever displayed a more dauntless courage.
From Madrid we made an excursion to imperial
Toledo, — Toledo of the Eomans, of the Goths, of
the Moors, of the Christians ! We were full of
enthusiasm as we started from Madrid in the
early — too early — morning to find it.
The train seemed nearly empty. We could
almost fancy it crawled on for our sakes only;
but crawl it did. I suppose that even a snail gets

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 25
somewhere at last, and at last we came in sight of
Toledo, grandly rising from the yellow Tagus,
crowned by its Alcazar, and with its irregular
towers, its battlemented walls, and all its solemn,
stately, desolate beauty.
The Tagus girdles the town, leaving only one
landward approach, which is fortified by Moorish
towers and walls.
Like Eome, Toledo stands upon seven hills, and
like Eome, everything about it is venerable. No
mushroom place this, built in hot haste, as solace
for a monarch's gout. All here is substantial and
ancient. For three hundred and fifty years the Moors
held sway in Toledo, and you see Moorish remains
at every step. It was the Moors who built the
noble gates, of which the finest is the Puerta del
Sol, with the horseshoe-shaped arches which dis
tinguish Moorish architecture.
Externally, nothing could be more imposing than
Toledo ; but when fairly within it, one reahzes
that all is desolate, forsaken, going to decay. It
once had two hundred thousand inhabitants ; it
has twenty thousand now.
But how fascinating it is, even yet ! The nar
row, illy-paved streets wind up and down and in
and out, and lead you from wonder to wonder of
interest and of beauty.
If one had space in which to speak fully of the
various Spanish cathedrals, one must needs linger
long with that of Toledo. The Virgin herself is

26 LAZY TOUES.
said to have descended from heaven to assist at a
Mass here, and no wonder.
The carving of the stalls in the cathedral choir
is so beautiful that I should hke to study it every
day for a year, and the stained-glass windows are
among the finest in the world.
They sparkle as with jewels, and throw their
parti-colored reflections on the eighty-eight columns
which uphft the gorgeous ceihng. There are
noble pictures and glorious tombs, — a collection
of works of art, in short, which might be the
sufficient goal of any pilgrimage.
The Church of St. John of the Kings must not
be forgotten, or its lovely cloister, with its richly
clustered pillars on three sides, and its perfect
Gothic arches. This cloister is being slowly re
stored, but meantime the undisciplined roses have
their way in it. We gathered great bunches of
them. Outside this church hang chains which were
suspended there as votive offerings by captives
who had been delivered from the power of the
Moorish infidel.
Two synagogues yet remain to attest the former
importance of the Jews in Toledo. The ceihng of
one of these synagogues was made of beams from
the cedars of Lebanon.
Legends say that Toledo was the place of refuge
of the Jews when Jerusalem was taken by Neb
uchadnezzar. So ancient is it that you can beheve
anything, from the tale that ascribes its foundation

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 27
to Hercules to that other solemnly enforced and
detailed account which asserts that Tubal began
to build it one hundred and forty-three years, to a
day, after the Deluge.
It looks old enough to have been begun even
before the Deluge, and it is certain that, when the
Moors first took it, it was largely populated by
Hebrews. You feel as if nothing there ever had been or
ever could be young, until you look up to some
vine-wreathed balcony, and meet the dark eyes of
some Spanish ^beauty, smihng coquettishly from
under her lace mantiHa ; and then, suddenly, the
old, old world seems eternally young, with love
and hope and smiles springing up like flowers in
the sun of every summer.
When the Christians recovered Toledo from the
Moors they set a heavy tax upon every Jewish
head ; but the Jews were allowed to retain their
synagogues, on the plea that they had not con
sented to the death of the Saviour. When Christ
was brought to judgment, they said, the votes of
the tribes had been taken, and one tribe had voted
for His acquittal, and from this tribe were the
Jews of Toledo descended !
Can you fancy at all this quaint old town,
high, high above its yellow river, with its sub
stantial Moorish architecture, its narrow streets
which wind and climb through the desolate city
where two hundred thousand people used to make
merry, and where its poor twenty thousand hve

28 LAZY TOUES.
now as quietly as if they were all holding their
breath, in order not to wake the echoes of some
long-dead past ?
Can you fancy, in this solemn, silent place,
possessed by ghosts of Eomans, Goths, Jews,
Moors, and Christians, red roses flaunting their
brightness in the warm south wind, and young
cheeks glowing with new joys and hopes as if no
one had ever died ?
Two days later on we left Madrid, and went
for consolation to Cordova. Cordova, hke Toledo,
is a city which has been, and is not, — which be
longs more to the dead than to the living ; for the
gay days are past when it used to be called " The
city of the thirty suburbs and the three hundred
mosques." Here, as in Toledo, are patios ; and though I have
heard them called courtyards, a patio is not pre
cisely a courtyard, nor yet is it a garden or a room,
but it is a dehcious combination of all three.
A small vestibule is usually between it and the
street. On its four sides rise slender columns,
which support a gallery. It is paved with marble.
In the centre there is often a fountain. Palms
grow in these patios, flowers blossom there, ivy
climbs round the graceful httle pillars ; here are
statues, perhaps, or busts or graceful urns.
The patio is the heart of the home, — the place
where you go to sip after-dinner coffee, to chat, to
lounge, to dream.
Cordova was of importance ui Caesar's time ; he

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 29
half destroyed it because it sided with Pompey.
" The Great Captain," who was born there, used to
say that other towns might be better to live in,
but the place in which one should be born was
certainly Cordova. Cordova was renowned, in
those farthest off days, for its men of letters, whose
wisdom astonished even the Eomans.
Eoman Cordova yielded to the Goths. But the
Goths were conquered in turn by the Moors, and
Cordova became the capital of Moorish Spain. It
saw, under the Moors, the days of its greatest
glory. In the tenth century it contained nearly a mil
hon of inhabitants, three hundred mosques, nine
hundred baths, and six hundred inns. How is
the mighty fallen ! It is said to have some flfty
thousand inhabitants now ; but looking back to a
sojourn of some days there, I can scarcely remem
ber to have met any one in the streets save tourists
and beggars.
Its narrow paths are so roughly paved that it is
a penance to walk in them ; and its houses —
whitewashed once a year — dazzle your aching
eyes. Carriages are not allowed to enter the busy
streets, and only the omnipresent donkey disputes
your right of way. As night comes on you see
young men clinging to the iron railings of the
balconies of the lower windows, and holding in
terminable talks with their sweethearts inside them.
This is a recognized method of courtship, and he
who failed to adopt it would be deemed but an

30 LAZY TOUES.
indifferent wooer. There are beautiful suburbs,
with orange orchards and olive groves, to tempt
one beyond the range of shops and streets. There
are a thousand things quaint and strange for the
traveller's delight ; but to me Cordova means two
things, two which I would gladly cross sea and
land to find once more, — the Mosque Cathedral
(La Mezquita) and the Sultana's Garden.
How shall one picture in words the wonders of
La Mezquita ? Its exterior gives no hint of what
awaits you, for it is surrounded by walls from
thirty to sixty feet in height ; but once you have
entered, through the Gate of Pardon, the Court of
the Orange-Trees, the enchantment begins.
It means so little to say, in set phrase, that
there are a thousand columns, surmounted by the
Moorish horseshoe arches ; and that some of these
columns are of jasper, some of porphyry, some of
verd-antique, and no two alike ! You do not stop
to think of these details ; you wander on and on,
as among the countless trees of a forest. You
lose yourself in this divine immensity. It is hke
nothing else on earth.
Look where you will, the interminable vista
stretches out beyond, and allures your tireless
footsteps. The stained glass of the windows, when the sun
strikes it, throws patches of vivid color against the
marbles. The place is so vast that you scarcely
think about the cathedral church, which that royal
vandal, Charles V., allowed to be engrafted in

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 31
its centre in 1523, — a piece of barbarity which
even he had the grace to regret when he came to
see it later.
There is one tiny chapel, with a roof like a shell,
which is adorned with mosaics sent from Constan
tinople. These mosaics are said to be the finest
in the world. This is the Ceca, or Mihrab, the
Holy of Hohes, where the Koran used to be kept
on a stand which cost a sum equal to five millions
of dollars ; and around this spot the very marble
was worn in a circular hollow by the faithful
Mussulmans, who used to crawl around it on their
hands and knees.
But I feel, as I write, the commonplace insuffi
ciency of these bare details. What mere words
could fitly picture even the roofed-in forest of
pillars, the countless Moorish arches, the ex
quisite tracery of the carvings ? It is like nothing
else in the world. You wander on as among the
trees of a spacious grove ; and yet you feel that
you are in a temple. Perhaps some sudden sound
of holy music breaks the stillness. The sentiment
of worship, the love of beauty, the memories of a
stately past, — how they all sway you at once ;
and you kneel with the rest, and — is it a low
wind breathing through this strange forest, or the
wings of some unseen presence, or the beating of
your own half-choked heart, which so thrills you
that whether in the body or out of the body you
hardly know?
I have passed long afternoons in La Mezquita,

32 LAZY TOUES.
wandering up and down among the aisles of this
wonderful forest, recalling the old legends wliich
cluster about the spot, kneehng with the faithful
at their prayers, or kneehng alone in some far-off
corner, and listening to the remote sound of the
holy music, half able to fancy that I was in some
outer court of heaven. It is at close of such an
afternoon as this that one fain would gather roses
in the Sultana's Garden, and be brought back thus
to the simpler joys of our human life.
How long ago did the Sultan make this garden
for his love ? I do not remember how many hun
dred years have passed since the dark-eyed beauty
gathered its first roses ; but still they freight the
soft wind with their breath, and still the fairy
ferns grow green, and the oranges ripen in the
sun, and the solemn old carp are happy in the
fish-pool. We went there when the day was wearing late,
and found the place as full of fragrant beauty as
when she hved for whose pleasure it had been
made. And as the ghost of PhUip II. had pos
sessed the grim Escorial, so the shade of that
dark-eyed beauty for whom its first rose-tree
had been planted still held sway in this garden.
It was November ; yet the carp were happy, and
the lavish ferns were green, and the riotous roses
intoxicated the autumn air with their summer
breath ; and under the trees she seemed to glide,
— a presence felt rather than seen. One almost
felt it a sacrilege to pluck her flowers ; and yet

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 33
she heeded not the trespass. She is as dead as
Cordova. We went to Granada to console ourselves for
leaving Cordova. There seems to be a silent, un
speakable feud between the railway stations and
the hotels all over Spain. They keep as far away
from each other as possible.
The station is usually quite out of town, and
the hotel very much in. But at Granada the
station is far out from the city's heart in one
direction, and the hotel where we were to stop
still farther out in another. It was between eleven
and twelve at night when we drove thus the whole
length of the unsleeping town.
Save in Toledo and Cordova, — where every
thing sleeps all the time, except the beggers, — a
true Spanish town sleeps only at high noon. All
night long the lights burn ; all night long you see
the people busily idle, idly busy.
On through the town we went, glancing in at
open doors as we passed, until suddenly stillness,
broken only by the flow of murmuring waters, was
about us, and a soft gloom through which the high
moon could hardly pierce.
We had entered the enclosure of the Alhambra,
and the elms the Duke of Wellington planted
were arching thickly over our heads. And our
hearts beat fast, and we whispered to each other,
" We are here at last ' "
We drove on up the height, and everywhere the
water murmured beside us, and the moon peered
3

34 LAZY TOUES.
at us through the trees, and it was a dream in
which we moved, and yet no dream, for here we
were in front of Hotel Washington Irving, and
when we said, hardly knowing that we spoke, —
"Is it the Alhambra?" the one-eyed landlord
answered, in good Enghsh, —
" Yes, ladies, and your rooms are ready."
If only it had been May, instead of the late
November, then would all the Duke's elms have
been full of the nightingales who pair and build
and brood there in the May, and set the night mad
with the passion of their singing. But when we
woke next morning, we were sure that no time of
year could have been lovelier. The air was soft
as in June, — a young, unexhausted air, which it
was a delight to breathe.
Our windows looked out into a garden, where
fountains bubbled and roses bloomed, and down
under the trees sat happy pilgrims sipping their
coffee. The town of Granada reposes in the Vega, a
lovely valley thirty miles in length, which the
system of irrigation so skilfully arranged by the
Moors has turned into a veritable Garden of Eden.
Eound this happy valley circle frowning moun
tains, whose snow-crowned tops are ten thousand
feet above the sea-level, — the Sierra Nevadas.
From the postern gate of the Siete Suelos, Boab-
dil, the last Moorish king, took his departure after
the conquest of Granada. But still the Moors
rule the Alhambra, for their memory possesses it.

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 35
Their red towers guard the heights as of yore, and
the snowy Sierra Nevadas look down to see what
manner of people walk through the old haunts
now. From the outside you can form no idea of
the beauty or grandeur of the place. You go in
by the Gate of Justice, and skirt the impertinent,
unfinished palace of Charles V., and suddenly you
perceive that you are in the real, yet unreal palace
of your dreams. You wander on, from court to
court, from charm to charm. The creamy, pink
ish walls are covered with a tracery as delicate as
frost-work. You are in the land of Faery. You
do not think of size, or strength, or any common
place attribute whatever. As solidity was the
ideal of Egyptian architecture, so lightness was
that of the Moors. They turned their tent-poles
into marble pillars, and sculptured their stucco
with the dehcate traceries of the Cachemire hang
ings with which they had draped their tents.
From the windows of one court you look forth
to the haughty mountains, and from another at
busy Granada down in the valley, and from others
at the hills, mined with the caves where the gyp
sies burrow. One of the quaint inscriptions, be
ing interpreted, says, "Look attentively at my
elegance;" but in a first visit to the Alhambra
you cannot look attentively at anything. A sort
of intoxication seizes you. You are impelled by
a wild desire to see everything at once, and you
hurry from place to place, fearful lest night should
surprise you before you have beheld the whole.

36 LAZY TOUES.
I am half inclined to think that the Court of
the Lions is the lovehest spot of all. Before I
saw it I had fancied I should find there lions as
grand as the lion kings Thorvaldsen sculptured;
but the lions of the Alhambra are like nothing on
earth or in heaven. Their feet are as clumsy as
bed-posts, the alabaster basin of the fountain rests
on their patient backs, and its waters spout through
their open mouths. The charm of the Court is
not in its lions, but in the group of slender pillars
and the exquisite arches that spring from them.
Standing here you seem to be in the very heart
of the enchanted place. On one side is the Hall
of the Abencerrages, where the blood-stains from
the dripping blood of the warriors slain there are
still pointed out, and their unappeased ghosts
moan on through desolate midnights.
After our first day there, we went back again
at night, the moon being full; and vnth what
words dare one attempt to paint the transcendent,
ethereal vision ? Delicate columns, cobweb trace
ries of carving, perfect arches, and over all the
high moon's enchantment! Even when I write
of it the old tightening of the breath comes back,
— the almost fear to take one step farther on, lest
the whole dream-like fabric should dissolve.
" Do you believe in ghosts ? " some one asks at
my elbow.
"I see them," I whisper back, and there they
are. The dark Moors group themselves under the
slender pillars of the Court of the Lions ; the mur-

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 37
dered, unappeased Abencerrages moan in the hall
where they were slain, and the revealing moon
points out the spots where their blood stained the
white marble. It was Boabdil who shed their
blood ; and he was cruel enough to kill, but not
brave enough to conquer, and his turn came to go
mournfully out of the Alhambra, with his mother's
scornful words in his ears, — " It is well that you
should weep as a woman for what you could not
defend as a man."
And his ghost came also, with bowed, shameful
head, and from her Mirador the swart sultana
looked forth and smiled, triumphant possessor
still; and, in her garden, Lindaraya walked as
of old among her myrtles and her roses.
When one reads of the charm of the Alhambra
by moonlight, one believes that it must be exag
gerated; but when you stand there under the
pale moon, amid ghosts and glories, you know it
would be as impossible to exaggerate as to describe
it. You go back again, the second day, prepared
to look more coolly; and then you perceive the
exquisiteness of all the details, — the delicate, in
finitely varied traceries of the walls, with their
ceilings, as if a sudden, large-flaked snow-shower
had been turned to stone ; the slender pillars that
seem fit only to serve for temples in fairyland, the
wonderful, inexhaustible beauty that surrounds
you everywhere. And every spot has its own
legend. From the tower of La Cantiva a Christian

38 LAZY TOUES.
captive flung herself down to death, rather than
hve to be the bride of the Moorish king. In the
Hall of the Ambassadors, Ayeshah, the mother of
Boabdil, girt her son with a sacred sword, and sent
him forth for his vain struggle to repel the in
vaders ; but on his way he broke his lance against
the gate-way, and his young sultana wept and
called him " The Unlucky One." And in 1492 —
the very year in which Columbus discovered
America — conquered Boabdil surrendered his
sacred sword, and departed forever from the gate
of the Siete Suelos.
I must not forget the Torre de la Vela, or watch-
tower, from which we used to watch the sunset,
as it burnt the west with its fiery splendors, while
the snow-crowned Sierra Nevadas reflected the
western glory.
The Alhambra is Granada, and yet if the Al
hambra were not there, how much else there
would be !
There is the Generahffe, with its lovely tropical
garden, its old pictures, its superb view ; and down
in the town there are churches and convents, and
the grand Cathedral where Isabella the Cathohc,
— the great Isabella who sent Columbus forth to
find our new world, — lies buried, with her hus
band. King Ferdinand, beside her. Sumptuous
indeed is their tomb, with their effigies resting side
by side upon the lofty marble sarcophagus. Near
by is the tomb of their daughter. Queen Juana,
with her handsome, worthless husband, Philip of

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 39
Burgundy, and in the vault beneath, the four royal
coffins may be seen.
The coffin of Philip is that very one which his
crazed, fond wife kept with her wherever she went
during the forty-seven long years of her widowhood.
The Cathedral is the haunt of beggars who call
themselves guides, and who get in your way till
you are glad to give them your last penny to be
rid of them. It was in this way I met a ragged
son of Spain, about twelve years old, and so beau
tiful that I could no more forget him than I could
forget the Alhambra. He was the very raggedest
of the whole crew, but, oh, how fascinating he was,
with the smooth oval of his dark cheeks, and with
his eyes so deep, so melting, so pathetic, that they
almost brought the tears to mine. He thought
that he spoke English, and this was the manner
of his speaking ': " Antigua house, see, missis."
With pennies I bribed him to learn to say, " I am
a very bad little boy." He said the words slowly
and solemnly, as if they were an incantation, with
out the most distant idea of their meaning ; and I
heard of him, weeks afterward, startling subse
quent visitors to the Cathedral with this formula.
Granada is a thoroughly living city, and not a
dead one, hke Toledo or Cordova, though in place
of its former population of four hundred thousand,
it has only seventy-five thousand now, exclusive of
the gypsies, who herd like outlaws in their holes
in the hill-sides. These live in the dirt and wear
rags, and lie and steal, and tell fortunes ; but some

40 LAZY TOUES.
of them are handsome, and if you bribe them suffi
ciently, they will put on clean finery and come into
town and dance for you, and promise you luck,
while they look as if they would take pleasure in
cutting your throat.
We saw a gypsy dance while we were in Gra
nada ; but we saw one to better advantage later
on in Seville.
I wish we had gone first to Seville, because
Seville is so beautiful that it should be an un
qualified delight to visit it, and there can be no
unqualified dehght for those who have banished
themselves from the Alhambra. The journey from
Granada to Seville is an easy one, except that your
train starts from Granada at five o'clock in the
morning. I think it was not much more than
half-past three when the fatherly voice of our
Vicar of Wakefield was heard at each lady's door
calling on us to arise. Half an hour afterward we
sat at breakfast in the dining-room, and he came
in and surveyed us with a bland smile. "Don't
over-precipitate yourselves, ladies," he said tran
quilly; "there is plenty of time."
We reached Seville at about three in the after
noon. From far away we could see its Giralda
climbing toward the flawless sky. The air of the
late November was like summer. Eoses were
blooming everywhere. Orange trees bore flowers
and fruit ; bananas and dates and figs hung tempt
ingly within reach, and such grapes as no northern
sun could ripen were there for our gathering. Our

A LAZY TOUR IN SPAIN. 41
hotel was most comfortable, and a sense of hien
etre diffused itself tranquilly over our spirits,
marred only by regrets that we could not have
stayed on in Granada until spring, when all the
elms would be homes of nightingales. Seville,
however, was full of seductive consolations. It is
a place in which to linger long. I can imagine
a happy life divided between the Alhambra and
Seville. I would go to the Alhambra in time to
hear the nightingales thrill the soul of the spring
with song. I would stay there through the sum
mer and the autumn, and then come to Seville for
the brief, bright, southern winter.
Here the cathedral is the largest in the world
except St. Peter's in Eome, and far more interest
ing than St. Peter's. The Giralda, or bell-tower,
was built by the Moors. You ascend it by an
inchned plane, up which horses can easily be
ridden. From this Moorish-built Giralda twenty-
two Christian bells call the faithful to prayers.
In the cathedral below you find a wonderful
museum of arts: stained glass hardly equalled
anywhere else ; pictures by Murillo, Campana,
and Morales ; emblazoned retablos ; everything, in
short, with which munificent piety could adorn a
church. There are three pictures that stand out
from the rest in one's memory. I should put
first Murillo's "St. Anthony of P^dua." The
saint kneels in his humble cell, tranced in wor
ship, looking up toward the child Jesus, radiant
with the supernatural light He himself creates,

42 LAZY TOUES.
and surrounded by throngs of angels. Murillo's
"Guardian Angel" is almost equally beautiful,
if less grand. A glorious, strong-winged seraph
leads a trustful child by the hand, and points
him beyond the earth to the hght of heaven.
The third of the three pictures that so hold my
memory is "The Deposition from the Cross," by
Pedro de Campana. Before this picture Murillo,
by his own desire, was buried, and before it he
used to stand for long hours in his hfetime, wait
ing, as he said, " till those holy men had finished
their work." In the chapter-house of the cathedral
is a Conception by Murillo, which it seemed to
me was almost the loveliest of his innumerable
pictures of this subject.
What a contrast is Seville, full of bustle and
activity, to Cordova, in whose solemn old streets
reigns almost the stillness of death. The gay
SevUlians seem all life and joy. The streets are
so narrow that in many of them two carriages
could not by any possibility pass each other, and
carriages are not allowed to intrude on the most
crowded shopping-streets at all. Here, as in
Cordova, young men chng to the iron raihngs of
the balconies and whisper ardent nothings to the
dark-eyed darlings within. And you hear blood
curdling tales of the swift, murderous use of the
long Albucete knives, when a lover finds some
interloper at the window of his chosen before him.
Don Pedro the Cruel set an example of this use
of the Albucete knife, and his ardent countrymen
have not been slow to follow it.

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 43
Pedro the Cruel seems to pervade Seville, some
what as Philip II. does the Escorial His mother
fled to its Alcazar with him when he was a child,
and when he came to be king he in great part
rebuilt it. It was here that he hved with his
beautiful morganatic wife, Maria de Padilla. Here
he received the Eed King of Granada, and then
murdered him for the sake of his jewels, one of
which, " the fair ruby, great hke a racket ball,"
even now adorns the crown of England. He had
pleasant little pastimes peculiar to himself, this
Don Pedro, one of which was to have the heads
of people whom he did not like cut off and hung
over the door of his dressing-room. He and his
victims were dust long ago, but the lovely garden
of the Alcazar at Seville still keeps his unlovely
memory fragrant. The garden was improved after
ward by Charles V., who built there the most
fascinating summer-house in the world ; but it
was Don Pedro who planned it and arranged the
magical fountains, which, when a key is turned
somewhere, spring up all along the paths, and
shower the walks and the blossoms, and make
rainbows in the sunshine. Orange trees that cruel
Pedro's hands planted still drop their golden balls
upon the ground, and the very flowers are the far-
off descendants of those the wicked king used to
gather for his beautiful, sad love.
The Alcazar itself is a wonderful palace; thor
oughly Moorish, fresher in color and gilding than
the Alhambra, but so well kept and so frequently

44 LAZY TOUES.
inhabited that it altogether lacks the poetic charm
which silence and sohtude have woven about the
other. St. Elmo, the palace of the Duke de Mont-
pensier, has a fine gallery of Spanish masters, in
cluding the "Madonna della Faja" of Murillo, and
two Spanish girls by Goya, looking over the bal
cony of a theatre, so ahve that one never could
forget them. The house of Pontius Pilate is
another show-place. It dates from the sixteenth
century, is Saracenic in its architecture, and has
the most beautiful tiles I have ever seen, which
flash in the light hke jewels. The government
tobacco manufactory, where three thousand Span
ish girls and women are employed, stares with
its many plebeian windows into the stately pleas
ure gardens of the Duke de Montpensier, and
not far off rises the Torre del Oro, so named
from the gilded tiles which roofed it in in the
old days when it used to be the prison-house for
Don Pedro's cast-off sweethearts.
From the Torre del Oro along the Guadalquivir
stretches for two or three miles the pleasant drive
and promenade of Las Delicios (The Delights), the
afternoon haunt of the beauty and fashion of
Seville, as the Buen Eetiro is for Madrid. No
where can you see finer horses than in these two
pleasure places, and Spanish horsemanship is a
thing to dream of. There are objects of interest
enough in Seville to keep the most energetic of
tourists busy for many a day. In the chapel of
the Hospital of the Caridad you see six Murillos,

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 45
among them the two great pictures of " Moses
Striking the Water from the Eock," and the
" Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes." The Museo
is still more rich in Murillos, and you find there
also beautiful examples of other Spanish masters,
though not one of Velasquez, Sevillian as he was
by birth.
One must not fail to visit the gypsy quarter, or
the pottery manufactory, or the Eoman ruins at
Itahca ; and if there be ever a spare hour, unfail
ing entertainment awaits us in the streets, with
their hfe as different from our own as is the sunny
southern country from our "land of mist and
snow." You get really fond of the handsome,
wheedling beggar children, and you make friends
with the peddlers of small wares in the narrow
streets. And every day and all the days you
stroll into the cathedral with its ever-varying
charm. It was Thanksgiving Day at home while we
were at Seville, and we put our heads together
and discussed in what way we could make fes
tival of it. And lo ! our Vicar of Wakefield con
fided in the manager of the hotel, and he gave us
a Thanksgiving dinner that rivalled the feasts of
home, with the loveliest flowers for every lady;
and then, for the evening, he arranged a gypsy
dance. Think of a gypsy dance in Jionor of a
Puritan Thanksgiving ! Not only ourselves, but
all the Americans in Seville were present, and
various Enghsh and Spanish people besides.

46 LAZY TOUES.
Behold! here is the announcement of the gypsy
chief, printed on bright yellow paper, and this is
his " Enghsh as she was written " : —
Don Francisco de la Barrera have the honor to
inform to the visitors that to-^night will he held ball,
at nine o'clock precisely.
Tragano Street, No. 10.
The ball shall he composed as under specified.
Then followed the programme of the dances,
and what dances they were, — languid, sensuous,
voluptuous. In one of them was embodied a
whole drama of love and wooing. I have never
seen on any stage anything to equal the coquetry
of the girl who danced away from her lover, and
tormented and mocked at and eluded him, only
to be won, at the end, and yield her hps to his
swift and triumphant kiss ; and the Vicar of
Wakefield looked on vnth that preternaturally
pious face of his, and his hps, keeping time to
the music, seemed to be saying, " Bless you, my
children ! "
Why did we ever leave Seville ? That is the
question I have been asking myself ever since.
Our party divided there. The Wise Woman and
the Nut-brown Maid and the Lady Anna went on
to Italy, and the Sweet Singer and I came home.
But why ? Why, even, should one go to Italy who
might stay in Spain ? And, above all, why should
one come home to the east winds, when the
oranges are ripening in sunny Seville, and the
roses are waiting to be gathered ?

A LAZY TOUE IN SPAIN. 47
We went early to the station to take the night
express for Madrid. One always goes to a Spanish
railway station an hour in advance, and then has
only time enough to buy a ticket, and get a basket-
trunk weighed and registered, since every em
ploy^ in Spain makes it the business of his life
to move more slowly than every other one. We
said good-bye with wet eyes, when we left the
others at the hotel, and hid the quiver of our hps
behind the great bunches of roses the kindly hotel
manager gave us to cheer our departing way. The
sky was aflame with a wonderful red sunset, glow
ing up to the very zenith. Against it the graceful
Giralda rose ; and there, in the dear old town, the
happy, careless, gay, out-of-doors life went on, and
we went off — was it forever ?
We reached Madrid the next morning, and
found again our Velasquez-painted men and
women, our Murillos, our vivid Canos, and our
strong, sad Eiberas. We ruined ourselves in pho
tographs, drove in the Buen Eetiro, and then, after
a day and a night, started for Bordeaux. We had
left Seville on a Tuesday evening ; on Saturday we
ate our dinner at the hotel in Paris, from which
we had departed eight weeks before. We had had
few discomforts and no perils. The bright eyes of
the Sweet Singer had done no more harm than
bright eyes must, and we were safe and prosper
ous, but not quite happy, for we had left Spain,
and, after all, neither of us had found her Castle.

IN SOUTHERN ITALY.

AT NAPLES.
TO go from Venice straight to Naples is the
strangest transition. Surely Venice, with
her winding water-ways, is the stillest city in the
whole world, and surely Naples is, of all cities, the
most noisy.
It was ten o'clock at night when we left our
hotel in Venice, and dropped down the Grand
Canal to catch the eleven o'clock train for Naples.
We seemed in some mystic world of shadows.
Lights from the silent palaces mirrored themselves
in the water, but not so much as the ghost of a
sound broke the magic stillness, save the faint
plash of our own oars, and once the impertinent
whistle of a httle steamer carrying home its party
of excursionists.
I had dreaded to find the Grand Canal invaded
by steam, but these little boats are not at all
obtrusive. They are not even so large as the great
old coal-barges which have haunted the canals of
Venice from time immemorial. They stfem merely
like a gondola grown fat and worldly, and with a
big black cigar in his mouth. The whistle of the
one that met us on our transit scarcely disturbed

52 LAZY TOUES.
the night's peace for a moment, and silently,
through a silent world, we ghded down to the
railway station.
There, indeed, was noise enough, and bustle
and hurry and confusion, and bad French and
worse Italian; and then it was eleven o'clock,
and somehow we had got into the train, and were
rushing on through the night toward Naples.
Next morning we woke to see the Adriatic toss
ing its white caps wrathfuUy in the cold March
sunshine, and to wonder why gentle Venetia should
have chosen to wed so rough a mate.
It was again ten o'clock at night when we
reached Naples ; and then we drove and we drove,
till it seemed as if the driver of our ratthng con
veyance must have been moved to show us the
whole city, instead of merely taking us to Hotel
Nobile, where we slept the sleep of the weary, and
awoke next morning to look from our windows
over the blue and shining Bay, with Capri and
Sorrento and sad-fated Ischia dreaming in the
sunshine. Oh, if I could but make a picture of Naples !
People who have been at Constantinople vaunt
the beauty of its Golden Horn as superior even to
the Bay of Naples ; but for me, who have not seen
the Bosphorus, the loveliness of the Queen of
Southern Italy remains without peer.
High above it towers Vesuvius, — a cone of
cloud by day and of fire by night; and at the
feet of this watching, threatening, red-eyed mon-

AT NAPLES. 53
ster, the town stretches along the shore of the
Bay, — the great, careless, happy, sad, rich, poverty-
stricken town, full of contradictions.
Along the shore of the Bay is the fashionable
drive, where from four to six of a spring afternoon
all Naples takes its pleasure. On one side is the
blue, blessed water where the fairy islands sleep,
and on the other the beautiful park, the Villa
Eeale, with its orange-trees heavy with fruit, its
flowering almonds pink with blossoms, its gleam
ing statues of old gods, its temple where the
merry music plays, and its motley throng of fair
ladies and handsome men and picturesque priests
and dark-eyed chUdren.
When you walk in the Villa Eeale it seems as
if all Naples must be there ; but when you turn to
the long drive by the Bay, it seems as if all Naples
had taken to driving. There are as grand carriages
as you can see anywhere, with liveried coachmen
and footmen ; there are neat phaetons, drawn by
dear little ponies gay with silver trappings, and
in the midst of them there are plenty of the
shabbiest cabs of the street, with ragged drivers,
and sometimes as many as seven or eight bare
headed peasants, drawn by one pathetic pony, so
small that you could almost take him up in your
arms. And they are all so happy ! Bright eyes,
red cheeks, mouths wide with smUes, ¦*— you think
of Browning's
" Bang, whang, goes the drum — tootle te tootle the fife —
Oh, a day in a city square 's the gayest thing in life ! "

54 LAZY TOUES.
We had all sorts of queer experiences with the
little cabs we hired. Usually we looked first at
the driver, to see that he should have as much
coat and as few rags as might be ; and having
chosen him for himself, or rather for his clothes,
we took our chances as to his horse.
Once we were drawn by a beast so slow that I
could only fancy he must have been trained to
carry criminals to execution, and give them as
long a time as possible to repent on the way.
Stately carriages rolled ponderously by us; mad
little traps whirled along threatening to take off
our wheels ; other drivers looked at us mockingly,
and through the surging crowd we drove at a pace
so slow that an ordinary walk would have seemed
frantic haste in comparison.
Another time a little horse, as white, as meek-
looking, and almost as small as a sheep, took it
into his head to play a tune with his hind-feet
on the footboard of our phaeton. The Young Com
panion of our party was somewhat afraid; but I
reminded her that horse and driver were both safe
and sound, despite their daily association, and
I had faith to believe we should get home ahve.
Everybody chances things in Naples, just as the
town itself chances that sullen Vesuvius may get
more angry than usual, some day, and turn it into
a second Pompeii
Beside this lovely drive, where fashion and folly
meet along the smiling Bay, there is the long Via
Eoma, formerly the Toledo, on which, as Howells

AT NAPLES. 55
has said, " the magnificence of modern Naples is
threaded." On each side high, well-built, respect
able houses, some of them palaces, rise monoto
nously, with their many windows and their many
balconies ; and all along the streets are shops full
of ghttering jewels, or costly silken stuffs, or
pretty trifles in the way of bric-a-brac ; and because
the sidewalks are narrow the foot-passengers are
always crowding off them into the streets, and
picking their way among the thronging vehicles.
Here is my lady's carriage, with her superb
horses and imposing servants, and her own fair
face looking out from the newest Paris bonnet.
And here, equally at home, are the patient don
keys, each one with a load five times as big as
himself, and often driven by the tail, as if that
appendage were a bridle-rein. Here are the long
brotherhoods of black-robed young scholar-priests,
taking their sober way as if blind to the gay show
around them; and here, almost always, is some
imposing funeral, with a hearse, mostly of glass,
looking hke the van of a menagerie, and quite
as gayly decorated. Inside, in each of the four
corners, sits a priest " to attend the dead," and
carriages on carriages follow these gay hearses,
and my own impression is that, of all festivals,
Neapolitans most enjoy a funeral.
Whenever we went to the National Museum,
with its delights of painting and sculpture, we
had to traverse this gay Via Eoma, and we got to
know it well. We found never-ending amusement

56 LAZY TOUES.
in the narrow side streets which cross it, leading
on one side down to the bay, climbing on the
other to the highest heights of the far-reaching
town. These streets are far too narrow and too
steep for carriages ; but they fairly swarm with
human hfe, and now and then a donkey pushes
his way up the long passage, jostling the crowd
with his friendly little shoulders. Sometimes he
carries a monstrous bundle of straw, or an enor
mous pannier of vegetables, and then he so fills the
street that the human throng has to crowd itself
into door-ways ; and sometimes a swarthy, hand
some peasant, all black eyes and white teeth and
gay cap, rides the little beastie down, to take his
pleasure with the rest below.
Very gorgeous indeed are the Naples dandies,
of whom you always meet crowds in the Via
Eoma. Speckless in costume, dainty, dapper httle
men, — we used to wonder if they spent their hves
in buying new gloves, and making visits to the
dark-eyed signoras who looked from the balconies
of the grand houses.
We walked down the Via Eoma one afternoon,
the Young Companion and I, in pursuit of an ice
cream. We were banished from the museum at
four o'clock, as one always is. The day was warm,
and we thirsted for the well-beloved Neapolitan
ice, which we could have procured at any hour of
the day in Boston or New York. We went into
one great restaurant after another, and were told
in each that the ices were not yet ready. Finally

AT NAPLES. 57
we found one, almost at the lower end of the street,
where a smiling little man told us, in answer to
our accustomed inquiry, —
" Oh, yees, but certainly we have of the cream."
He departed. We sat there and waited, burning
with thirst and impatience, till a quarter of an
hour had gone by. Then he reappeared, smiling
more than ever, and spread our little round table
with a white little cloth. Then we waited another
quarter of an hour, and he came again, but this
time, it was evident, with the sole purpose of be
stowing on us a consolatory smile, which did not
console us.
We suggested that half an hour earlier in the
day we had asked for cream, and he had promised
it to us.
" But certainly, most certainly."
Here his English failed him, but not his good-
humor. He smiled, and pointed below, then turned
an imaginary crank round and round, to intimate
to us by this reassuring pantomime that our cream
was at that very moment being concocted down
there below.
Sure enough, at five of the clock our ices came,
dainty and delicious, each fresh from its own little
mould ; and we discovered that in Naples _it is a
waste of time to seek for the refreshment of an
ice before five o'clock in the afternooh.
You can form no complete idea of what Naples
is like till you have seen it from the heights above.
We learned this when we drove to San Martina

58 r LAZY TOUES.
We were all together, — the " Fraulein Professor,"
as they call her in Germany, the Young Companion,
and I, — and the sun shone, and the birds sang,
and the tree-blossoms shook out their sweet scents
on the gentle wind, and it seemed a good world
to live in.
Up, up, up, we went, till we came to the high
hill-top which the suppressed Carthusian monas
tery of San Martino crowns. The church is full
of art treasures, richly adorned with mosaics and
frescos, and containing in its "Tesoro " the " De
scent from the Cross " of Spagnoletto, considered
his masterpiece, — a picture so sad and so powerful
that its majestic sorrow must forever haunt any
one who has once seen it. The ceiling of this
" Tesoro " is frescoed with the story of Judith,
and the whole ceihng is said to have been painted
in forty-eight hours by Luca Giordano when he
was in his seventy-second year, — an almost in
credible feat.
I wish you could have seen, in a grotto connected
with this monastery, what I think must be the
greatest doll-show in the whole world. It repre
sents the adoration by the Magi of the infant
Jesus, and also the general state of the nations of
the world at that epoch. There are donkeys and
sheep and cattle. There are Jew traders and
Arab merchants. Men are playing games, mothers
are rocking their children. All the life of the
world is being carried on in miniature. There are
hundreds of little figures, all perfectly costumed,

AT NAPLES. 59
and more entertaining than you can possibly
imagine. We saw all the monastery's treasures; we
walked through the cloisters which the feet of so
many dead-and-gone monks had trodden; and
then, long before we were ready, it was time to go.
One more look, from the ramparts that wall the
monastery round, at Naples, far down below, — the
great, gay, bustling town, with its many spires,
its hovels and its palaces, — and then good-by to
monks and monastery, and we rattled down the
vine-hung mountain, back into the busy streets.

IN PUESUIT OF VESUVIUS.
ON our way to our hotel, the.night we reached
Naples, we first saw the red light from far-
off Vesuvius, and thereupon we resolved to make his
nearer acquaintance. We saw him again when we
woke in the morning, and made our arrangements
to pay our respects to him the first windless day ;
for that the day should be profoundly stUl is of
the first importance if you would beard a volcano
in his lair.
The southern sun never shone on a loveher morn
ing than the one on which we finally set forth.
The deep blue Italian sky arched over us ; the
blue waters of the Bay sparkled in the sunshine.
Our horses tossed their stately heads, and would
have champed their bits, no doubt, only horses are
not driven with bits in Naples. Our driver was a
handsome Italian, and he rejoiced our hearts with
the information that he could " spik Inglis," —
how well we discovered later on.
The first part of our drive took us through the
wide-spreading city. The year before, cholera had
mowed men down there like grass, yet it did not
seem as if the place could ever have been fuller.
It fairly swarmed with life. The humbler people

IN PUESUIT OF VESUVIUS. 61
hve in rooms on the ground floors of the houses, —
rooms lighted only by the doors opening into the
street, and naturally it is so much gayer and
brighter out of doors than in that most occupa
tions are carried on al fresco. Mothers nurse their
infants, or brush their children's hair, in full view
of the passer-by. They cook strange messes over
braziers of coals. They knit, they spin, they
patch rags with rags. They rock babies —
swathed precisely as are the mummies you find in
the pyramids — in the queer little baskets that
serve for cradles. They keep house, in short, out-
of-doors. That special day Naples was doing its washing ;
and as it is a city with no back-yards, all their
clothes — the pitiful rags, I mean, which it pleases
them to call their clothes — were hung out to dry
in front of the houses, sometimes on poles thrust
from the windows, sometimes on lines drawn from
one window to another. In one place a regiment
of soldiers was tranquilly drilling in an open space
filled with just-washed clothes, and the flapping
skirts they had to dodge were a droll background
to their military movements.
Everything was for sale along the way. Oranges
were heaped in baskets lined with long green
grass. The lemon-stands were pictures; they
had a sort of shrine-like aspect, — the lemons being
hung from poles bent hke arches and rooted in the
highly decorated tables below. Here, too, was
your snow-cooled lemonade, if you chose to stop

62 LAZY TOUES.
for it. Wooden saw-horses were hung with mac
aroni drying in the sun. Small boys and girls
thrust perpetual bouquets into our carriages, asking
three francs to begin with, and lowering the price
franc by franc, with frantic excitement, as we
were whirled on beyond their reach.
The hour which it took us to get out of town
seemed hardly six minutes long, instead of sixty ;
for queerness succeeded to queerness, and we
agreed that street life in Naples is unique under
the sun.
We were content, however, to lose sight of it aU
when once we began to chmb the mountain, and
could look down at the wonderful view below us
of blue bay, and crowded city, with Capri and
Sorrento fair in the distance. Almond-trees were
pink along our paths. Pear-trees bloomed in
bridal white, and the dark stone-pines gazed un
moved at these light-minded neighbors dressed as
for a sylvan fete, — the dark stone-pines that are
the offspring of the stately heights, and scorn any
small tricks of adornment.
We had not climbed quite away, even yet, from
the gentle bandits of to-day, who, instead of pick
ing our pockets, besieged us with entreaties. Here
were a band of wandering musicians, singing to
their mandolins, and their strain seemed so hke
the voice of the spring day, blent so fitly with the
sunshine on the laughing world and the trees
in flower, that they had their wiU with our
purses.

IN PUESUIT OF VESUVIUS. 63
Then a dark-eyed httle maid would start up
from the roadside with bunches of yellow mari
golds in her hands, and run herself breathless
beside us until we pelted her away with sous.
And once a boy came with a bit of carved lava to
sell, — a boy so perfect that Murillo should have
painted him ; and when I would not buy his lava,
but gave him a coin for pure delight in his faun
like beauty, darted off and gathered for me a spray
of the lovely pink almond-blossoms, and then
sprang away, and smiled at me from a distance,
to show me that he wanted no further reward.
Old crones proffered us the rough strong wine
of Vesuvius, — which we had too much respect for
our sanity to drink, — while others tried to tempt
us with strings of shells or of coral ; and all the
time the blue Bay sparkled far below, and the sun
shone on busy, bustling Naples, and quiet Capri
and fair Sorrento. On and on, and always up,
until we had left all verdure behind us, and were
traversing the black slag, — the forlorn wastes
covered by deposits of lava.
It seemed as if one had entered the Inferno. It
was easy to see, in the twisted lava, sad shapes
whom pain had tortured until it turned them into
stone, and giant tree-trunks contorted by wilder
storms than ever forest knew. And still on and
up, with the tranquil Bay far below, ufitil, at last,
sullen Vesuvius, smoking forever his unfriendly
pipe, was near at hand.
We had been more than three hours on our

64 LAZY TOUES.
way before we reached the raUway station at the
foot of the highest height. We refreshed ourselves
with weak coffee and strong oysters, and then we
got into the train which goes up nine hundred
yards toward heaven, at an angle of forty-three
degrees. The ten minutes occupied in this transit
might well try the strongest nerves. The road
seems almost perpendicular, and if the cable
should break ! . . . I suppose it never has. Prob
ably it never will; but, side by side with you
goes the awful " If," and you are glad enough to
step out of the car when you reach the upper
station, though it be to struggle over masses of
jagged lava which cut your boots to pieces and
torture your unhappy feet. You will be offered
clumsy chairs, fastened to poles ; and panting men
are ready to seize the poles, and bear you still
farther upward; but having seen one venerable
lady swaying about in this seat of peril, we prefer
to trust to our own feet, and hobble on.
And, after all, the old giant, smoking his per
petual pipe, has little beauty to compensate you
for the toil and weariness of your approach to
him. You see a hole, some three or four feet in
diameter, from which he belches forth heated
masses of red and yellow lava. His sulphurous
breath nearly stifles you, and you turn away
quite ready to decline the honor of his farther
acquaintance. So you struggle back to the upper station ; and
then you plunge down by the same perilous rail-

IN PUESUIT OF VESUVIUS. 65
way, and again you watch the iron rope, and think,
under your breath " If ! " But ten minutes can
not last forever ; and soon we stand once more on
solid earth, and the driver touches his hat, and the
handsome horses neigh their welcome, and off we
start again, rattling down the mountain, with the
bay shining far below, while the afternoon sun
stretches across it such a path of glory that you
fancy it a bridge leading into Paradise, over which
Heaven's shining ones might journey.
Down, down, down, quite down at last; and
busy Naples seems busier than ever. It is milk
ing time, and everywhere you meet cows, which
are driven from door to door, with bells around
their necks to announce their approach. The
housekeeper who wants fresh milk comes out with
cup or pitcher, into which the warm, sweet milk is
pressed. Or, if you like goat's milk better, here is
the little herd of goats, with full udders, equally
at your service.
Here is a Punch and Judy show, and all the
neighbors have come out to see Punch box his
o
wife's ears. Here, beside our carriage, is a little
live bundle of laughs and rags, who turns a somer
sault, and expects us to pay him for standing on
his head. Here are donkeys about as large as a
child's rocking-horse, and with brays loud enough
to be heard from one end of Naples to the other.
Here are priests and peasants and dashing soldiers,
and now and then a fine carriage that has strayed
away from the Chaiaia; and then, once more, you
5

66 LAZY TOUES.
are beside the Bay ! And lo ! all the little skiffs
and fishing-boats have come home to rest, and
there they are, like a flock of bright-winged birds,
safe in harbor, — and we — we are safe too, and
our hotel opens its friendly doors, and we go in,
content that Vesuvius should smoke his pipe in a
solitude we are scarcely hkely again to invade.

SOEEENTO DAYS.
WHO could put into words the magic of
Southern Italy? "My eyes make pic
tures when they are shut " of a land all orange
orchards and olive groves, and heights that only
the stone-pines have stormed, and blue waters,
and a loveliness which is as the lovehness of a
dream; yet I am helpless to convey the subtle
and forever elusive charm. No place mocks more
utterly at description than does that Sorrento
where Torquato Tasso was born, in 1544, and to
which he returned, disguised as a shepherd, in
1592, — three years before his death. He died in
Eome ; but I think his heart was in Sorrento, and
perchance his ghost still haunts his fair birthplace.
Hans Christian Andersen says, in his " Impro-
visatore," that "when one tries to describe the
beauties of Nature, words seem to place them
selves in array like loose pieces of mosaic, but
they do not evoke the vision." And Nature still
seemed to smile this defiance at us as we rode out
of Naples on the train for Castellamare; We had
a little carriage to ourselves, we three, and we
sprang from side to side of it to see, on one hand,
the lovely bay, and on the other the heights, with

68 LAZY TOUES.
the clouds flecking them, and below, the orange
orchards, where the ripe fruit lay on the ground,
that glorious March day, as the apples lie at home
when an autumn wind has rifled the populous
trees. The ride to Castellamare was a delight, which
grew to rapture as we drove on from there to
Sorrento. Still we wound along between the
wooded heights above and the shining Bay below.
Sometimes an orange orchard overhung us, sepa
rated only by a low wall whose clefts were gay
with poppies, and sometimes the gray wall was so
high that it almost shut from our vision the hills
above, whUe always the Bay purled against the
shore below us, and we could see far-off Vesuvius
keeping his sullen watch over careless Naples at
his feet.
We found Sorrento the quaintest of quaint
places, — all oranges and olives, and narrow streets
and placid peasants, and boundless content for the
stranger within its gates. We drove through it at
a rattling pace, just catching glimpses of shops
full of gay-colored silks, and other shops full of
inlaid orange-wood, — the two specialties of Sor
rento. We brought up at last in the spacious
courtyard of Hotel Tramontane. I had a room
there with a balcony which overhung the Bay.
Near at hand was Capri; farther off Vesuvius
still smoked his persistent pipe ; and over all,
when I first took possession, lay the sunset's
golden glory.

SOEEENTO DAYS. 69
Surely, out there in the blue distance dreamed
the Happy Islands ; surely I had but to enter
one of those little skiffs below and steer it west
ward, to find that unknown land which is east
of the sun, and west of the moon, and which I
was only restrained from going forth to seek by
an impertinent dinner-bell, and the appearance on
the scene of the Fraulein Professor and the Young
Companion. They had a pink-and-white bower-
chamber on the other side of the house, looking
into an orange orchard, whence the morning birds
sang to them, while the morning sun looked ap
provingly into their windows.
From dinner we came back to my balcony. The
sunset glory had faded, but a new glory of the
moon had arisen, and I was not minded to seek
the Happy Islands by moonlight, for I feared lest I
should find ghosts in them, as white as the moon
light and as cold. I waited, half thinking that
they would walk toward me on the waters, until
the spell was broken by a knock upon my door.
" Would the signoras of their good pleasure like
to behold the dance of the tarantella ? " Surely
the signoras would like to behold it; and we
descended to a gay little room, fitly frescoed with
dancing-girls, and draped with red-and-blue hang
ings, and then, —
" The quick, sweet rasping of the fiddles
Set the dancers in the dance-room a-going."
The tarantella is ¦ — like most peasant dances —
a love-story. The two who dance it approach.

70 LAZY TOUES.
retreat, coquet with each other, and finally join
hands in token of future union. It seemed greatly
to amuse most of the spectators, but my thoughts
were still sailing on the Bay, under the magic
moon, keeping tryst with Shadows.
Next morning we heard the nightingale for the
first time. The singer hved in a cage in Signer
Tramontane's orange garden, and, enchanting as
was his song, his owner said it was not his love
liest. It was pretty to hear our host describe, in
his Italian English, what the nightingale's song
at its best might be.
" They sing," he said, " to woo the she bird vsdth
which they are wishful to mate. One bird, he
begin, and he sing, and sing, and sing, the sweetest
music you could ever hear, and it seem as if his
heart would break with the cry. And his love,
she listen. Then another bird, far away, he be
gin in his turn, and his cry comes through the
night, and he sing and he sing, as no man could
ever sing so high, tUl the tree where he rests does
quiver. And the love, she listen, and make a httle
tender, troubled sound, not knowing yet which
song to choose. Then the first, he sing again, and
then once more the second, he answer, and the
bird-love she hsten, and at last she give a low,
cooing call, and fly home to him whose song has
pleased her best ; and so they are mated, and they
make then the nest."
From Sorrento such dehghtful excursions in
vite us that one need never be at loss for a fresh

SOEEENTO DAYS. 71
pleasure. One day the Young Companion and I
went to Capri by steamer, and the sail was diver
sified by the persistent attentions of venders of
coral and of wood carving, and the gay music of
an accompanying band of Itahan minstrels.
After an hour or so people began to say,
" Oh, there it is ! " and " It " was the entrance to
the famous Blue Grotto. An Itahan girl stood, as
if she were the warder of the place, on a narrow
ledge of cliff beside the entrance, and her vivid
coloring made a gay picture against the gray
rocks. And then little row-boats bustled about
our steamer, and everybody got into them, and
the Young Companion and I were in the midst of
the throng, in our own little boat. The entrance
to the grotto is scarcely three feet in height, and
it is barely possible for one tiny skiff to enter at
a time; and to do that the passengers must lie
down in the boat. Once inside, however, and the
grotto is comfortably spacious.
The deep brilhant blue is almost more than the
eye can endure. Fain would we have had this
sapphire solitude to ourselves ; but no, we were
in a village of little boats. I counted seventeen
which surrounded us, and I do not think I counted
them aU. Our boatman offered, for a franc, to
dive into the blue depth of water and show us
how it would turn him to sUver. But the pros
pect of having him back again dripping from his
blue bath did not attract us, and we were deaf to
his beguileraents.

72 LAZY TOUES.
To be alone in the Blue Grotto, — ah, that would
be as if one had gone into the heart of a jewel, and
the under world were reveahng its secrets ! As it
was, half the effect was lost ; but a strange vision
of beauty abides in one's memory.
We went out, heads lowered, as we had come in,
climbed into our steamer, and on we went to Capri
proper, where we landed for rest and luncheon, which
awaited us in the veranda of a quiet httle hotel over
looking the bay. When luncheon was over, and
we went into the courtyard of the hotel, we bade
farewell to quiet. A crowd of donkeys and their
drivers blocked our way. The women wore the
gay peasant costume, with long ghttering ear-rings
and bright kerchiefs, and, oh, they had such
tongues !
" Would we ride ? " they all clamored at once.
We must ride ! I half thought we should be torn
in pieces among them, and I took refuge on one
donkey, and the Young Companion followed on
another. A little girl led each donkey, and a
woman — stick in hand — walked beside it, and a
young man who seemed to consider himself a
professor of English tagged along ; and thus our
procession marched on up the hill toward Villa
Tiberius. My driver was such a pretty young
woman that I asked her if she were married. No,
she was not married, but she was promised, — yes,
promised to an American. " Ah," said I, " I am
American ! " Her face beamed with pleasure. She
patted the donkey on which I was riding, and said

SOEEENTO DAYS. 73
in a cheerful tone, as if she took pleasure in present
ing to me a countryman in a foreign land, " This
donkey, he American, too. Good donkey, — Amer
icano ! " Since then my fellow pilgrims speak of
all the donkeys as my relations. At any rate, the
one I rode was a good little beast, and bore me on
and up very patiently.
Strangely lovely is the site of the villa where
wicked old Tiberius lived and sinned, and threw
his slaves and sometimes his friends and guests
into the sea for pastime. I wonder where his evil
shade is now, and whether it haunts the old
scenes still ! I fancied he was walking beside us
as we made our way back to the shore and the
steamer, and we were glad to sail away from him
across the ' sea aglow with the sunset toward fair
Sorrento. Next day we drove from Sorrento to Masso, and
on to the old convent. La Deserta, which has been
turned now into an orphanage for boys. As we
drove towards the convent, schools of young
priests met us, taking their solemn walk, breviary
in hand ; but, all around, the world was gay.
Over our heads the heavy-laden orange and lemon
trees bent with their weight of fruit. Poppies
and daisies nodded to us from the clefts of the
rocks, and adventurous roses climbed the walls
and flaunted their pink blossoms from the heights.
Below — between us and the shining bay — were
groves of olive-trees, with their gnarled trunks and
little gray leaves ; and sometimes . the young

74 LAZY TOUES.
spring-green of the just-leaved larch flashed like a
jewel among the sombre gray of the ohves, and
seemed like the youth and age of the tree-world,
strangely allied.
From the entrance to the grounds of La Deserta
it was still a long climb up the heights to the old
convent. Little green lizards ran across our path,
and in and out of the chinks of the wall, and
little children started up like the lizards from odd
corners, and offered us roses. At last we reached
the convent door, and an old brown-robed monk,
with a nose like an eagle's beak, bade us welcome,
and led us to the house-top, which, indeed, seemed
the summit of the Delectable Mountains, whence
one could look forth on Paradise. On all sides
stretched the glorious panorama, made up of near
mountains rising ruggedly from the Bay, and
distant ones like clouds on the horizon. Then
there were little white villages at the feet of vol
canoes, and everywhere oranges and olives and
roses, and not a sound to break the waiting still
ness save the occasional long call of some lonely
bird, or the childish voices of the little black-
haired children playing in the garden far below, —
so far that their talk and their laughter seemed
hke the vague murmur of a hive of bees. Happy
chUdren they, in that lovely spot among the
flowers, and with the kind old brown monks for
guardians. Our own especial monk was curious to know
from whence we came. We asked if he had ever

SOEEENTO DAYS. 75
been in England. He smiled at the thought of
such far wanderings, and shook his head.
" In England ? no ; in Florence ? no ; in Eome ?
no; but sometimes to Sorrento, and twice to
Naples!" What a hfe, — bounded by a short day's journey !
But it held the vision of heaven. We parted with
him, after all, with a vague envy, to go on our
worldly way, down the long path again, start
hng the green lizards on our way, chaffering with
the happy children ; and then back to Sorrento,
when the sun was low, for an evening of music
and moonhght and memories, — a last Sorrento
night, for the next morning was to see us on our
way to Pompeu.

POMPEII, AMALFI, AND PAESTUM.
WE drove from Sorrento to Pompeii ia all the
glory of the sweet spring morning, and it
was a strange contrast to go in, out of the gay,
ever-young world, to the Museum of Pompeian
Antiquities through which we passed on our way
to the dead city of the dead.
In this terrible museum you find eight human
bodies, killed in the eruption that overwhelmed
the city in the year 79 of the Christian era. How
many milhons of the dead have mouldered into
dust and been forgotten whUe these have remained
in awful permanence, thus turned to stone !
Here, too, you find loaves of bread baked on that
fatal August morning, more than eighteen hundred
years ago, and grapes which were ripening in that
morning's sunshine. Dogs and cats, buried with
their masters in one dire moment, were here also.
Ah me ! it was a grewsome place, and one was glad
to flee from it even into the streets of the dead
city. Pompeu was first mentioned in history three
hundred and ten years before Christ, but certain of
its monuments prove it to have been of much
greater antiquity than this.

POMPEII, AMALFI, AND PAESTUM. 77
It is said to have been founded by the Oscans,
and to have shared the civilization of the Greeks ;
but nearly a century before the Christian era it be
came subject to Eome, and was a favorite retreat for
Eomans of the wealthier classes, even including
some of the emperors.
Sixty-three years after Christ a fearful earth
quake assailed it, and completely destroyed a large
portion of the city.
This was hardly hkely to happen again, said
Pompeii to itself, with some consoling superstition
that lightning never strikes twice in the same
place. So they built up the town more nobly than
ever, and the next sixteen years were devoted to
filhng it with all such luxuries as Eomans loved
The walls were covered with beautiful frescos ;
temples were built, a theatre, an arena for gladia
torial combats, marble baths, deep wine-cellars, —
all, in short, that belonged to a Eoman holiday.
And they sang and danced and made festival
and lived on fearlessly, as if there were no
danger nor sorrow in all the world, until sud
denly, " like a strong man armed," destruction fell
upon them.
In A. D. 79 came an eruption of Vesuvius, of
which the first symptom was a dense shower of
ashes that covered the town to the depth of three
feet. Thus warned, many of the inhabitants had
time to escape. Others were too paralyzed by fear
to move, and still others, having once fled, returned
to gather up their treasures ; and then the final

78 LAZY TOUES.
catastrophe came, and the whole number of those
who perished in it is estimated at about two
thousand. For nearly fifteen centuries was the place given
over, undisturbed, to its sad sepulture, and it is
only in the present century that really important
excavations have been made. Scarcely more than
a third of the old city has even yet been exhumed,
and it is computed that, at the rate the excavations
are going on at present, it wUl be seventy years
before they are completed, though there is no
doubt that the world is already in possession of by
far the most important part of the old town.
These ruins are almost our sole source of infor
mation as regards the details of ancient domestic
life. It must have been a prosperous city ; for, so
far, not one indication has been found of that
pauper race, with forever outstretched hand, so
numerous in the Italy of to-day.
We form mistaken ideas of Pompeu from the
novehsts and the poets. I, at least, had expected
its houses to be far more complete. The ground
plans are perfectly distinct, but comparatively few
of the walls are standing.
The streets are straight and narrow, and admira
bly paved with lava. In many of them are deep
ruts worn by the chariot wheels of long ago, and at
the street-corners you still find placards recom
mending for public office men dead for how many
silent centuries. Your imagination fills the dumb
streets with pictures. You see Pansa driving home

POMPEII, AMALFI, AND PAESTUM. 79
to his stately house, or the Tragic Poet turning the
next corner.
Sallust lived here, and Diomed, and here the
people went and came, and loved and hated, and
led their busy hves, untU suddenly, into the midst
of the music, the Eruption burst, and they had to
stop living.
Here were their shops — here their temples.
Here are their daintily frescoed bed-chambers,
their marble baths, their dining-halls with scenes
of hunting and feasting upon their walls, a statue
here, a bas-relief there, a fresco elsewhere ; though
the most beautiful and valuable of their works
of art have been transferred to the Naples
Museum. Here is a " Phallus " for averting the evil eye ;
and everywhere you find stone snakes, to symbol
ize the gods of the hearth and of the cross-ways.
From Pompeu we drove on to La Cava, and on
our way a wUd thunder-shower came up. Light
nings flashed and thunder pealed from height to
height, and the stone-pines crashed with the
mighty wind. In the very midst of it all we met
a funeral, actually as gay as a Punch and Judy
show. It is a strange feature of life in Southern Italy
that they sedulously divest funerals of all solem
nity. This hearse might have been .the show-
wagon preceding a circus, for it was all gilt and
tinsel, and the dead body inside was covered with
a mound of bright-colored paper flowers.

80 LAZY TOUES.
After it followed a motley band of mourners,
gayly clad, and protecting themselves from the
rain with gaudy-hued umbrellas, and evidently
more concerned about their own shelter than
about the dead whom they were following.
" 'T is a mad world, my masters I "
La Cava is a good place to go from, — the best
possible centre from which to make excursions.
Salvator Eosa found it a good place, indeed, for
a painter to abide in, and embodied many of the
wild scenes around it in his best pictures.
We drove from there to Amalfi, — a drive of
about three hours, by the most wonderful road,
hewn in the very cliffs of the coast, and frequently
supported by galleries and vast viaducts from one
hundred to five hundred feet above the level of
the sea.
On the heights above grow oranges and lemons
and olives, and still above these orchards rise
heights that seem to scale the blue Italian sky.
I have no adjectives for this three hours' drive. I
have used them up on scenes lovely indeed, but
yet less fair ; and for this supreme beauty I have
no tribute but silence.
Amalfi itself, as George Eliot says in her Ital
ian Journal, "surpasses all imagination of a ro
mantic site for a city."
We climbed to the old monastery, which is now
a hotel, at the very top of the height on which
Amalfi is built, and there we sat in a reading-room,

POMPEII, AMALFI, AND PAESTUM. 81
which was once the refectory of the old monks,
and awaited the preparation of our luncheon.
Meanwhile we looked over the visitors' book.
People had written there of going to Amalfi for
a fortnight, and remaining for months, unable to
tear themselves away ; and one lady had gone for
a week and stayed a year.
My only wonder was how, after a year of
Amalfi, one could ever endure life elsewhere. Our
own Longfellow was one of the visitors who had
recorded in this well-filled book his joy in Amalfi,
and afterwards, when a sharp New England snow
storm was keeping him in-doors, he saw the place
again as in vision, and wrote about it his poem
beginning : —
" Sweet the memory is to me,
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where, amid her mulberry-trees,
Sits Amalfi in the heat.
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas."
The next morning we went to Paestum through
a waste country tenanted by wild horses, swine,
forlorn-looking sheep watched by fierce dogs, and
great herds of brown, shaggy buffaloes with evU
eyes. The air was heavy with malaria. We
seemed to be passing through the " Valley of the
Shadow of Death," — fit route to dead temples,
built in dead centuries, in honor of dead gods.
When history first took account of Paestum, it
6

82 LAZY TOUES.
was called Poseidonia, from Poseidon, the Greek
name for Neptune. It is said to have been settled
by a Greek colony from Sybaris as long ago as
about six hundred years before Christ.
Some two hundred and seventy-three years be
fore Christ it fell into the hands of the Eomans ;
and from that time it steadily declined in impor
tance, until, in the middle of the ninth century
A. D., it was almost destroyed by the Saracens.
Now its very roses, which the Eoman poets used
to praise, are dead.
But happUy its walls are standing stiU, and its
glorious temples remain, not yet wholly ruined,
to give us the best idea it is possible to obtain,
out of Athens, of pure Greek architecture.
They are three in number, — these temples
which now are Paestum. The central and by far
the most important one is that conjecturally
called the Temple of Neptune, sixty-five yards in
length and twenty-six yards in width. Like its
two neighbors, it was buUt of gray travertine, but
time has turned the stone to a warm brown.
It stands in the centre of a great waste plain,
and on one side it looks toward the sea, over
which the deity in whose honor it may have been
built was ruler, and on the other toward the
mountains. To the perfection of its form and color is added
the charm of the uttermost suitabihty of position.
Wise indeed were the builders who chose this
site more than two thousand years ago.

POMPEII, AMALFI, AND PAESTUM. 83
Standing before this temple, I received my first
keen sense of what absolutely perfect architecture
might be, and my heart thrilled at its beauty as at
glorious music. The lesser temples, its neighbors,
would have been wonders of beauty elsewhere ;
but here Neptune triumphed, and one forgot to
worship at the shrine of the other gods.
Did some one get hungry, in spite of the
beauty ? We lunched at last under our umbrel
las, and half-sheltered by the roofless Doric pillars
of the great temple.
Then our German professor marched at the
head of his feminine following, and made us wise
about all sorts of technical details in the archi
tecture of the three temples, and we gathered in
this waste plain of ruins just such wild-flowers as
we could have found in a New England meadow
in June.
But the rain, that had coquetted with us all
day, now began to pour down in desperate earnest,
and we hurried back to the railway station and
started with the out-going train for Naples.

IN AND ABOUT ROME.

ALL EOADS LEAD TO EOME.
IF you cross the Atlantic by the French line,
you will be told that to get your ticket
through to Paris, and have your trunks checked
for that destination on the pier at New York, wUl
be a great saving of trouble ; and so, no doubt, it
usuaUy is. But it befell me otherwise. I was
assured that I need concern myself no farther
with my luggage until I came to the end of my
journey. So when I reached Paris at noon of
Tuesday, April 8, I looked about confidently for
my three trunks. Two were there, but the third
was missing. The representative of the Trans-
atlantique company searched with me ; the head
man of the custom house lent a hand, or rather
an eye ; and we looked at every trunk in the place,
but in vain. "What was your trunk like ? " asked
the agent of the steamer company. I described it
with the realistic faithfulness of a Zola. He would
telegraph to Havre, he said, at once. I should
have the trunk that night ; or, at least, I should
have news of it. As soon as an answer came to
his telegram, he would send me word, at Hotel
Normandy.

88 LAZY TOUES.
At the hotel the concierge encouraged me. Just
such a thing had happened, he said, to a lady who
came there three weeks before; but she got her
trunk the next day at noon. I had meant to start
on Wednesday morning for Italy. All Tuesday
afternoon I waited in vain for the expected mes
sage from the man at the station ; but no message
came. Wednesday morning, — still no news. I
stayed in until noon. Then I betook myself to
the general office of the Transatlantique company.
I was told I must go to the Bureau of Eeclama-
tion, on another street. At the bureau I found
a man in charge who spoke French-English, and
who listened to my tale of woe with the most
sympathetic courtesy.
" Mais, madame, it is sure that your trunk vnll
arrive." " But I wanted to start for Eome this morning."
" It must be another of mornings. I regret it,
madame." Ah me ! we can bear the loss of other people's
trunks with such calmness !
" But I must do something," I cried. " I cannot
be kept here forever by that missing trunk."
" Very true, madame. I shall now at once go
with you to the Gare St. Lazare. You will please
make me the description of your trunk."
So once more I described the poor black box to
a dot, and he wrote it all down. Then we started
for the station. We found there the custom house
man and the company's agent. The agent " had

ALL EOADS LEAD TO EOME. 89
telegraphed to Havre — yes — but certainly — and
had received no answer," and he shrugged his
expressive shoulders.
"I will telegraph, and I shall be answered,"
said monsieur from the Bureau of Eeclamation,
and forthwith he sent a despatch a yard long.
He also told me that I should have word at my
hotel as soon as he got his answer. Late that
afternoon the message came. The trunk was on
its way from Havre. On Thursday I drove once
more to the Gare, and there I reclaimed my trunk
and drove back with it in triumph to Hotel Nor
mandy. But it was Friday morning, instead of
Wednesday, on which I finally started for Eome.
"Is there a moral?" Oh, I forgot that! I
should get my trunks checked for Paris before I
left New York all the same, if I were going again ;
but I would try and make acquaintance with them
when they were landed on the dock at Havre.
" All roads lead to Eome," so they say ; and at
any rate the number of different routes suggested
to you is quite bewildering. You may go by the
most luxurious of expresses to Lyons, Marseilles,
and along the Eiviera, — but this is the longest
route, though many prefer it ; or you may go by
MUan and Florence, which, if you are in no special
hurry, is, I think, the pleasantest thing to do ; but
if you want the shortest route, you wUl'go by way
of Turin, Genoa, and Pisa. This is what I con
cluded to do. Cook's people urged me to start at
9 o'clock at night. The 9 p. m. train is certainly

90 LAZY TOUES.
the best and quickest train to take, and I should
take it if I had a friend to share my section in the
sleeper. But if you are alone, you must either
have some stranger in the same section, or you
must not only buy the whole section (which one
would gladly do), but also you must buy a second
railway ticket, which makes your night's journey
rather expensive. I preferred to go on by day,
and stop over, for the night, at Aix-les-Bains ; so
I took the 8.50 train in the morning. I found in
the compartment " for ladies only " two ladies from
Chicago, — pretty and pleasant, and, oh, so wise!
One was a medical student, — a fair girl graduate,
who is to pass the summer in listening to medical
lectures at the Medical University of Zurich. The
other was a scientific student of evolution, who
had pursued the human race backward farther
than my fancy can follow her. But they were both
delightful. I adore people with specialties. They
save you so much trouble. The day wore away
swiftly in such company, and the night came on.
The evening seemed long to our fatigue. It was
thirty-six minutes past ten o'clock when we stopped
at last at Aix-les-Bains. I have passed a season
there, and certainly I found it a gay place then,
where every one went to the theatre at night, and
then wicked people played baccarat till morning.
I was not prepared to find, on reaching the station,
a dark and terrible solitude. I had planned to
stop there, feeling sure that omnibuses from all
the hotels would await the train, and that eager

ALL EOADS LEAD TO EOME. 91
hotel porters would be striving together for the
pleasure of our company. Presto ! One dingy
looking man, coming from Heaven knows where,
dragged the hand luggage from the train. Hap'
pily for me, the ladies from Chicago stopped there
also. We demanded an omnibus, — there was
none; a cab, — not one to be had. What should
we do ? The dingy man produced from somewhere
a sort of truck, and heaped our hold-alls and our
portmanteaus upon it. If we would follow him,
he said, he would guide us to the nearest hotel ;
it was not more than five minutes off, — oh, no !
Did I not thank Heaven then for the company of
those ladies from Chicago ? What if I had been
there alone? There was scarcely light enough to
make darkness visible, and how should I, singly,
have dared to follow the dingy man out into the
vague, dark world, wherever he chose to take
me ? Think what a plot for a Gaboriau novel !
But there is courage in numbers, and the three
of us went on our way. It had rained heavily in
the day, and our feet sank in the mud as on we
toUed for the longest five minutes I can remember.
At last, however, we reached the lighted entrance
of the Grand Hotel d'Aix, and two or three sleepy
servants provided for our wants.
It was nearly midnight before we were in bed,
and the night was short ; for we were called again
at 4.45, and at 6.30 we had dressed, breakfasted,
and were on the train.
Turin was our next stopping-place, and there I

92 LAZY TOUES.
parted company with the wise women of Chicago.
They were to "repose themselves" at Turin, while
I sped on toward Eome. But I have not told you
how lovely was the world we looked on from the
windows of our railway carriage between Aix-les-
Bains and Modane. Mountains rose all along the
way, and all their tops were white with snow,
which glistened in the morning sun with a daz
zling lustre caught from heaven itself. On one of
the lower heights was a forest of trees, that looked
like serried ranks of marching men, and each tree-
soldier was clad, for suit of mail, in ghttering ice.
You could easily fancy that one of the armies that
marched on over these paths toward Eome long
centuries ago was there reincarnated, and once
more glad with the breath of hfe.
At Modane came the examination of the lug
gage, and then we entered the Mont Cenis tunnel
We were precisely one half-hour from the time we
entered the tunnel till we came out of it ; one half-
hour without a ray of illumination save from the
little eye of light in the roof of our raUway car
riage. The train moved on with a deep and
awful reverberation like underground thunder. It
seemed like a transit through the Inferno ; and I
should hardly have been surprised had King
Pluto appeared to demand his tribute money.
Just half-way of this transit through the kingdom
of darkness came a wild, prolonged scream from
the engine, which the stone walls of the tunnel
caught and clamorously repeated. For an instant

ALL EOADS LEAD TO EOME. 93
one's heart stood still with fear, — it sounded so
hke the trumpet of final doom ; but the cry
ceased at last, and only the low, awful reverbera
tion went on, and we went on with it, and came
out into the light at last, after this half-hour that
had seemed interminable.
We had left France behind when we went into
the tunnel. We came out of it into Italy; and
already the character of the landscape had changed.
Mountains rose still along our way, but on these
heights no snow glistened. The sun rested on
them soft and warm, as if it loved them, and a
wonderful purple light bathed their sides, — a glory
of color that suggested the untold splendors of
Paradise, as the horrible darkness and mystery of
the tunnel had suggested the Inferno. We reached
Turin at two o'clock in the afternoon, and there,
as I said, the travellers from Chicago remained,
while I went by myself, on the road that leads to
Eome. Fortunately I was quite alone, — mistress
of an entire compartment, free to sit at whatever
window I pleased, to bask in the sun or retire into
the shadow at my own sweet will.
The aspect of the landscape had once more
changed. Going from Turin down to Genoa you
pass through a region chiefly level ; at least there
are no high mountains, and even the hills are few.
As I looked out, I recalled Lady Verney's chapters
on peasant holdings in Italy. People in this part
of Italy must be very poor ; there seemed to be so
few houses that indicated even comfortable middle-

94 LAZY TOUES.
class respectability. Almost aU were cottages,
scarcely better than hovels, in which pig and
peasant were alike at home.
Finding no compelling attraction in the outside
world, I devoted myself to re-reading Eudyard
Kiphng's "Plain Tales from the HiUs," and was
happy. I used to despair of finding a Guy de Maupas
sant to tell short stories for the English-speaking
world ; but here he is. Scarcely De Maupassant
himself could put so much story in so little
space. I turned from the book at last, when we had
reached the shores of the Mediterranean, so blandly
blue in the April sunshine, — so treacherous, I
know, for I have sailed on it. It was 5.30 of the
afternoon when we reached the " City of Palaces,"
— Genoa " the superb." I had meant to stop there
for the night; but as I had my compartment to
myself and could rest there comfortably enough, I
determined to go on through the dark and be at
Eome in the morning. The half-hour we waited
at Genoa gave me time to take a nice httle table
d'hote dinner in the very good restaurant attached
to the station. I was strongly tempted to stop
over and renew my impressions of Genoa. I re
called in my fond vision its marble palaces full of
glorious pictures; its streets with no sidewalks,
where you are jostled by the ever-present donkey ;
its sumptuous churches, fairly glittering with gold ;
and the monument to Columbus, to which we

ALL EOADS LEAD TO EOME. 95
Yankees have a personal right. But Eome was at
the end of my journey, and Eome conquered, as
she conquered the world long ago.
When we were approaching Genoa, she was
fairly ablaze with the glory of sunset. Every
window was aflame, and her marble palaces shone
hke the jewelled walls of the New Jerusalem.
The sun had set and the night had fallen when we
moved away again, and the city that had been as
glad as hope was pensive now as memory. The
sea looked cold and dark, though the stars were
rising above it, and their reflections flashed like
jewels here and there in its depths. As long
as enough twUight lasted to reveal a ghmpse of
sea or shore, I looked from my window. Then I
slept a fitful, unrestful slumber, waking with a
sudden start every time the train paused at a
station. At sunrise I was broad awake again, and
still we were speeding on beside the sea, and sea
and sky and earth were glorious with the great
mysterious " rose of dawn." After a while we left
the sea and turned inland toward Eome. I sup
pose the Italians must have some holidays ; but
here it was Sunday morning, and men, women, and
donkeys were all toiling patiently in the fields.
Oh the hard, hard life ! oh the bitter bread,
bitterly earned ! I do not understand — I wish I
did — why there should be people with millions
on millions of money, great wastes of land " pre
served " for hunting and shooting ; pretty women,
whose only task is to choose the fittest adorn-

96 LAZY TOUES.
ment for their loveliness ; and then these others.
Heaven's chUdren also, but forsaken and forgotten
of men, toiling, from sun to sun, for food a well-
bred dog would scorn, and rags to wear that would
affront a beggar. Oh the everlasting puzzle that
it is ! How one wishes Mr. Bellamy's golden
dream were realized ; but looking on the world as
we see it now, does not such a future seem as
impossible as the wUdest wonder tales told in
"Arabian Nights"?
Eome at last, — yes, Eome ! What magic is in
the word ! When I reached this same station for
the first time, — how long ago it seems now, —
I remember there was a choking of my breath,
a dimness in my eyes, that was hke first love,
perhaps. I could breathe freely this morning, I
could see clearly; but, all the same, Eome is
Eome, and there is no other place like it under the
sun. I got to my hotel ; I rang for my morning
coffee ; and if I had been brought hither in a dream,
I should still have known that it was Eome, for
here on my butter-pat were Eomulus and Eemus,
and their foster-mother the wolf.

MOST EOMAN PAET OF EOME.
HEEE I am at the H6tel de Londres, in the
most Eoman part of Eome, in the Piazza di
Spagna, just at the foot of the Spanish Steps. At
No. 25 Shelley lived, and at No. 26, Keats. I
wonder if they loved to watch, as I do, the models
that congregate on the Spanish Steps, — pictur
esque creatures in their gay peasant costumes ! I
wonder if the beggars swarmed round them at
every step, as they swarm round me when I go
out of my door ! I am sure they must have loved
this gay, bright, varied scene. The city govern
ment is doing its best to obliterate Eoman Eome.
An ugly iron bridge crosses the Eoman Forum,
and vandalism can hardly go farther than that.
They are levelling here, and pulling down there,
and blocks of commonplace houses are supplant
ing Eoman ruins ; but. Heaven be praised, the dear
old Piazza di Spagna is not likely to be interfered
with at present !
Do you remember the pretty story they tell of
Euskin when he was here ? He usect to come
down the Spanish Steps morning after morning,
and there was one beggar who always begged of
him, and to whom he always gave a copper coin
7

98 LAZY TOUES.
or two. One day the beggar, touched by this long-
continued kindness, caught his hand and kissed it.
The beggar's own hand was not over-clean, and
involuntarily Euskin shrank from his touch.
Then the strong sense in him of human brother
hood triumphed, and he bent over and kissed the
beggar's cheek. Next day the man came to the
house where Euskin lived, and brought him the
most precious thing he had in the world, — a
fragment of brown cloth which had once been
part of the monkish robe of St. Francis of AssisL
They say that it was this incident which espe
cially turned Euskin's thoughts to the hfe of St.
Francis, and to those frescos by Giotto of which
he has written so eloquently.
What have I seen beside the beauties and the
beggars of the Spanish Steps ? Not so very much,
as yet. Somehow one does not care to hurry at
Eome, but there is always something to do. One
day I drove to the Church of St. Onofrio to see
the tomb of Tasso. We drove there by that su
perb new road along the Janiculum Hill, which
commands a view of Eome worth going far to see.
The Janiculum Hill used to be consecrated, long
ago, to Janus, the sun god. The first Sabine king
of Eome, Numa Pompilius, was buried here with
the sacred rites of the sun worshippers. Ancus
Martins, the fourth Eoman king, connected the
Janiculum with the rest of the city by building
the Pons Sublicius, the first bridge over the Tiber.
From the crest of the Janiculum HUl, Lars Por-

MOST EOMAN PART OF EOME. 99
sena. King of Etruria, looked upon Eome and re
tired in fear for his life, after he had seen such
examples of Eoman courage as Horatius, who kept
the falhng bridge, and Mutius, who burned his
hand in the charcoal and waved the triumphant
stump of it to the foe.
On this hill stands the Church of St. Onofrio,
forever associated with the memory of Torquato
Tasso. He came to Eome in 1594, on the invita
tion of Pope Clement VIII., that he might be
crowned at the Capitol; but he arrived in the
month of November, and the weather was then
very bad. So it was decided to postpone the cere
mony of crowning him until the spring. In his
secret heart Tasso felt that he should now never
be crowned at all, for the presentiment of death
was upon him. Long before the time appointed
for his crowning he went to the monks in the con
vent of St. Onofrio (which adjoins the church)
and said to them, " Brethren, I have come to die
among you ; " and to a friend he wrote, " I am
come to begin, in this holy place, the conversation
of heaven."
During the fourteen days through which his ill
ness lasted he was absorbed in the contemplation of
heavenly mysteries, and on the last day of his life,
having already received the papal absolution, he
exclaimed, " I believe that the crown I looked for
at the Capitol is to be changed for a crown in
heaven." He was only fifty years of age when he
died thus, gladly resigning earth in the sure

100 LAZY TOUES.
hope of heaven. The room in which he died,
three centuries ago, still contains his crucifix,
and various other rehcs of his hfe, beside a mask
which was taken from his face after death, — a
poet's face, sad and thin, and with a look of aspi
ration and of yearning from which one turns away
with dim eyes. I lingered in the Eoman sunshine,
under that old oak-tree beneath which Tasso used
to sit through the long twilights, gazing toward
Eome, and thinking, — was it of heaven, or of Leo
nora ? Italy, always loyal to genius, does not for
get her poets, and in the little amphitheatre near
Tasso's oak the " Academia " still holds, on every
25th of April, a musical festa in honor of his
memory, at which his bust is crowned with the
laurels he did not live long enough to wear.
We drove through the Trastevere on our way
from the Church of St. Onofrio to the Pincian HUl.
The Trastevere always interests me. It is the " city
across the Tiber," the part of Eome least altered
from mediaeval times, where the narrow streets
are overlooked still by ancient towers and gothic
windows and curious pieces of sculpture. The
inhabitants of the Trastevere pride themselves on
being different from the people on the other side
of the Tiber, with whom they seldom inter-marry.
They claim to be direct descendants of the an
cient Eomans, and they speak a dialect of their
own. They are said to be stronger and more
vigorous of body than other Eomans, as well as
more passionate and revengeful. There are more

MOST EOMAN PAET OF EOME. 101
murders here than in any other part of Eome, —
though murder is never so frequent in Italy as in
England. They are handsome creatures, these
Trasteverini, and, marrying among themselves,
have kept their type unvitiated.
To go to the Pincian Hill of an AprU afternoon
should have been included among Sir John Lub
bock's "Pleasures of Life." The winding road
that leads up the Pincio is the oldest and quite
the most important public pleasure drive in Eome.
The road along the Janiculum HUl, through the
Corsini grounds, is out of easy reach, and too new
to be so generally popular; while the beautiful
park of the Villa Borghese is the private prop
erty of Prince Borghese, and is only free to the
public on certain days. The dear Pincio is always
open. You may climb there to watch the sunrise
gild the dome of St. Peter's, or linger there on
May evenings, while the nightingales break your
heart with the passion of their singing; or you
may drive there, with all the Eoman world, on a
bright afternoon, and listen to the military music,
and, if you are fortunate, receive a smiling bow
from the Queen, or a gracious salute from his
Majesty the King. King Humberto is the only
monarch who could reconcile me to monarchy.
Since the days when, forsaking all the pleasures
that invited him, he went to Naples and held the
hands of those who were dying there of cholera,
and said, in the house of the Black Death, " My
place is here," he has seemed to me the one king

102 LAZY TOUES.
who was truly the father of his people, and who
had a father's right to rule. I never see hun with
out longing to be one of his subjects.
But about the Pincian ! It is not one of the
traditional seven hills of Eome. It stood for
many centuries outside the walls. The great Nor
thern road — the Flaminian Way — ran at its foot,
and along this road were stately sculptured sepul
tures, many of which were afterward destroyed
when the Porta del Popolo was built. It was
known of old as The Hill of Gardens, and it took
its present designation from the Pincian family,
who owned it toward the close of the Eoman
empire. Long — oh, how long — ago the viUa of
LucuUus was here. Afterward, Messalina coveted
the place. It was a very simple thing with her
to get what she wanted. She had only to murder
the proprietor, which she did without scruple,
and then took possession.
It was about A. D. 270 when the Emperor
Aurelian inclosed the hUl with the walls that still
surround it. The wall farthest from the city is so
very high that it is a favorite place for suicides ;
though I should think that, were one ever so
determined on shuffling off this mortal coil, if once
he looked down from here he would fall in love
with life anew, and resolve to stay in this world
as long as possible. For, beautiful as is the
Pincio, yet more beautiful are the enchanting
grounds of the Villa Borghese. They are kindly
opened to the public on Tuesday, Thursday, Satur-

MOST EOMAN PAET OF EOME. 103
day, and Sunday afternoons ; and, whenever there
is nothing else that clamors to be done on one of
these four afternoons, I drive out to the Borghese
while the day is wearing late, and am happy.
Now and again I go earlier still, before the place
is thronged with the beauty and fashion of Eome,
as it is in the late afternoon. I like to be quiet
there for a while, and dream my own dreams and
think my own thoughts. I do not wonder that
Miriam and Donatello could forget their fate in
these enchanted glades, and dance as the sunbeams
danced with the shadows. Sometimes I seem to
see them where the sun sifts through the young
green leaves, and her beauty — her human, deep-
souled beauty — and his fantastic grace are the
only things here that cannot change.
The walls will crumble, the busts of kings and
heroes and poets lose a nose here and a chin there ;
the lovely Eoman ladies who come and pass will
grow old and fade, and vanish from sight and
from memory; but still these two, hapless yet
happy, will dance in these wild glades, immortally
beyond the reach of the effacing years.
How sweet is the breath of the spring morning !
My window is open. This April day in Eome is
like the lavish June of New England. It is good
to be alive, and alive among these dear Italians.
They are the gentlest, kindest people the sun
shines on, and the friendhest, also.
I heard such a pretty story yesterday of a cer
tain doctor who just now occupies the Keats

104 LAZY TOUES.
house here on the Piazza di Spagna. I think the
doctor himself is Danish, though I am not quite
sure. At any rate, he had lived long in Capri,
whence he removed, six months ago, to Eome. On
Easter Monday there was to be a sacred festa, on
which faithful chUdren of the church could be
admitted to the presence of their father the Pope.
On the Saturday before Easter Dr. Munthe went
home and found, tranquilly sitting on his steps,
six peasants, old neighbors from Capri. " How
did you find me?" he asked, after he had ex
changed salutations with them. "Oh, we knew
that the doctor " (I believe there are several hun
dreds of doctors here) " was in Eome, and we got
here this morning, and went all about asking for
il dottore. And at last we came to the Spanish
steps, and here every one knew, and then we
waited." It was very simple, you see. "Ah,
well," said Dr. Munthe, " now I will work a mir
acle. I have my dinner ordered for one. I shall
make it enough for seven. Come in, aU of you,
and we will dine together." He was as good as
his word. The dinner was enough for seven ; and
when they had well dined, the doctor went out
with his old neighbors, and found them a friendly
inn, where they could abide untU Monday, and
await the Pope's benediction. Somehow I don't
think just this would have happened anywhere
except in Italy.
I am sure that, as a clever Enghsh friend of
mine remarked yesterday, there is no place ui the

MOST EOMAN PAET OF EOME. 105
world where so many people can afford to live with
out doing anything as live so here. There are more
loungers, I believe, in Italy, than anywhere else on
earth ; and certainly there are more beggars than
I have ever known anywhere else except in Spain.
You step out of your door and a throng of them
surround you. You can hardly see your way for
the brown hands thrust in your face. Women
hand round their babies as a church warden does
the contribution plate. I never saw so many mon
strosities in the way of deformity. This seems the
native country of the halt, the maimed, and the
blind. And as for ugly old women, — the vision
of some of them haunts one like a nightmare.
They seem ill-tempered, too. You cannot give
to a quarter of them, if you would ; and when you
chance to see something unusually pitiful in some
face or attitude, and drop a few pence in an out
stretched hand, the others fly at you like hornets.
It was, I am sure, a good old thing, bent by many
sorrows, to whom I gave a small douceur yester
day ; but instantly her next neighbor cried : " She
ought not to have it — she ought not ! She is a
bad old woman — she ! ! ! " But as no one of them
seems to be provided with a certificate of good
character, we can only trust to our own impres
sions. I own that, as a rule, I give to the most
hideous, as one gives to the grinder of a*bad hand-
organ, to get rid of him. These old beggars bring
before me, a dozen times a day, one of the most
pathetic statues I know, that of " Eoma," by Miss

106 LAZY TOUES.
Anne Whitney, poet and sculptor, — " Eoma," with
her sad eyes and her outstretched hands, asking
alms of the world.
But, beggars and all, Eome is an enchanting
spot in which to linger. This is a pleasant hotel,
too; and there is an atmosphere of neighborly
kindness about it which makes one feel at home.
It has the drollest little lift, with a red velvet-
covered stool in each of the four corners. They
send you up in it by yourself from below, having
made some mysterious compact with its machinery
by which it will stop at precisely the right inch.
The manager of the hotel was taking me aloft in
it to show me a room the day I came. He speaks
English, and I enlarged a httle on the roomlike
" elevators " of the land of my birth. He listened
almost incredulously. " Ah," he said at last, " I
fear they must go by steamerage," and he shook
his head very gravely. "Not for anything you
could name would I trust my life to a lift that
goes by steamerage."

AMONG STATUES AND PICTUEES.
OH, how mockingly fast these golden weeks
whirl by ! I am haunted by a sentence from
Eichard Jeffries : " Never again the same thing in
the same place ! " Shall I ever be here again ?
Who knows ? And if I come, will it be this I, or
another ? for surely I am not now the same person
as when first I came here, so long ago. And she
is dead who came with me then, — the " Sherwood
Bonner " of several pleasant books — the Kate Mc
Dowell of my tender love. In many of our excur
sions we were joined by a brilliant young student
who was just taking a Eoman holiday after a winter
of hard study at Athens. And he also is what we
call dead. Yesterday I was walking through the
beautiful Villa Wolkonsky, where the roses run riot
in these days of May, and these two came out of
the past and walked again, every inch of the way,
beside me, as they did all those years ago. Their
steps fell silently, and I think no one else saw
them ; but Kate's heavy golden hair shone as of
old in the sunshine, and Kimber's eyes were frank
and smiling as ever. They paused, when I did, to
look at the far-off views, or hear the nightingale
singing his soul out to the roses ; but when I came

108 LAZY TOUES.
out into the busy Eoman street I left them behind
me. They always loved the stillness of shadowy
walks, and they lingered at the villa.
There are stately dwellers here in Eome whom
time does not change. It is to these I make my
first visits whenever I return. Some of them are
in the mighty palace of the Vatican, others dwell
in state at the Capitol. The beautiful Antinous
still wears his crown of lotus in the ViUa Albani,
and the Juno whom Goethe worshipped reigns
forever at the Ludovisi. I can never put into
words the pleasure I find in the presence of these
immortals. They are more real than any one else, —
they are so used to living ! If we ourselves could
pass centuries on centuries in this world, might we
not be educated at last to their grand calm, their
serene self-possession ? It almost seems so. But
our little span of life is so mockingly short that we
have to make the course at a gallop, and get to the
end of it before we have learned to live.
To go to the Statuary Museum of the Vatican
is to pass an hour in Olympus. Surely this is
the most glorious collection of statues in the whole
world ! Here is that divine " Eros " of Praxiteles, —
the first statue, it always seemed to me, to recog
nize the soul. We have in its neighbors the joy
of living, — the Faun's roguish mirth, the pleas
ure of Bacchus in his wine, the might of the con
quering hero ; but he who wrought this " Eros " had
caught a glimpse of the wayward, longing, baffled
human soul, that can suffer as keenly as it can

STATUES AND PICTUEES. 109
enjoy. Here are the " Narcissus," the "Mercury,"
and the " Apollo of the Belvedere ; " the cruel
'' Laocoon," which Pliny describes as " superior to all
other works of art ; " the " Meleager," the " Young
Augustus," "Antinous" the beautiful, and how
many more ! Here, too, you have the busts of the
Eoman emperors, and of some of the philosophers.
The Museum of Statuary at the Capitol is
scarcely second in importance. The colossal
statues of Castor and Pollux are at the head of
the steps leading up to it, and in the square in
front of it is the equestrian statue of Marcus
Aurelius, — the most perfect piece of ancient bronze
work in existence. At the fountain in the court
opposite the entrance is the statue of the river
god Marforio, who was the friend and fellow-gos
sip of Pasquin. Lively dialogues between them,
satirizing the government and the times, used to
be discovered in the early morning placarded on
their respective pedestals. These pasquinades
were often extremely uncomfortable for those in
authority. The statues of most importance in the Capitol
Museum are the celebrated " Venus of the Capitol,"
the "Dying Gladiator," the "Antinous," and that
"Faun" of Praxiteles which suggested to Haw
thorne his immortal novel, " The Marble Faun."
At the Capitol also are eighty-three busts of Eoman
emperors, their wives and their near relatives, —
the most interesting portrait gallery in the world.
It is curious to note how many of these ill-fated

110 LAZY TOUES.
personages came to a violent death. Here is
Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, who was
starved to death when Tiberius came to the
throne. Claudius was poisoned ; and he had him
self put to death his third wife, Messahna. For
sixth wife Claudius had Agrippina the younger,
and she was the mother of Nero, and was mur
dered by her son. Nero ended his crimes by
killing himself. Among the other murders he
committed was that of his second wife, Poppaea,
whom he killed by a single kick. Galba was
murdered in the Forum, Otho killed himself,
Vitellius was murdered, Titus was poisoned by
Domitian, Domitian was murdered in the palace
of the Caesars, as was also Commodus ; and so the
appalling list goes on, with " murdered " after at
least half of the names. What a world that old
Eoman one was to live in !
" The Hall of lUustrious Men," with its nmety-
three busts of philosophers, statesmen, and poets,
is less tragic in its suggestions. Socrates was so
ugly, so phenomenally ugly, that in beholding him
one can't help forgiving Xantippe for her temper.
Among the important new " finds " at the
Capitol is a bust of Commodus, singularly beauti
ful, and of a polish and purity so exquisite as to
seem almost transparent. Here in one of the
ground-floor rooms is the skeleton of a girl She
was found with all her jewels perfectly preserved.
Eings glitter on the bones that were her fingers,
and a necklace sparkles on her skeleton neck.

STATUES AND PICTUEES. Ill
She is thought to have been about sixteen, and
yet her doll was buried with her ! I suppose
when girls had no novels to read they played with
their dolls the longer. There is another full-
length skeleton in another coffin-shaped case of
glass ; but I do not like looking at these reminders
that life is brief. Give me rather the white im
mortality of my marble gods.
I have made the acquaintance during the past
week of some artists whose work I had not before
known. In Eome it is at studios, and not in the
shops of the dealers, that one finds the best pic
tures. The other day we went to the marvellous
studio of Villegas, one of the greatest of the great
painters who are making the Spanish art of to-day
Ulustrious. He has buUt for himself a wonderful
villa outside the gates of Eome, in which he has
copied the Moorish architecture of the Alhambra.
This villa is full of fascinating things. The most
exquisite stuffs from the far East, royal embroid
eries from Japan, vases, sculpture, — all, in short,
which could be found of precious and beautiful.
It is an enchanting place, and a fit shrine for the
noble pictures we found there.
We did not penetrate to the inner studio where
the great painter works. He received us in what
I should call a studio for exhibition. The walls
were completely covered with sketches, finished
pictures, and pictures in different stages of comple
tion. Of the many, I can only speak of two, —
the "Dying Toreador," and the "Venetian Wed-

112 LAZY TODES.
ding." In the "Dying Toreador," besides its
superb art, there is infinite pathos. The poor fel
low has been mortally wounded in the midst of
the bull-fight, and he hes there dying. A priest
stands at his head ; the woman he loves — wife or
sweetheart — is bending over him, her eyes wild
with the passion of loss and despair. His com
rades are grouped at a little distance, and each of
their strongly painted faces is clearly individualized
and tells its own story.
The " Venetian Wedding " is an immense picture.
It filled almost completely an end wall of the
large room. It is a tour de force in color. The
steps on which the bridal party meet are covered
with red velvet. The dresses of the bride and her
attendants are white, and with them contrast the
sumptuous robes of the bridegroom (who is the
just elected Doge) and his group of foUowers.
The scheme of color is superb and audacious;
and there is a wonderful open-air effect about
the whole picture that was explained when
one learned how it was painted. VUlegas posed
all his models under glass, and painted them
in the full light of the Italian sun ; but the task
cost him the temporary loss of his eyesight. The
dazzling colors, in the dazzling light, were too
strong, even for his eagle vision ; and before the
picture was completed he was absolutely color
blind, and was obliged to suspend work entirely
for some time.
Another Spaniard, whose paintings interested me

STATUES AND PICTUEES. 113
extremely, was Poveda. His studio was full of
charming bits of Eoman and Venetian scenery and
architecture. One of the pleasures of a Sunday afternoon in
Eome is a visit to the studio of our own country
man, Elihu Vedder. Vedder's present studio was
formerly occupied by J. Eollin Tilton. Vedder
had long coveted this studio, and had often said to
Tilton, "If ever you get ready to give up your
lease, don't forget that I want it." An afternoon
came at last when Tilton was engaged to dine with
— 1 think — some Italian friends. They waited for
him nearly an hour, and then dined without him,
quite puzzled by his unexplained absence. And
Tilton, meantime, had journeyed on, far beyond the
recall of any earthly summons. He had gone home
to dress, and suddenly that intermittent heart, of
whose queer freaks he used to complain, stopped
beating altogether, and the studio was free for the
next comer.
That next comer was Elihu Vedder, perhaps
the most imaginative and poetic artist America has
yet given to the world. There is, it seems to me,
something in his genius akin to Hawthorne, and
yet more akin to William Blake. When did Blake
die ? I cannot remember, and I cannot, therefore,
be sure whether the spirit of Blake could possibly
have been reincarnated in the painter of " The Cup
of Death." At any rate, a wonderful spiritual
power is in this man, who has perceived so many
strange things. I saw a picture in his studio the
8

114 LAZY TOUES.
other day, " Waiting for Judgment," which no man
could have painted who had not the spiritual
vision. He has solved the enigma of " The Sphinx,"
— he has caught the poignant yet vague despair of
"The Lost Mind." He has discovered "The Sea
Serpent," — he has seen the " Sybil" with her wUd
eyes and her flying hair.
It occurs to one sometimes to feel a pro
found curiosity as to what wUl be the verdict of
future centuries concerning the works of our own
time, whether in art or in literature. I spent the
morning, a day or two since, in the Borghese gal
lery. How noble was that art of the far past
which looks from those walls to-day! The fair
women and strong men who served as models are
dead so long, so long ago ! and the artists who
painted them would be dead too, had they not
painted themselves into immortahty, and thus re
mained more alive than any of us. Oh to come
back, some centuries from now, and see who of the
men we know will be thus alive then !
Sometimes it strikes me curiously to think how
different the ruins of New York or Boston, or even
London, would be from those of Eome. In Eome
you meet at every turn what Byron called
" Fragments of stone, reared by creatm-es of clay.''
The eyes of some Greek god look into yours. A
marble smile mocks you with its centuries-old
sweetness. The dead, exhumed from the realm of
death, have part in the mystery and the wonder.

STATUES AND PICTUEES. 115
When the New Zealander walks among the ruins
of London, where will be these immortal guests ?
There will be acres of good 'solid brick and mortar
and stone, fallen in shapeless heaps; but where
the noble arches, the pUlars round which the
acanthus clusters, the faces of the gods ?

AMONG THE MANY CHUECHES OF THE
ETEENAL CITY.
I THINK there is no place where the days are
quite so mockingly short as in Eome. There
is so much one longs to be doing, all at once, —
roses and ruins, ancient art and modern art, studios,
churches, libraries, — it is always a question what
thing to choose, among the tempting many, for
that particular hour. One day of the past week
we gave to churches, another to the pictures at
the Vatican, another to a ramble among the ruins
and relics of ancient Eome. Perhaps the most
fascinating afternoon of all the week was one that
began with an hour in W. W. Story's ^ studio,
after which we drove to " St. Paul's Outside the
Walls," and then to the Protestant Cemetery, and
finally to the Pincian, with its gardens and its
music, and the beauty and fashion of Eome passing
to and fro in it, as one sees them in Hyde Park in
a London June.
It was a pleasure to renew one's acquaintance
with Mr. Story's " Cleopatra," — I mean with the
second of his Cleopatras. The first was there
also ; but the second is infinitely more charming
1 These pages were written before Mr. Story's death.

THE CHUECHES OF THE ETEENAL CITY. 117
and seductive. She is the Cleopatra of Shakes
peare, and she is the Cleopatra of Mr. Story's own
poem. There was a beautiful " Alcestis," too, with
the dream still in her eyes ; and there was a most
touching figure of the Christ, with invitation and
promise in his face and in his outstretched hand,
saying, " Come unto Me." I was looking at a noble
statue of Saul, which recalled to me the Saul of
Browning's poem, and led me to speak of the dead
poet. And Mr. Story told me of his own last
interview with Browning at Asolo. It was but a
short time before the poet's death, and these two
who had known each other so long and well had
talked of all sorts of intimate things, as old friends
use ; and Mr. Story had got into his carriage to
drive off. Suddenly Browning, who was moving
away, turned back, and reached his hand once
more into the carriage for a last word. Looking
into Story's face with that deep, all-seeing gaze of
his, " Friends for forty years," he said, — " forty
years, and never a break ! Good-bye." It was the
last sentence Story was ever to hear from those
long-loved lips.
And talking of American sculptors, I have been
to one modern studio where I saw statues which
have given me pleasure of the same kind that I
derive from the masterpieces of the past. The
" Circe " of Mr. Eichard S. Greenough has been
exhibited at the Boston Art Museum, and, though
it was in a singularly bad light there, no one can
have failed to perceive its enchanting loveliness.

118 LAZY TOUES.
I use the word "enchanting" advisedly. It is the
veritable enchantress that we have here. I had
never thought marble could wear a smile so seduc
tive as curves her lips ; and the cup she offers, —
I would drink it from that hand though I knew I
must dwell henceforth and forever in her pigsty.
Look at that hunting leopard under her chair !
He was once a man. He loved her, and he drank
from her cup. But is his fate so hard who dwells
forever in the sunshine of her beauty? Perhaps
she puts out her hand and touches his head some
times, when we are not there to see.
Mr. Greenough has been cruel to Cupid — no,
it was the nymphs who were cruel to him, and
the sculptor only made his portrait. The nymphs
have chpped his wings and bound them with
sUken cords, and set him on the tortoise, slowest
creature that moves at all ; and here he is, with the
half-pathetic, yet half-mischievous look upon his
face, — as lovely a vision as sculptor ever sum
moned from the white depths of the marble.
And this Portia, — if you have never under
stood Portia before, you will know her when once
you see this bust. A more beautiful face I have
seldom beheld, — high-bred, gracious, graceful,
" so innocent arch, so cunning simple," her look
showing as plainly as words could show that he
whom her heart has already chosen is choosing
the right casket. And this " Nemesis," near by !
I have always feared Nemesis ; and I fear her
more than ever now that I have looked into this

THE CHUECHES OF THE ETEENAL CITY. 119
pitiless face of stone. She would not care, though
you broke your heart at her feet. It is given to
few among the moderns (in these days of remorse
less and lowering reahsm) to walk with the gods,
and to create shapes worthy of a niche in Olym
pus. But, like many another, I have been beguiled
by Circe, — it was of churches that I meant to
write. Glorious indeed is that noble church, St. Paul's
Outside the Walls, built to commemorate the mar
tyrdom of St. Paul. The first church on this spot
was begun in the time of Constantine, and was en
larged into a Basihca in 386, A. D. It was restored
by Pope Leo III. (795-816), and every succeeding
century added to its magnificence, until on the
15th of July, 1823, the very night before the death
of Pius VII., it was almost totally destroyed by
fire. It was the church of the Pope's dearest
love. He had lived there long, as a quiet and
studious monk, in the days of his youth, and those
who surrounded his dying bed were careful not to
tell him that the church was burning. But sud
denly, so runs the legend, he looked up and asked :
" Why did you not tell me that St. Paul's was on
fire ? It is burned now ; God's will be done ! "
And so he died.
Then contributions were levied on all the Cath
olic world for the rebuilding of the greafi Basilica.
It was reopened in its present form by Pope Pius
IX., and though it has not the attractions of the
ancient church, rich with the accumulated treas-

120 LAZY TOUES.
ures of centuries, it is full of objects of interest.
Eoyal gifts have been made to it by heretic as well
as Cathohc sovereigns, among which the superb
malachite altars, presented by the Emperor
Nicholas of Eussia, take a first rank. The clois
ters of St. Paul, with their wonderfully wrought
pUlars, are the most exquisite in Eome.
From there we drove to the Protestant Ceme
tery, — the most touchiagly beautiful cemetery, it
seems to me, in the whole world. There is, near
at hand, the old cemetery, in which no more graves
wUl be made, where Keats hes at rest after his
brief life, so full of sorrow. Shelley wrote of this
old cemetery, in his preface to " Adonais," that " it
might make one in love with death to think that
one should be buried in so sweet a place." On the
stone which marks the grave of Keats we read the
sad inscription : —
"This grave contains all that was mortal of a
young English poet, who, on his deathbed, in the
bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his
enemies, desired these words to be engraven on his
tombstone : ' Here lies one whose name was writ in
water.' Feb. 24, 1821."
In the spring of 1882 the remains of Keats's
most faithful friend, Joseph Severn, were placed
in a grave beside the poet's. They are neighbors
now, underground, these two who loved each other
so well in life.
If Shelley thought that the beauty of Keats's

THE CHUECHES OF THE ETEENAL CITY. 121
burial place should make one in love with death,
he should be content indeed with his own tomb
in the new cemetery, surrounded with its dark
and solemn cypress-trees. It was opened — this
"new" burial place — in 1825, and it stretches
along the slope of the hill under the old Aurelian
wall. It is carpeted with violets, and there I
heard the other afternoon the first nightingale
of this year. The place was so shadowed with
its cypress-trees that he had fancied the day was
done ; and so he began, even before the sunset, to
sing his vespers. Shelley's grave contains his
heart only ; the rest of him was burned upon
the shore of the Mediterranean, where it was
thrown landward by the sea. Leigh Hunt wrote
his epitaph, with his name and the date of his
birth and death, and to this Trelawney added, from
Ariel's song, these lines which Shelley had loved :
" Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth sufEer a sea change
Into something rich and strange."
Another noticeable tomb is that of Gibson the
sculptor, and there is a monument to the memory
of the beloved wife of that other sculptor, Eichard
S. Greenough, — whose loss, he said, was like that
of the " keystone of an arch." This monument is
surmounted by Mr. Greenough's beautiful statue
of " Psyche divesting Herself of Mortality," — a
statue of which Mrs. Greenough had been espe
cially fond. One other tomb impressed me pro-

122 LAZY TOUES.
f oundly, — that of a young Eussian girl who died
at eighteen. Her beautifully sculptured statue is
there. The eyes have a look of wonder and inter
rogation. It is as if she had come out of her
grave to survey her silent neighbors, and to ques
tion the meaning of this strange stillness. I read
on these Eoman tombstones names from Boston,
names from New York, names from London, and
my fancy pieced out names and dates with the life-
stories that had ended here. And then I turned
once more to the grave of Shelley, and gathered a
white rose from the sod above the poet's heart, and
went on my way into the living world, and saw
the sunset from the cheerful Pincio, where the gay
people of Eome were en promenade.
Inevitably one spends much of one's time here
in churches ; and, of course, one always begins with
the most marvellous and imposing of them aU,
St. Peter's. Do you realize by how much this is
the largest church in the whole world ? I beheve
that St. Paul's in London is next in size ; and
St. Paul's is 520| feet in length, while 613| feet is
the length of St. Peter's. The entire area of St.
Peter's is two hundred and forty thousand square
feet ; and it is said that fifty thousand visitors at
a time have often been gathered together in it.
When you stand at one end of this vast church,
the people at the other end look scarcely larger
than walking dolls. St. Peter's tomb is under the
high altar ; and in the shrine above it a circle —
countless, it seems — of lamps is always kept
burning.

THE CHUECHES OF THE ETEENAL CITY. 123
There are so many separate chapels — each one
large enough for a country church — that numerous
services could be conducted here at the same time
without in the least interfering with each other.
No catalogue of its statues and tombs and mosaics
could give the least idea of the artistic wealth of
this mighty church. One returns to it again and
again, finding always some new discovery among
its prodigal treasures. Surely, it is not only the
largest, but the most magnificent church in the
world ; yet, despite its splendor, it never seemed
to me a church to pray in. Your sentiment there
is wonder, profound and ever-increasing wonder, at
its vastness, at the riches of its ornamentation,
at all the unequalled grandeur of this temple to
the " Son of man," who had not " where to lay his
head." It is in some smaller, humbler church that
one seems to come nigh to the Father of Pity, and
is moved to kneel in its dark corners, and cry, out
of the depths of human sin and sorrow, to Him
who alone can heal and save.
At the side of St. Peter's you enter the Vatican,
and it seems to me it must be miles of stairs that
you climb before you reach the lofty gallery where
hang, so near to heaven, the works of the immortals.
One room contains " The Last Communion of
St. Jerome," by Domenichino ; " The Transfigura
tion," by Eaphael ; and " The Madonna di Foligno,"
also by Eaphael. Hare pronounces "The Trans
figuration " the " grandest picture in the whole
world."

124 LAZY TOUES.
It is audacious, no doubt, to disagree with this
verdict, but I own that I am not so impressed by
" The Transfiguration." It seems to me not only
very far from being the greatest picture in the
world, but very, very far from being the greatest
work by Eaphael. I would rather have the " Sis-
tine Madonna " than a mUhon of " The Trans
figuration;" and I would even rather have the
" Madonna di Fohgno," in this very room. To
my mind, " The Last Communion of St. Jerome "
is the most impressive of the pictures of the Vati
can. But " The Transfiguration " derives a pathetic
interest from the fact that it was the last picture
that Eaphael ever painted. He had not wholly
finished it when he died. All the upper part — aU
the ethereal vision — he had completed ; but the
lower part of it was stUl unfinished, and in this
state it was hung above his bier when aU Eome
came to look on him for the last time, and, as one
who was present wrote, " every heart seemed like
to break with grief." Giuho Eomano finished it
afterward. It was Giulio Eomano's mission to
finish things.
But I was talking about churches; and I
should say that there are more churches in
Eome than in any other city of its size ui the
world. One of the most interesting is Santa
Maria Maggiore. It was founded A. D. 352. The
Virgin appeared in a vision to a faithful Eoman
named John, to say that on the spot where snow
should fall on the 15th of August a church must

THE CHUECHES OF THE ETEENAL CITY. 125
be built in her honor. The 15th of August came,
and with it the snow, on this one spot only in all
the sun-bathed city. John had previously com
municated the vision to Pope Tiberius, and after
having seen the snowfall these two laid the
foundations of the church. This legend is still
commemorated every 15th of August by the feast
of the Madonna of the Snows, when, during a
solemn High Mass, showers of white rose leaves
are constantly let down through openings in the
ceiling, till they he like a soft snowfall between
priests and worshippers.
The roof of Santa Maria Maggiore is gilt with
virgin gold — the first gold ever brought from
America — given to the church by Ferdinand and
Isabella. In front of the high altar, but below
it. Pope Pius IX. prepared a monument for him
self by constructing a splendid chamber, to which
you descend by marble staircases, and which is
hned with the most precious alabaster ahd mar
bles ; but, when death approached him, the Pope's
wishes changed. His heart turned from all this
pre-arranged splendor, and he desired to be buried
" with the poor " at San Lorenzo. His wishes
were carried out, but a noble statue of him has
been placed in this marble chamber, looking toward
the high altar.
What a good and blessed man he seems to my
memory ! I was in Eome, for the first time, two
years before his death, and how well I remember
the benign serenity of his presence when, with a

126 LAZY TOUES.
few friends, I was so fortunate as to be admitted
to a private audience. It seemed to me that the
very peace of heaven was in the face of the aged
Pope as he turned back, when he was leaving the
audience chamber, for a last blessing. "Of what
use is it," he said, " that I bless those of you who
do not believe ? But I ask God to bless you, to
bless also those who are dear to you and who are
afar, and to show to them and to you the true
hght." In 1839 an Englishwoman, who before her mar
riage was Lady Gwendohne Talbot, and who
married the Prince Borghese of that time, was
buried at Santa Maria Maggiore, with all Eome
following her to her grave. The car which bore
her body was drawn by forty young Eomans, and
behind it trooped all the poor of Eome, the pro
cession gathering mass, hke a rising flood, in every
street it passed through, while flowers were show
ered on it from the overhanging windows. An old
usage connected with the funeral ceremony of great
personages at Eome was observed in the obsequies
of this beloved Princess Borghese. When the body
is lowered into the grave a chamberlain comes out
to the church door and tells the coachman, who is
waiting there with the family carriage, that his
master or mistress has no longer any need of his
services, and the coachman thereupon breaks
his staff of office and drives solemnly away.
When this announcement was made at the
funeral of the princess, the whole of the vast

THE CHUECHES OF THE ETEENAL CITY. 127
crowd outside broke into tears and sobs, and
kneeling, as by one common impulse, they prayed
aloud for the soul of their benefactress. There
has been a strange story told of late concerning
the reappearance of the princess, — coming back as
the saints are wont to do, in vision, — and the
people listen to it eagerly, for they already regard
her as one of the saints.
By the way, faith in the supernatural is not
dead in Italy, whatever rationalism may have
effected toward its extinction elsewhere. Still
pious pilgrims go, on their knees, up and down
the holy stair (supposed to have been the stair
in the house of PUate) which no foot must touch,
and an Englishman who resides here in Eome
told me that he had just returned from a pilgrim
age to a far-away little church at Genazzano,
where is a wonder-working Madonna, and all the
pUgrims, he said, came into the church and went
up from the door to the altar upon their knees.
It sounds difficult; but he assured me that they
seemed to find it easy enough. This Madonna at
Genazzano heals the pilgrims who seek her of all
sorts of ills. She lived in a church some other
where at first, — at Scutari, I think it was, — but
the people in that neighborhood did not please
her: I believe they were too wicked; so, frame
and all, she quietly went out of the churcli door,
as a winged bird might, and on through the air
for many a mile, until she found a home with which
she was content, in the church at Genazzano.

128 LAZY TOUES.
You think this wonderful, perhaps, but it is
nothing at all to the transit of the Holy House at
Loreto. The Holy House is the chamber of stone
where Mary Virgin sat when the angel announced
to her that she should be the mother of our Lord.
I don't know just how long ago it was that this
Holy House came, all by itself, and quite without
mortal aid, across land and sea, to settle in Italy.
It went somewhere else first, — I think it was to
Dalmatia, — but it presently moved on and estab
lished itself at Loreto. Dean Stanley wrote a book
to prove that this transit of the Holy House never
took place; but he was answered by a Cathohc
writer, who gave the strongest possible proofs of
the genuineness of the wonderful miracle. The
stone of the Holy House is the stone of Syria, and
is not known in Italy, and the chamber is so buUt
that it would precisely fit on to the house in Syria
from which it is believed to have taken flight.
To look at the votive offerings by which the
Madonna in the Church of St. Agostino is sur
rounded is to have a fresh evidence of the triumph
of faith. The legend of this Madonna is that long,
long ago a poor woman knelt at its sacred feet and
prayed for help, and suddenly the Madonna an
swered, " If I only had something, I could help
thee ; but I myself am so poor ! " This story was
told far and wide, and then throngs of believers
came to dower the Madonna with their treasures.
She shines now with diamonds and pearls and all
sorts of precious stones. Princes give her their

THE CHUECHES OF THE ETEENAL CITY. 129
jewels, and humble peasants lay their silver hearts
and strings of beads at her feet. Even bandits,
I am told, have striven to consecrate their evil
gains by paying tribute at this holy shrine ; but it
is not for such as they that the Madonna wUl open
her long-silent hps.
Last Sunday we went to hear the nuns sing
vespers at the Trinita de' Monti, at the top of the
Spanish Steps. It was an hour not to be forgot
ten, — that in which one sat in the dim church,
with the countless lights burning on the high altar,
and heard these sweet, fresh voices soar to heaven.
Wonderful is the power of the Eoman Catholic
Church over the imagination. Breathing the in
cense with which the air was heavy, listening to
the entrancing music, I could almost fancy that
heaven's gates were open, and that angels came
and went upon the incense-burdened air, hsten-
ing also. " Glory ! Glory ! Glory ! " how the sweet
strains soared upward ! Surely they found their
goal!

SOME EOMAN VILLAS.
ONE of the chief pleasures Eome offers to a
pilgrim is the lavish hospitahty of its
villas. But for this, indeed, one's drives would
be confined to the stony, clamorous streets, or the
Appian Way with its tombs and its memories.
As it is, there is no day in the week in which you
may not go to some lovely vUla, bhthe with
blossoms and bird-songs, rich in treasures of art
and of nature.
Every day, an' it please you, you may seek the
Pincian Hill. The view of Eome is outspread at
your feet, and beyond stretches the far-reaching
Campagna. The grounds of the Pincio are smaU
as compared with those of the Villa Borghese
below it; but they are most skilfully laid out.
The flowers of all climates spring from the soft,
thick grass ; the busts of poets and philosophers
and statesmen look out from among the trees;
fountains murmur here and there; and always
you can see picturesque groups of young priests,
some in purple, some in scarlet, and some in black.
Here, on Sunday and Thursday afternoons, comes
Italy's fair Queen, with all fashionable Eome in
her train, to see the sunset kindle the spires of

SOME EOMAN VILLAS. 131
the great city at their feet, and to hear the music
of the military band.
In old imperial times the present site of the
Pincio Garden was occupied by the VUla of Lucul-
lus, who used to give here his celebrated feasts,
merely saying, by way of command, to the slave
who was his major-domo, that he should sup that
night in the Hall of Apollo. Ah, they have
supped since then for many a century in the
Hall of Pluto, both host and guests !
A terraced road leads from the Garden of the
Pincio to the Villa Medici, and from the Garden
Terrace of the Medici you look down on the Villa
Borghese, which you can enter by a gate just out
side the Porto del Popolo. Hawthorne devoted
to this villa some of the most fascinating chapters
in " The Marble Faun." There Donatello wanders
amid such scenery " as arrays itself in the imagi
nation when we read the beautiful old myths, and
fancy a brighter sky, a softer turf, a more pic
turesque arrangement of venerable trees than we
find in. the rude and untrained landscapes of the
Western world."
Here indeed are still the " venerable " ilex-trees,
here are avenues of cypress, and here the stone-pines
lift up from their slender trunks their umbrella-
shaped tops, so remotely high that they seem al
most " like green islands in the air." Cascades
tumble from rock to rock; shy flowers crop up
among the grass.
The Casino, at the farther end of the villa, con-

132 LAZY TOUES.
tains a collection of sculpture which is opened to
the public on Saturday afternoons. Quite the
most amazing thing here is the statue of the Prin
cess Pauline Borghese (sister to the Great Napo
leon), taken as "Venus Victrix." She conquers
still, this Venus, the attention of all beholders.
Canova himself considered this statue one of his
best works ; but this is not the Venus of the
poets, or of Olympus. She is perky and pretty
and French ; and she is naked, or nearly so, and
not ashamed. " How disagreeable it must have
been to pose like this ! " a friend once said to Prin
cess Pauline. " Oh, not at all," she answered, " the
room was very well warmed."
But when once the statue was completed, the
modesty of Prince Borghese took alarm, and not
even Canova was ever allowed to look at it again.
As long as the prince lived, it was zealously locked
from sight, in a room to which he alone possessed
the key.
Another villa where one finds important works
of art is the Ludovisi, where there is a collection
of sculpture of great interest. Here is the superb
head of Juno, known as the " Ludovisi Juno," which
I think one may safely pronounce the most noble
single head in the whole world. Goethe was so
enchanted with this colossal head that he had the
best possible copy made of it, and he used to say
that he said his prayers to it every night and
morning. The statue of Mars, with Cupid at his feet, and

SOME EOMAN VILLAS. 133
the beautiful group of " Arria and Paetus " are also
among the gems of this collection. In a casino at
the end of the garden are Guercino's famous fres
cos ; but Guercino's " Aurora " is far inferior to that
of Guide Eeni in the Eospigliosi.
The grounds of the Ludovisi are solemn with
great groves of sacred ilex-trees ; and in one
shadow-haunted nook is a deserted fountain, over
which a broken-armed nymph patiently watches.
Immemorial silence seems to have fallen on the
Ludovisi. It is not suited to be the meeting-place
of a gay throng, such as you encounter in the Bor
ghese, or on the Pincian Hill. Stately ghosts from
a stately past walk under these trees. Why
should I fear them ? Would they not welcome to
their ranks a fellow-worshipper of the Silence and
the Calm ?
Not far away from the Ludovisi is the Villa
Albani, buUt by Cardinal Alessandro Albani, but
at present the property of Prince Torlonia. This
villa contains an interesting collection of pictures ;
but it is stUl more rich in its statuary. Here is the
" Apollo Sauroctonos," which Winckelmann believes
to be the veritable statue by Praxiteles of which
Pliny wrote, and which many critics have pro
nounced the masterpiece among the bronze statues
of the world. But for me the gem of the whole
collection is the rehevo of Antinous, crowned with
lotus, — the beautiful, proud, melancholy face, with
the sad eyes, that look into the eyes of Fate, fore
warned but unafraid.

134 LAZY TOUES.
I am half inchned to think that the wildest,
sweetest, loveliest of the lovely vUlas of Eome is
the Villa Pamphile Doria. It crowns the summit
of the Janiculum Hill, where once, they say, was
the villa of Galba. Peacocks spread their taUs
proudly as they marched on the terrace. Swans
were at home in the placid lake, and flowers were
springing everywhere. We picked orchids from
among the wild grasses. The roses lavished their
fragrance as, according to Tom Moore, they did in
Persia, — though travellers tell us now that far the
larger part of Persia is given over to barren sands.
From the gate three separate roads lead through
dense ilex groves. Narrow paths penetrate depths
of solitude, and now and then you chmb some hill
whence you see a prospect of far-stretching cam
pagna or distant mountains. From the terraces
above the house itself, you have an unrivalled view
of Eome with the great stately dome of St. Peter's,
of Mount Soracte, of the Sabine Hills, and,
farther on, of Albano and Frascati. Two after
noons in a week these grounds are thrown open to
carriages, and you may drive or walk through
them, and enjoy them almost as if they were your
own, — not quite, for what could fully match the
pleasure of daily intimacy with such a place, of
knowing by heart its deepest depths, of living
among its wood-nymphs, and listening to the
secretest murmurs of its fountains?
A very different place is the Villa Wolkonsky,
which seems to me the sunniest, brightest, gayest

SOME EOMAN VILLAS. 135
spot in all Eome. To be sure, the broken arches
of the Aqua Claudia intersect it, and summon up
memories of a mighty past ; and here and there
are hoary cypress-trees, which might have been
standing when Great Caesar fell, they look so old ;
and here are crumbhng urns, and pathetic frag
ments of broken gods whom no man worships
more, and here in one corner is "The Path of
Tombs ; " and yet, despite all that is solemn and
memory-haunted, I stUl must claim for Villa
Wolkonsky that when the sun of an AprU morn
ing shines on it, it is the gayest spot in Eome. I
should like to know how many millions of roses I
saw running riot there on one such morning.
They made hedges along the walks, they climbed
the solemn old trees and thrust their bright heads
out of the gray gloom, they swung in festoons
from tree to tree, they sprang up everywhere.
They were of every kind and degree, — moss roses,
jacqueminots. Queen This, and Duchesse That;
I should need a florist's catalogue to give you half
their stately names. All night long the nightin
gales had been singing to them, and had not yet
finished the song, though it was ten of the clock
and the sun was high. It was the very concert-
room of the birds, as it was the chosen parade-
ground of the flowers. There were great beds of
lovely Irises and hhes, and from the lush grass
sprang Eoman violets, and over them all fluttered
wavering white butterflies, as if Psyche and all
her following were breathing the morning air.

136 LAZY TOUES.
Purple figs hung from the fig-trees, and dates
were ripe on the palms, and oranges and lemons
were ready for gathering. And yet this Enchanted
Garden was so near the outside world that from
some points you could hear the chatter of passers-by
in the streets below, or the martial music from an
open square in front of some near barracks.
It was strange to find among aU this brightness,
this glowing hfe, what I have caUed " The Path
of Tombs." At the entrance of it was an inscrip
tion setting forth that it was dedicated by the
Princess Wolkonsky to " Filial Piety, Gratitude,
and Friendship." The inscription on the father's
tombstone seemed to me one of the noblest trib
utes ever paid to the dead. " I have seen " — so
the faithful daughter recorded — "I have seen
under his roof the unhappy comforted; artists,
poets, and philosophers f §ted and favored ; strangers
received as brothers ; servants protected and happy.
His words were eloquent, his acts pure and gener
ous. Happy the famUy who called him father ! "
There was a tablet to an old nurse; to a Gover
ness, " from her grateful pupUs " ; to a Patriot.
One touching inscription was on the tomb of a
young girl : " She tried the loves of the Earth, but
they were not pure enough for an angel."
These inscriptions I have quoted — these and
various others — were to persons connected with
the Wolkonsky family; but there were tablets,
also, in memory of various authors and artists, —
among them Sir Walter Scott, Goethe, and Byron.

SOME EOMAN VILLAS. 137
In a corner by itself was a little stone inscribed,
" To Topsy," suggesting that Princess Wolkonsky
was familiar with " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and had
chosen from it a name for some favorite cat or
dog. As we turned away from The Path of Tombs,
a white horse came up and looked at us over
a paling ; he might have been the White Horse of
Death, only he looked so gallant and so gay that
I preferred to fancy him a steed from fairy-land :
for indeed fairy-land seemed all about us, and an
enchanted steed was but native to this place, with
its blithe birds singing their unknown songs, its
rose-gardens, its statues of old, forsaken gods, its
soft turf starred with daisies and king-cups and
violets. Ah, how one's homesick heart pines, sometimes,
for Eome, — for the City of the Seven Hills, which
enshrines all the glory of Ancient Art, all the as
sociations of Ancient History, the passion and
pathos of the immemorial years, and yet is glad
with the fresh beauty of every newborn spring
that entwines the ruins of the Long Ago with the
roses of To-Day ; that is at once as sad as Destiny
and as bhthe as Hope.
1890.

FLORENCE THE FAIR.

FLOEENCE THE FAIE.
HOW is one ever to get the strength of mind
deliberately to go away from Florence?
The past ten days have been full of interest, and I
can see things enough that I want to do, places
enough that I want to visit, to keep me here in
definitely. Out of town I have been to Certosa
and to " sober, pleasant Fiesole," as Browning calls
it ; and speaking of Browning reminds me that I
passed all this happy morning in the Pitti Palace :
and I looked long at the portraits of Andrea del
Sarto painted by himself. In one of them he was
young, daring, brilliant, hopeful, — aU that he was
before he knew Lucrezia, at the time when
Michael Angelo said to Eaphael, "There is a
httle man in Florence who, if he were employed
on such great works as you are, would bring the
sweat into your brow." One beheved this, looking
at the young, bright, hopeful portrait; and then
one went into another room, and there hung that
later portrait, of Andrea and Lucrezia together;
and in that the glory and the vision seemed gone
from Andrea's face. He looked — oh, how very
wrong it seems to say it of a dead great man, but
he did look — henpecked.

142 LAZY TOUES.
Was Lucrezia beautiful ? Yes, I think so ; but
not beautiful enough to account for the thraldom
in wliich she held her lord. I am a dear lover of
Andrea at his best ; and, as Swinburne has said in
his " Essays and Studies," only at Florence can one
tell how great and how various a painter Andrea
really was. I caught a glimpse to-day from the
opposite side of the room of his picture called " A
Dispute about the Trinity ; " and before I was
near enough to see the name, or those detaUs by
which I should have known its authorship, I was
so profoundly impressed by the nobility of the
conception, the stately grace of the figures, the
sober richness of the coloring, that I said to my
companion, " Could there possibly be a better
illustration than that picture gives us of the
qualities in which ancient art differs from and
excels that of our own time ? " " Paint what you
see " is the art motto of to-day ; but there be those
who choose to see barmaids, and there be those who
prefer to see saints in conclave.
What an exhaustless pleasure are the Pitti and
the Uffizi galleries ! To-day my thoughts are vdth
the Pitti, from whence I have just returned. I
think I should like to make a bonfire of all its
Carlo Dolcis, and then how happy could I be
with what was left ! The loveliest examples of
Perugino are there. There are glorious Titians:
the "Bella Donna," of whom I fear Titian was
a good deal too fond ; the " Holy FamUy, includ
ing St. Catherine ; " some of his superb portraits ;

FLOEENCE THE FAIE. 143
his beautiful, unrepentant "Magdalen," who cer
tainly had not fasted, however she may have
prayed. Was Titian the greatest of portrait
painters ? One might think so, certainly, if one
had not seen the work of Velasquez in Madrid ;
and if one had not seen the portraits by Eaphael
in this same Pitti Palace, — the " Pope Julian,"
the "Leo X.," the "Angelo Doni and his wife."
Eaphael's " Madonna della Seggiola " is here ; and
the beautiful " Holy Family " he painted for that
handsome, art-loving young Florentine, Bindo Al-
toviti. Oh, how alive they all were, — and they
have been dead so long ! It makes one shudder
and turn cold to think of it.
" The Three Fates " is the most interesting pic
ture by Michael Angelo that I know, though at
least half the critics say he did not paint it.
There are so many noble and beautiful pictures
in the Pitti that if I spoke of them all I should
want a whole book for the purpose. Are there
stiU more in the Uffizi ? I almost think so. To
climb to the Uffizi is like climbing to the picture
gallery of the Vatican ; but. Heaven be thanked,
there is now a lift, — but such a lift ! The man
who sends it up takes your franc, and then looks
at you to see how much ballast you require to
make you mount at precisely the right pace, to
precisely the right height ; then he puts in blocks
of iron accordingly. I think he miscalculated my
weight and put in too much iron, for the thing
moved upward so slowly that I had time for all

144 LAZY TOUES.
sorts of forebodings. I recalled Howells's farce of
" The Elevator." It amused me very much when I
read it, but it did not amuse me at all to remem
ber it when I was on my upward way at the Uffizi
It was no joke to fancy myself hanging between
heaven and earth, for who knew how long. The
lift moved more and more slowly the higher it
climbed. What if the cord should break, and I
should make a wUd plunge to the far-off earth ?
What if the thing should stop short, in mid-career,
and I could never reach my destination ? It reaUy
was a wretched business, but I got to the top at
last, and had my reward.
I had been to the Uffizi often and often, in
other visits to Florence, but somehow it seemed to
me that I had never quite seen it tUl now.
I want to come to Italy and hve. What is
the use, since hfe is short, of passing it in
a country where there are no stately palaces,
no picture galleries worth mentioning, no marble
gods, no history going back for almost immemorial
years ? If ever I am again in Florence, I mean to
come as near to making my home in the picture
galleries as the governmental regulations wUl per
mit. What banal creatures the men and women
of to-day seem in contrast to the stately figures
on these walls, and the long-dead masters who
painted them !
One goes first to the Tribune, where are col
lected the masterpieces of the masters. You have
an opportunity here to adore the "Venus de'

FLOEENCE THE FAIE. 145
Medici," — an opportunity of which, perhaps, I do
not avail myself so " much as is reason." I do
not like the way she holds her arms and her
hands. It seems to me unnatural and artificial. I
must tell the truth, — I, who am a countrywoman
of George Washington, — and, wrong though it
may be, I do love better the " Venus of the Capi
tol" at Eome. Yet she, too, is very lovely, this
Florentine in marble, and of a truly ethereal grace.
Behind her is Titian's painted " Venus,'' — and what
a contrast! The "Venus de' Medici" needs no
clothing for her white symmetry, — she is clothed
upon in purity ; but one feels like starting a sub
scription to buy some royal robes for the " Venus "
of Titian. They must really be royal, though, for
she is a regal creature. Yet one can well imagine
her a queen of the demi-monde, and leading the
dance at the Jardin Mabille. Her proportions are
superb, she is drawn perfectly, and her flesh-tints
are a dream of beauty. All the same, she is of
this lower world, and could have no passport into
Olympus. Five works in sculpture have been chosen for
this select collection of masterpieces, — the Trib
une of the Uffizi. Besides the " Venus," there are
the " Wrestlers," " The Slave whetting His Knife,"
the "Young Apollo," and "The Dancijig Faun."
But it is its pictures which are the glory of the
Tribune. There is an Andrea Mantegna here which
alone would rank Mantegna among the immortals.
There is a lovely " Holy Family," by Orazio Al
io

146 LAZY TOUES.
fani, so beautiful that it makes me wonder why
one so seldom hears his name mentioned. Titian,
Vandyke, Correggio, Andrea del Sarto, Perugino,
Lucas Van Leyden, and many another; and all
are represented at their point of highest achieve
ment. If, as I think, you must visit the "Sistine
Madonna," at Dresden, to see Eaphael at his very
best, yet his Madonnas here in the Tribune are of
a loveliness that leaves nothing to be desired ; and
the " Fornarina " of the Tribune is the only picture
of the baker's handsome wife that offers the slight
est excuse for Eaphael's infatuation about her.
I do not recall any picture in the Tribune by
Sandro Botticelli, who certainly much better de
serves to be represented there than does Guide Eeni,
who has a place of honor. But in a neighboring
room devoted to the Tuscan school there are some
Botticellis of a grace and beauty truly divine.
Among them the "Madonna of the Magnificat"
lingers in my memory as a work fit to hang in
some picture gallery of the New Jerusalem. But I
will not give you a catalogue. Let me rather stir in
you a fine discontent which shall send you hither
for yourselves. I must, however, say just one
word more apropos of Titian's superb " Magdalen "
in the Uffizi. She is a beautiful impenitent, with
glorious hair that makes you think of Browning's
" Dear dead women, with such hair, too —
What 's become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms —
I feel chiUy, and grown old."

FLOEENCE THE FAIE. 147
Why, I wonder, does no one ever paint the Mag
dalen as a penitent? Had she been truly sorry
for her sins, would she not have veiled those se
ductive contours so lavishly exposed ? Would she
not have cut off that glorious hair, or at least have
twisted it up tidily ?
How different is the spirit of Era Angelico's art
from that of Titian ! I went the other day to the
convent of San Marco, where, perhaps, one sees the
angelical painter at his very best, lovely as are his
pictures in the Uffizi. No black-and-white monks
guard now the entrance to San Marco. It is the
property of the government ; and chapter house,
refectory, and library, all are open to visitors.
This was the convent both of Era Angelico and
of Savonarola, — could any one enter its doors
without a thrill at his heart ? It was here that
Savonarola preached to vast crowds of eager lis
teners ; it was here, at last, that Florence, gone
mad, besieged him, athirst for his life. Here is his
cell, and here are preserved his hair shirt, his ros
ary, his chair, and a fragment from the pile on
which his body was burnt, after he had been put
to death by hanging. His portrait is also here,
painted by Era Bartolommeo, who was his ardent
disciple. How divine is the beauty of the w;ork of Fra
Angehco in this convent I should vainly try to
tell you. His pictures were born of the very
atmosphere of heaven, and they brought to the
painter no earthly honors or rewards. He always

148 LAZY TOUES.
began his work with an appeal to God, solemnly
kneeling. Vasari tells us that, when he was paint
ing a crucifix, he was so penetrated by the thought
of the divine suffering that the tears ran down his
cheeks. He painted his heavenly visions on the
walls of his own convent ; what celestial witnesses
assisted at his holy task who shall say? Pope
Eugenius proposed to him to become a bishop and
accept the see of Florence. But the angelical
painter had no longing for a loftier station, no
desire to govern monks and men. Painter and
monk he was ; painter and monk he preferred to
remain. He did not refuse, however, to go to
Eome to paint there some sacred subjects ; and it
was in Eome that he died, at the age of sixty-
eight, having retained all his powers, with no
apparent failure, unto the very end.
Speaking of the age at which Fra Angelico died
reminds me that I was looking yesterday over
some of the lives of the painters to see how many
of them lived on to old age. Titian hved longest
of them all. One year more, and he would have
been one hundred. It really seemed a pity that
he should have been cut off at ninety-nine. He
had not been a saint or an ascetic, and his longev
ity was certainly not the reward of self-denial.
Michael Angelo's stormy, strenuous, active hfe held
out until eighty-nine, but Titian got the better of
him by ten years. Andrea Mantegna lived to
be seventy-five, which seems rather an early
death when one thinks of Titian. Paul Veronese

FLOEENCE THE FAIE. 149
died at sixty and Sandro Botticelli at fifty-three ;
Andrea del Sarto — was it the fault of Lucrezia ?
— made an end of it at forty-four. Correggio died
at forty, and Eaphael at only thirty-seven. It
was something to have won, in thirty-seven years,
an earthly immortality ; and Eaphael's work, how
ever it may go out of fashion, is not likely to be
ignored or forgotten while " Pope Julius " hangs on
the walls of the Pitti Palace and the " Sistine Ma
donna " abides at Dresden.
There are noble pictures also at the Academia
and at the Corsini and at various other places be
sides ; but I must not linger with them. I cannot
leave the works of Luca della Eobbia at the Bar
gello without a word. Luca was apprenticed to a
goldsmith in his youth, and thus he learned the
secret of delicate and careful work ; but as soon as
he had acquired a mastery of the goldsmith's craft
he gave it up, and turned his attention to sculpture.
Not even there did he find himself entirely at
home. He wanted a medium of his own, and he
discovered it, and began, while yet under twenty,
to make the lovely groups in porcelain — the white
visions of beauty — that will forever be associated
with his name. They look softer and sweeter than
marble can, — these round-limbed cherubs, these
gentle angels, these sympathetic Madonr»as. Hung
in some sombre nook, they seem to brighten it
with a sweet radiance all their own.
I never return to Florence without driving to Cer
tosa to see how many of the white-robed monks are

150 LAZY TOUES.
still to be found there. When the Italian govern
ment suppressed the convents, they allowed the
Carthusian monks at Certosa to remain in their
monasteiy, though they were prohibited from re
ceiving any new-comers. Who will hve in the
place, I wonder, when the last of these dear old
monks has joined his silent brethren ? There is
something that always touches me profoundly in
this home of graves. What a sad, colorless hfe
that of the monks here seems to the onlookers.
They are never allowed to talk to each other.
They eat at the same table only on Sunday ; but
even then they do not chat together like happier
mortals. A religious lesson — a sort of sermon —
is read to them while they eat. On aU other days
than Sunday each one takes his shght repast in
his own little cell They eat no meat. They are
not even allowed eggs, except when seriously Ul
They are locked into their cells during the forty
days of Lent, and not permitted to walk, as they
may at other times, in the lonely, sunht garden.
One would do a good deal to save one's soul, but
to lead one to be a monk at Certosa, faith and fear
must alike be strong. Yet they make things there
that the gay world loves, — dehcious scents, choice
soaps, and the red, green, and yellow Chartreuse,
best beloved and most beguihng of cordials.
I never cross the old Ponte Vecchio, or Jeweller's
Bridge, in Florence, without thinking of Longfel
low's noble sonnet, and quoting to myself : —
" Taddeo Gaddi built me, — I am old."

FLOEENCE THE FAIE. 151
Nor could I ever approach the superb equestrian
statue of the Grand Duke Ferdinand without
thinking of Brownuig's "The Statue and the
Bust." " The passionate pale lady's face," wrought
by Luca della Eobbia, no longer " watches it from
the square," " leaning out of a bright blue space
As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky."
But still the statue is all that the grand duke
dreamed when he cried : —
" John of Douay shall work my plan, —
Mould me on horseback here aloft,
Alive, as the crafty sculptor can,
In the very square I have crossed so oft ;
That men may admire when future suns
Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft.
While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze —
Admire and say, ' When he was alive,
How he would take his pleasure once 1 '
And it shall go hard but I contrive
To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb
At indolence which aspires to strive."
I have no space to write of half the scenes
that poets and painters have touched with ideal
hght. How can one ever be content elsewhere
who has once breathed the air of this happy land ?
I do not wonder that our artists who come to Italy
— like Story and Greenough and Vedder — for a
brief sojourn, linger on, year after year, until a
quarter or a half-century has gone by ; and before
they know it, they are too old ever to make a home

152 LAZY TOUES.
elsewhere. There is plenty of gayety and fashion
here, too. Drive in the Cascine of Florence, es
pecially on a Sunday afternoon, and you will see
as varied and brUhant a display as you are hkely
to find anywhere. It differs from Hyde Park in
its democracy. The convenient little one-horse
victorias of the street are admitted here just as
freely as the stateliest equipages of prince or
marquis ; whUe in London, if you would join the
fashionable throng, you must at least get from a
stable a turn-out that plays as being a private one.
But not even in London wUl you see finer horses,
or handsomer carriages, or more imposing hveries
than in Florence. And I should not know where
to look for prettier girls than some I have seen
here. The costumes that are worn here are much gayer
than in Paris or London ; or perhaps it is that the
costumes of this present year are gayer than those
of the past, and I am first introduced to them
here. How odd are these crownless bonnets,
which are only a wreath of flowers around the soft
hair, or a tiara of jet, or perchance a feather ! And
how startling are these frocks of vivid red ! It is
not scarlet, and it is not crimson ; it seems redder
than either, and might have been dyed in melted
rubies. Florence is the city of flowers, as all the
world knows, and the heaps of flowers one sees in
the Cascine are a striking feature of the show. A
bouquet is the tribute a cavalier pays to a lady,
and they are often as numerous as the bouquets a

FLOEENCE THE FAIE. 153
New York girl receives at her coming-out party.
As a pretty girl drives along you will see actual
mounds of bouquets piled in the back of her car
riage. To be sure it is a cheap attention. For ten
cents I have purchased on Thursday — the day of
the flower market — flfty-f our superb roses. The
flower girls are as numerous here as the beggars
are in Eome, and for half a lira you can get your
two hands full of roses or carnations at any
street corner. I end as I began, — how is one to
go away from this city of the loveliest art and
the loveliest nature, this beautiful, fascinating
Firenza ! And yet I must pack my pilgrim's
scrip and be off to-morrow.

FEOM FLOEENCE TO PAEIS.
I HAVE been told that we pass through sixty-
nine tunnels in the not quite three hours'
railway journey between Florence and Bologna. I
meant to count them, but they got the better of
either my energy or my arithmetic^ and I gave up
the task somewhere in the thirties. At any rate, I
believe it is true that in no raUway journey of the
same length do you go under ground anything like
so many times. You are either in purgatory or in
paradise. One moment the darkness of the In
ferno; the next moment a veritable ghmpse of
Heaven, with the soft purple hghts upon the hUls,
the serene blue sky, the deep ravines through
which gay little streams rush singing, the near
hills sombre with their wealth of green foh-
age — you just begin to think how entrancingly
lovely it is, and the next tunnel shuts it from
your sight.
I had taken the three o'clock train from Flor
ence to Milan, and all the way I had my raUway
carriage to myself. I liked this isolation very
much at first, but after a while I began to want
some one to share my pleasure ; and I thought of

FEOM FLOEENCE TO PAEIS. 155
the Frenchman who said, " Ah, yes, I always like
sohtude, if only there is some one with me to
whom I can say how pleasant solitude is ! " I
think solitude d deux is quite the most perfect
kind of solitude ; only " the other one " must be
the right one, and not the wrong.
After Bologna the scene changed. Heights and
tunnels were alike less frequent, and while the
daylight lasted I was glad to take refuge from
loneliness in a book. It was one of Jules Case's
novels, " Bonnet-Eouge," with which I beguiled my
way as the rapidc bore me on toward Milan.
It is a strong and clever book, certainly; but I
wonder, are such men as Olivier, the hero, often
to be found in France; and, if so, I wonder
whether they are native to that country only !
He reminds me, in some regards, of Guy de Mau
passant's " Bel-Ami" There is nothing of sim
ilarity in the two stories, but the men have
something the same traits. " Bel- Ami " is the
more masterful, and the more successful, but I
fancy Olivier would have liked to be Bel-Ami, if
he could.
I was fortunate in my day at Milan, for it
chanced to be Ascension Day. My hotel — the
Europa — was but a few rods from the Cathedral.
I went to one of the Masses in the morning and
heard the divine music. I had never realized be
fore how beautiful the Cathedral is. I had im
agined that I liked better the Duomo at Florence,
but I found that I was mistaken.

156 LAZY TOUES.
The Milan Cathedral attracts me incomparably
more than that of Florence. I cannot tell you
how glorious it was on this day of days. The
sun shone remorselessly out-of-doors, as if it
would set the world on fire, but the Cathedral
was cool and dark. Through its stained-glass
windows the softened light fell, resting upon the
great crucifix hke a crown of gold, touching with
azure the robe of the Madonna, resting in purple
gloom on some of the sculptured saints. The
archbishop who officiated was clothed in splen
dor ; assisting priests were gorgeous and numer
ous ; the music, ah, how lovely it was ! how it
soared hke the cry of a tortured heart toward
heaven, and then how it sobbed its penitence and
its despair, until there came au answering note of
pardon and of hope, and then arose the glad, free,
exultant cry of faith and of triumph.
The audience ? Oh, what an audience it was !
Noble ladies were there whose footmen brought
their sumptuous Prayer Books. Men with swords
at their sides came to worship in the temple of the
Prince of Peace ; and besides, and mingled with
these, were the crowd of shopkeepers, workingmen
in blouses, women-servants in caps and aprons, and
peasants gay in their hohday finery, with strings of
beads, and silver armlets, and all sorts of fantas
tic ornaments. And one and all knelt together to
pray, and rose together to praise; and the incense
was heavy on the air, and the music soared and
sobbed and died, until one's very heart seemed borne

FEOM FLOEENCE TO PAEIS. 157
upon it toward a presence mysterious and un
knowable. The tension was so keen that I was
almost glad to get out into the open day, when the
bells began to ring for noon.
I drove in a little MUan cab to the Church of
St. Ambrozio, and then to the Brera gallery, where
my visit was all too brief. It is open only from
noon till three P. M., on Sundays and feast days,
and I looked at it only long enough to perceive
that it was full of treasures, and that I wanted to
look much longer. Then I sped away to Biffi's,
the best-known restaurant of Milan, where I had
promised to meet a friend for luncheon. You have
a little table out of doors at Biffi's, and yoy lunch
both well and reasonably. The waiters are com
plaisant, and you can linger on as long as you
please, and see the gay Milanese go by. They
are the handsomest Italians that I know, — these
men and women of Milan. I suppose people toil
there, and weep and starve, perhaps, and die at
last, like the rest of us ; but to the transient
observer it seems as if they were keeping per
petual holiday. And the gay clamor of their
life goes on all night long; at least, I heard it
under my window till long after midnight, and
then went to sleep in the midst of it, and at
five o'clock in the morning the church bells were
pealing like mad, and there was no more sleep
for anybody.
Talking of church bells, I went twice more in
that one day to the Cathedral, — once between ser-

158 LAZY TOUES.
vices, when no one was there but a stray traveller
or two ; and then later, to hear the divine music
of the vesper services. It seemed to me I
could never have enough of it. One dines well
and pleasantly at the Hotel Europa, where I
stayed ; and as for me, though there were theatres
and concerts and operas and all sorts of gay
temptations outside, I resisted them all, in memory
of the " early to bed and early to rise " lessons of
my childhood, — for at least the early rising would
be a matter of necessity. An evening in Milan,
in the early summer, is delightful. You can get
your httle street carriage for a few pence, and
drive to and fro. You can stop in front of a
fashionable confectioner's, and have the daintiest
ices and the coolest drinks, without once leav
ing your cab ; and there is always something
to see in this city so full of life and of move
ment. I was off on the morning train for Basle, by the
St. Gothard route. I believe it is the most fasci
nating day's journey by rail that one can take in
the wide, wide world. The friends I had travelled
with in Italy chose to make this transit by night,
to their infinite loss, as it seemed to me ; but I
shared my railway carriage with a young French
man and his newly wedded bride. I think I have
never seen two people so much in love or so happy.
Their joy overflowed on everything and everybody.
It was like the affiuent May sunshine. They had
sous and smiles to spare for the beggars along the

FEOM FLOEENCE TO PAEIS. 159
route. They had such superabundant happiness
that they shed some of it even on me, and my day
was gay with it. Their delight in the glorious
scenery through which we passed was a divine
rapture ; for the magnifying glasses through which
Love looks see double. But, indeed, no such glasses
were needed to enhance the charm of that journey.
Words are wasted in trymg to describe it. It
mocks at one's poor attempts. What can you say
that has not been said of other places ? Snow-
crowned summits, that seem to pierce the blue
sky ; wUd, deep gorges ; the lovely lakes of lovely
Italy along the first part of the way, and later on
those of Switzerland. All that reads tamely
enough ; but there was a breathless excitement
in catching one new revelation of beauty after
another ; in discovering in how glorious and won
derful a world we creatures of a day are allowed
to disport ourselves. I could no more see such
a world and believe it the result of chance, and
not the purposeful creation of an All-wise God,
than I could see the noblest pictures of Titian or
Velasquez, and imagine that the pigments had
chanced thus to arrange themselves on the can
vas, and that there was no creating hand and
brain of the artist behind them.
Two or three hours before we reached Basle, my
two French lovers left the train. We parted with
mutual good wishes. They stopped to enjoy their
dual solitude in the quiet of a little Swiss town on
the Lake of Lucerne. " Love is enough," wrote

160 LAZY TOUES.
William Morris. These two were in the stage
when that sentence is the heart's gospel They
were glad, I fancy, to get to their honeymoon re
treat and shut out the world ; but the day seemed
colder after their smiles had ceased to warm it.
Do newly married American or English lovers
feel just the same enthusiasm of joy as did these
French lovers ? It may be so ; but I think they
never show it in quite the same frank way. De
spite such men as Guy de Maupassant depicts
in " Bel- Ami " or Jules Case in " Bonnet-Eouge,"
there is certainly a Frenchman of another type,
who loves frankly and entirely, — perhaps it were
not too much to say dotingly, — and the famUies
of the French bourgeoisie are, more often than not,
the most domestic and the happiest I know of
anywhere. The sun had just set when the train reached
Basle. All the mountain tops were pink with
the afterglow. There was a faint young moon
half-way up the sky, and one or two stars were
looking out shyly, as if to see when it would be
their cue to appear on the scene. What a cor
diality of welcome awaits one in Switzerland ! Who
was it said that the modern Greeks encouraged
bandits, because they did not want the traveller
to carry anything away with him out of the coun
try, but that the Swiss " went the Greeks one bet
ter," and found that hotel-keepers answered the
same purpose more effectually ? Whoever said it,
it is slander. It seems to me there is no place

FEOM FLOEENCE TO PAEIS. 161
where you get more comfort and more cleanli
ness for your money than at the majority of Swiss
hotels. I simply crossed the street from the sta
tion, and found myself at home in the Hotel Vic
toria ; and when I left in the eight-thirty train,
next morning, for Paris, the porter walked across
with me, and got my luggage registered, and saw
to all my small needs as sedulously as if he had
been my own courier.
The journey from Basle to Paris is, on the
whole, commonplace and uninteresting. I was
glad to divert myself with a book. The ten hours
of travel seemed interminably long ; and so did
the waiting at the customs, before the men in
authority found time to ask me whether I was
wickedly smuggling into Paris any spirits or to
bacco, — the chief things about which they con
cern themselves. But at last it was over. A
porter, not much bigger than Tom Thumb, took
my great trunk, in some marvellous way, upon his
little head, and got it on top of a four-wheeled cab,
and then wanted ten cents extra "because the
trunk was so big." I gave it to him with a silent
thanksgiving that his little back had not broken
under the burden. The driver cracked his whip,
and we were off'. I think Paris is the noisiest
place on earth. The drivers are by no means
cruel to their horses ; this cracking of the whips
in the air seems to be a harmless diversion, and
the horses, perhaps, would resent its omission.
Any way, crack, crack, we whirled on through
II

162 LAZY TOUES.
the familiar streets, and. here I am at rest in the
heart of Paris, on the Avenue de I'Opera, within
three or four rods of the grand boulevards, in the
midst of the shops, theatres, cafds, — all that makes
the Paris in which the traveller delights.

PARIS AND PICTURES.

PAEIS AND PICTUEES.
I HAVE a confession to make, — I have been
falling in love with Paris. In the depths of
my heart I well know that I prefer London ; but
Paris in May, — ah, well, one must be a stoic in
deed to resist its charm ! It is no wonder that
the true Parisian always feels that to be compelled
to live elsewhere is to be exiled from paradise.
Paris is a sincere enough city, I believe, to its own
children. The native can live here delightfully, at
small cost; but it is another thing for the for
eigner, for whom its delights are expensive.
The shops beguile you with promises in their
windows of English spoken and of Spanish spoken ;
but as regards the smaller shops the English-
speaking person has an unfortunate habit of being
gone to breakfast, or if he be, by some happy acci
dent, en evidence, his English is usually that of the
phrase-book, and equal only to inquiring if you
have the glove of your brother.
" You my flowers buy ? " said to me the dirtiest
little gamin on the Eue de Eivoli, stretching up a
grimy little hand holding some violets and a bunch
of mignonette. He had learned his two or three
words of English painfully, but he had a touching

166 LAZY TOUES.
faith in them ; for when I shook my head at him,
he said, " You me give a penny, — poor leetle Eeng-
lish boy ! " He amused me, and I confess with
shame that I rewarded his barefaced attempt to
pass himself off as a compatriot with the sous it
pleased him to call pennies.
It is odd how little English is known in Paris.
Well-educated Eussians speak Enghsh as a rule ;
Germans, Swedes, and Norwegians speak English ;
but Frenchmen seem to cultivate a profound in
difference to the language of the dear httle island
across the Channel. When I passed a vsdnter in
Paris, I was offered by a London poet — who was
himself half a Frenchman in his knowledge of and
love for French life and language and literature —
letters to a large group of the French poets and
novelists of the day.
" But," said my friend, " only one of them
speaks Enghsh; somehow they never seem to
think it worth their while to learn. Monsieur M.,
you will find, speaks very well In fact, he is
professor of English in a French college."
Monsieur M. was a great comfort and pleasure
to me that winter, and his Enghsh was such, at
least, as I could readily understand ; but he always
made three syllables of " themselves," — " them-
sel-ves," he called it, — and he used to say " lov-ed "
and " wish-ed." He talked of things as " unuseful"
instead of " useless," and he usually put his objects
before his verbs instead of after them. And he
spoke better English than I have heard from any

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 167
other Frenchman above the rank of a valet or a
courier. The very streets of Paris are full of interest, —
the interest of a hfe as unlike as possible to that of
America or England. In England you meet a
funeral cortege, and the external trappings of its
woe are overwhelming. From the corners of the
big, cumbrous hearse nod lofty sable plumes. The
horses look as if they had come out of some strange
world of night and of darkness. They are great
creatures " of the blackest black our eyes endure,"
without a white hair anywhere; and they move
with preternatural gravity, as horses should whose
daily work it is to make
" Funeral marches to the grave."
The drivers, and the men sitting beside them, are
clad in the deepest mourning. Their hats are
swathed round with bombazine, which falls down
their backs like a woman's mourning veil. But
here their solemnity ends : they wear a cheerful'
air, as if rejoicing that business is prosperous ; and
I have seen them joke and laugh with each other,
as if they might have been telling good stories of
the dead they were carrying to his long home. As
to the English crowd through which this gloomy-
looking procession passes, not a hat is lifted ; no
notice is taken of it whatever.
You meet the simplest French funeral, and a
band of mourners follows it, on foot, and bare
headed, however cold the weather. As the pro-

168 LAZY TOURS.
cession passes, every man in the street lifts his hat
and waits, uncovered and reverently, until it has
gone by. I have just met on the street a funeral
procession fairly melodramatic in the intensity of its
gloom. The great hearse was literally covered with
flowers, and to the flowers was attached a huge scarf
of purple satin, wrought in sUver, with the motto,
"A Notre Grandpfere." Men clad in the deepest
mourning, with immense " weepers " of black crape,
followed it with lugubrious faces and slow and
melancholy steps. I wondered how much of this
grief was paid for by the hour. I do not know
whether hired mourners are as common here now
as of old, but a friend of mine who lived here
twenty-five years ago tells me that no funeral of
any pretensions at that time lacked its band
of them. Two of them used to precede the
hearse, leading the solemn way, — the rest used to
follow. The chief mourner, the most noted of
them all, was Clodoche, the celebrated clown, who
combined the two very opposite avocations of
mourning at funerals by day, and dancing the can
can at night.
My friend once saw him dance madly at an opera
ball the very evening after he had seen him
mourn dolefully at a grand funeral in the morning.
M.  sought an introduction to him, and asked
him how he could possibly contrive to do two things
so opposite, and to do each so well. Clodoche
said he did the one as a rehef from the other. " If I
mourn for the dead," he said simply, " I must earn

PARIS AND PICTUEES. 169
my money. I must put myself in harmony with
the occasion. I must bring the tears to my eyes
by thinking of the hearth which is lonely, and of
the grave which is dark and deep. Monsieur, my
heart grows cold with fear and sorrow. Then in
the evening I dance ; I feel under me my limbs
which are strong. I grow gay with the music. I
dance — I dance — I live ; if I did not dance, I
should die of the sorrow." But mourning got the
better of mirth at last, and Clodoche dances no
more. He has been followed to his grave, — he
who made so many funeral marches ! How fares
he in the dark country ?
There is another imposing vehicle which dom
inates the French streets besides the hearse. I
refer to the omnibus, which attracts the attention
of fear and dismay, rather than of sympathy.
French omnibuses are drawn by three strong
horses, usually white, all harnessed abreast, and
they tear through the streets at an incredible pace,
like an army bent on destruction and charging at
double quick. I do not think a French omnibus
ever yet halted on its fatal course for man, woman,
or child. All you can do is to get out of its way,
and that you must do very hurriedly. I never see
one without fancying that it is the European revi
val of the car of Juggernaut.
But the French people seem, in spite of the
omnibuses, to live and prosper and grow fat, — oh,
how fat they do grow when they pass middle life,
especially the women ! They are a light-hearted

170 LAZY TOUES.
people as a whole, though in the faces of some of
the men there is a solemn gloom, as if they were
longing for the red days of the Eevolution to re
turn. But this very suUenness is unlike the
brutal, hopeless suUenness of the English lowest
class, — those hideous, bleared, sodden wretches
who stand leaning up against the walls of the big-
windowed " publics." These English have no hope,
— save for more gin, — no intention to struggle, no
longing to rise, no vestige of self-respect. The
suUenest French boor respects himself, even un^
duly, and believes that he is worthy to adorn a
palace. These men in blouses crowd before the
windows of picture shops when any good thing is
on exhibition with as eager an interest as you feel
yourself. They appreciate art, these French
roturiers, as the Germans do music. They have
one supreme love, however, and that is Paris.
And after a while you begin to understand this
passion. You walk through the garden of the
Tuileries, populous with Coustou's statues ; you
hear the gay out-of-door music ; you see the sun
set on the Seine ; the evening lights flash out in
arches and in clusters on the Champs Elysees, and
the little bird begins to sing in your brain that sings
forever and forever, " How beautiful is Paris ! "
and, however far away you go, his song wUl lure
you back, and each time your pretty, perilous Paris
will hold you in her toils more firmly than before.
Many hours of my happy May days have been
passed in the two salons, and I have had an equal

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 171
pleasure in making the acquaintance of pictures
not to be seen in either of them.
It was M. St^phane Mallarm^, the poet, — one
of the best art critics I know, — who took me to
see the impressionist pictures at the gallery of
Boussod, Valadon, & Co., on the Boulevard Mont
martre, and at both the gallery and the house of
M. Durand-Euel, who is said to have the finest
private collection of impressionist pictures owned
by any one man. M. Mallarmd wrote me a list
of the living impressionist masters in, approxi
mately, the order of their importance. It reads
thus: Claude Monet, Eenoir, Degas, Sisley, Pis-
sarro, Mme. Berthe Manet, and Eaffaelli Having
handed me this list, he took it back again, and
added the name of an American lady. Miss Mary
Gassatt, who was of too much consequence, so he
said, to be ignored in selecting his chosen few.
Besides these impressionists, I have to speak of
another artist, quite as original as any of them,
and perhaps, for my own taste, quite as fascinat
ing, — Adilon Eedin. The impressionists say that
they paint what they see ; Eedin says he paints
what he sees — in his dreams. He has for me
an intense and quite unique attraction. I saw
eight or ten strange pictures by this strange man, —
a silent man, I am told, who paints his visions,
but does not talk about them. There was a
landscape born of night and gloom, with mis
shapen trees that you could fancy had been con
torted by human pain. There was " A Nightmare,"

172 LAZY TOUES.
— the vision of an armed man who rode desper
ately into the dark, on a skeleton white horse, the
horse of death. There was one picture called " A
Fallen Glory," the head of a marble god lying
low among the weeds ; and there was the most
enchanting of them all, " The Goddess of Dreams,"
the very incarnation of slumber, with the white
lily of her pure thoughts just taking shape beside
her in the darkness. These, indeed, are the pic
tures of a poet. Like Blake, it seems to me that
Eedin might paint with brush or pen, whichever
came most readily to his hand. His work is
doubtless what one must call hterary art ; but
for me it is enchanting. I saw at both galleries
superb pictures by Monet. Claude Monet is by
no means unknown, even to untravelled Ameri
cans, since pictures by him have been frequently
shown in New York and Boston. He is a sort
of modern Turner. He too " paints what he sees,"
as is the impressionist's formula ; but then he sees
what no one else sees. In one of the pictures I
looked at the other day was a tree whose rich leaf
age almost suggested a peacock's plumage by its
wonderful gradations of bluish-green, clothed upon
with sunlight. I myself have never seen such
a tree ; but should I say so to Monet, his lip, I
have no doubt, would curve with the same fine
scorn which Turner's wore when a Philistine once
said to him, " I never saw such a sunset as that,"
and Turner looked him over from head to foot,
and answered, " And I don't think you ever will."

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 173
But if I ne-^er saw in nature Monet's peacock-
plumaged tree, I believe that he has seen it, and
I gratefully accept his transferred vision. I must
confess, too, that many of Monet's wonderful land
scapes appeal to my own memory. So have I seen
the great sea roll, reflecting the sunset sky. So
have I beheld the young green on those trees
under which lovers walk. So for me, even for
me, have the distant hills seemed to soar into
the very heavens, and search out the secrets of the
skies. The very noblest and loveliest Monets of all
that I have seen were in the private gallery in
the house of M. Durand-Euel. In that same
gallery, too, I made my first acquaintance with
the work of Pissarro, — work so lovely and so ideal,
as well as so true, that I do not understand why
the great picture-buying world was so long in
finding him out. A few amateurs, genuine art
lovers, discovered him and bought some of his
pictures ; but he worked on long with compara
tively httle encouragement. He is old now, old
and poor ; but his art and his heart are as young
and alive as ever, and he has never painted more
exquisitely than to-day. Such enchanting land
scapes as he discovers, with the soft mist on them,
and the dear peasant people in their mid|t !
I saw Degas, too, at his very best, in the private
gallery of M. Durand-Euel. I had seen in the
Boussod- Valadon gallery plenty of his well-painted
girls getting out of bath-tubs and wiping their feet

174 LAZY TOUES.
after a bath. They were clever, undcTttbtedlj, very,
very clever, though they did not charm me ; but
Degas has his own reason for them. "In point
of fact," said he to a friend, "the only occasion
on which people of modem times are nude is
when they take a bath." This idea may not ap
peal to your imagination, but it certainly wUl to
your common sense. Here, in this collection
which a great picture dealer has made for himself,
I saw work by Degas which did attract me pro
foundly. I liked best of aU a gentle landscape,
"wherein it seemed always afternoon," with, for
living things, two horses standing tranquilly, the
head of one thrown over the neck of the other.
Less lovely, but more wonderful, were the numer
ous dancing girls. No one, surely, has ever
painted the dance as has Degas. The wind born
of the dancing motion blows through these airy
skirts. The poise of foot and head, the swirl of
draperies, all are caught as by instantaneous
photography, and yet with a grace and charm
that photography never knew. And the colors
are fairly dazzling, though they never give you
the least sense of exaggeration. I do not wonder
that Degas is the talk of artistic Paris. Buy him
or not, as you please, he has a fortune of his own ;
and gaunt Famine, who is always sending in her
card to some of his neighbors, wiU never knock at
the door of Degas.
Eenoir, on the other hand, is poor. His work
is absolutely adorable. I stand before his land-

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 175
scapes dumb with pleasure. Then I see his figures,
and I say, " No, he is first of all a figure painter ; "
and then a landscape beguiles me back again to
my first love. He is best of all, perhaps, when
he unites his gifts, and gives us figures in the
midst of landscape. I always loved Jules Breton's
work ; but Eenoir touches the same kind of scenes
with a tenderer grace. Some of his pictures of
young girls and of little children are so sweet
and so perfect in their simplicity that it almost
seems as if no one had ever known how to paint
them before, and Eenoir had discovered the secret
for himself.
There were also in this private gallery some of
the pictures of John Lewis Brown ; fancy a French
man, born at Bordeaux, named John Lewis Brown !
I had seen and admired Brown's work in the salon
of the Champ de Mars. He is the fashion in
Paris. Parisian Vanderbilts and Asters buy his
gay, spirited hunting scenes. He is the friend and
comrade of the impressionists, though his work
suggests a student of Meissonier rather than of
Manet or Monet. There was one lovely picture
by Mme. Berthe Manet, the sister-in-law of
Manet, (the first impressionist of distinction), who
died a few years ago. This one picture is the
only one I have seen by Mme. Berthe Manet.
She does not exhibit ; and as she is at present out
of town, I cannot visit her studio.
The landscapes of Sisley, which I saw for the
first time at this private gallery, were almost as

176 LAZY TOUES.
charming as Monet's, but infinitely less powerful.
There were also beautiful marines by Boudin, and
various other works by other artists whose mem
ory reproaches me for my omission to mention them.
I must say one word about Eaffaelli, whose
works I saw at the Boussod- Valadon gallery, where
there are, just now, two rooms full of them on
exhibition. Eaffaelli deals with Paris and its
neighborhood. He paints the types one meets in
these Paris streets, — the blue-bloused peasant, the
pretty grisette, the French grande dame on her
way from the races, the hungry little orphan, the
really domestic and managing mother.
His pictures are bright, open-air creations. An
apple orchard is breaking into bloom, and those fair
French demoiselles have stopped for a moment to
catch the breath of its fragrance. These children
are at play, and their young mother calls them.
This old man has sat down to rest under one of
the trees that border the Champs Elysees. A
glance at any of them, and Eaffaelli has his sub
ject ready for his hand.
He makes wonderful bronzes, too, hke no others
I have ever seen. They are like silhouettes in
bronze, — a sort of bas-rehef, with the open air
between the work and its background. They are
full of life and spirit, — a line suffices for a like
ness, — and they are absolutely unique. I went
twice to see the pictures at. the New Salon of the
Champ de Mars before going at all to the Old
Salon of the Champs Elysees ; for the impressionists

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 177
reign at the New Salon, and they have for me a
weird but inescapable fascination.
Could anything be more absolutely mad than
the " Vision de Femme," by Paul Albert Besnard,
who is the god of the younger impressionists ?
They swear by him, and, indeed, he has wonderful
qualities of color ; but this picture ! — I don't know
what Besnard means by it : I rather wonder if he
knows himself. It seems to me like a leaf torn
from the " Inferno." It is pervaded by just the
blue flame that you see flash along a wall when
you have drawn a lucifer match across it. The
woman seems to have just reached Sheol. She has
taken one plunge, perhaps, in the lake of fire and
brimstone ; for the robe that clings to the lower
part of her body seems drenched with sulphurous
flame. And round her naked bust and arms lines
of that strange blue light, which suggested to me
the lucifer match, seem to writhe like serpents.
There is nothing human in her face ; no hope, no
love, no joy ; not even suffering or despair. Per
haps the look is of sheer wonder. It is the most
amazing conception I ever saw, this " Vision of
Woman ! " What woman ? I might think that
Besnard had gone mad but that he has surrounded
this picture by a group of comparatively sane
paintings. One of them, " Une Famille," — his
own family, I am told, — is quite charmilig in its
simplicity and naturalness. There is, too, a pic
ture both beautiful and striking, called " Une
Salvationiste," of a woman of the Salvation Army,
12

178 LAZY TOUES.
clothed in black, and with a wonderful Hght upon
her face, by which the whole picture seems to be
illuminated. Another quite impossible, but really most fas
cinating picture, is by Paul Hoecker of Munich, —
" La Eeligieuse," — in which the meekest and
loveliest of nuns is sitting at one side of a double
avenue of trees, between which leads a grassy
path. A light that literally never was on sea or
land pervades this picture. It turns the white
cape of the nun to a strange but lovely green. It
bathes the tree-trunks near her with soft purple,
and all the grassy path between the two rows of
trees is dappled with spots of opaline hght, — rose,
green, violet ; the colors seem actually to change
as you look at them. All these hues could only
be rationally accounted for on the supposition
that the sky was a huge dome of stained glass,
through which shone the transfiguring sun. But
then, why should one be rational, when it is yet
more delightful to be charming ?
One very striking picture here is certainly not
charming, but there is scarcely anything more
weirdly powerful in the whole Salon than " Dans
les Dunes," by Liebermann of Berlin. It is the
picture of a wild, desolate moor, — such an one as
Thomas Hardy drew in his "Eeturn of the Na
tive," — a gray landscape, over which some strange
blight rests, and a hideous human creature, blighted
also, toils up a wind-blown, sandy slope, painfully
leading two wretched goats. The hag, the goats,

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 179
the arid, cruel landscape, — there is nothing in it
all but misery. Yes, there is something else, —
that strange, compelling power which is art, and
it drew me back to the picture again and again.
I defy any one with an atom of imagination, hav
ing once seen it, ever to forget it.
There is a commanding group of portraits by
Carolus-Duran. I do not like them all, — I mean
I do not hke all the faces ; and I especially
dislike the face of the woman who wears a dress
of the superbest red, with a fur-trimmed cloak
falling back from her shoulders. But the red of
that robe, — how magnificent it is ! and that fur,
— who else could have painted it !
Talking of portraits, here is the " Ellen Terry
as Lady Macbeth," by Sargent, which was the
sensation of " The New Gallery " in London last
summer. It provoked much discussion then. It
holds its own gloriously among the French mas
ters. You may like or dislike it as you please^
from the point of view of its Shakespearian fit
ness ; but it would be scarcely possible to praise too
strongly its splendid power and the artist's sub
jection of every detail to the commanding whole.
Another " Lady Macbeth " in this Salon of the
Champ de Mars is by Alfred Stevens. He has
chosen the moment when Lady Macbeth studies
her hand in the strong lamplight and sees that all
the perfume of Araby will never make it pure
again. Her eyes seem fairly wild with terror. I
can scarcely recall in any picture I know such an

180 LAZY TOUES.
expression of mad, despairing horror. Stevens
has an " Ophelia " also, and a taking picture which
he calls " La Jeune Veuve," which, with its back
ground of yellow green, the widow's gown of a
deeper green, and the black velvet of her jacket,
is a veritable harmony.
I could say the same of WUliam T. Dannat's
" Portrait de Mme. C. C," the only full length in
Mr. Dannat's group of five superb portraits. It is
a harmony in white and gold and rose, this por
trait, and it has all those quahties of truth and
power and brilliancy which make Mr. Dannat the
noble painter he certainly is. Mme. C. C. ought
to be happy by virtue of this picture. We shall
die, and worms will eat us ; but to have be
queathed a vision of immortal loveliness to future
centuries, — surely a woman thus painted can re
sign herself to the effacing touch of time more
placidly than les autres ! A fine portrait of Mr.
Theodore Child, and the charming girhsh head of
"Mile. H." are also among Mr. Dannat's contri
butions to the exposition.
I must not forget the landscapes of Alexander
Harrison. With Sargent and Dannat holding
their own so triumphantly among the French
figure painters, and Harrison rivalhng their land
scape artists, we of the United States have a right
to believe that we are not quite barbarians in art.
I have not neglected to visit the Salon of the
Champs Elysdes, with its miles on miles of pic
tures. Figure to yourself thirty-seven different

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 181
halls, and each one of them crowded, and then
fancy what it is to walk through them. Here also
was good work by certain Americans, — the noble
and beautiful portrait of Mrs. F. P. Vinton, by her
husband, for instance ; and two of James Macneil
Whistler's fascinating " Nocturnes " — but one
never knows whether Mr. Whistler prefers to be
called English, or American. Sometimes he ex
hibits in one section, and sometimes in the other,
and always he is sui generis.
I think I have never seen quite so many nude
figures as in this year's Old Salon, — people walk
ing, reading, engaged in the ordinary avocations of
life, and with no possible reason for taking off
their clothes except total depravity. And scarcely
one of them has even the excuse of beauty.
I have left'till the last the mention of one artist
who will paint no more, but whose hold on the
memory of those who read her story must needs
be long-enduring. I have passed two afternoons
in the studio of Marie Bashkirtseff, who, dying at
scarcely twenty-four, left behind her several hun
dred pictures and sketches (of which two hundred
and twenty-four are in this studio), and various
pieces of sculpture, of which the studio contains
five. In 1883, the year after Marie's death, an illus
trated catalogue of her work was published, and of
this catalogue I was so fortunate as to procure
one of the few remaining copies. To this memo
rial of Marie's work Fran9ois Coppde, the poet,

182 LAZY TOUES.
contributed a preface, in which he describes Marie
as she appeared to him on his one interview with
her, a short time before her death. " I saw her,"
he writes, " only one time, — I saw her for only
one hour ; but I shall never forget her." She
looked to him younger than her twenty-three years.
He describes her little figure, her face so exqui
sitely modelled, her fair, soft hair, her sombre eyes,
with the slumbering fire in them burning with the
desire to see and know, the mouth firm, yet sweet
and dreamy, the nostrils quivering with every
emotion, like those of a wild horse of her own
Eussian steppes.
One saw in her will veiled in sweetness, energy
expressing itself through grace. In this adorable
girl everything betrayed a superior mind. Under
the feminine charm you felt an iron force more
than virile.
Copp^e describes his visit to Marie's studio,
where, in one corner, he saw her favorite books, —
the very masterpieces of the human mind. There
they were, each in the original, — the greatest works
of the French, English, Italian, German, and even
the Greek and Latin classics, all of which came
within the wide range of this girl's eager, intellec
tual curiosity. Her piano was there too ; and there
was the music of the masters, which she rendered
with singular power. Madame Bashkirtseff, with
maternal pride, called the poet's attention to
these evidences of her daughter's varied gifts;
but Marie seemed to shrink from such allusions,
and laughed off all attempts at eulogy.

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 183
It was only a month after this that the black-
bordered card announcing the young artist's death
reached Coppde. It scarcely surprised him. While
he stood in her very presence, and looked into her
proud, sweet face, a presentiment had seized on
him that this creature, who had lived so much
more vitally and swiftly than others, was near the
end of it all.
One portion of this interesting catalogue is
devoted to the " Hommages " which followed the
death of this wonderful girl. We have poems to
her memory by various poets, notices of the press,
and M. Saint-Amant writes briefly concerning
her funeral, which he says was more poetic and
more touching than any obsequies at which he had
ever assisted. The house where Marie had lived
and died was hung with black and filled with
flowers. From this house of death was borne the
casket of black velvet in which lay all that was
left of her who had suffered and enjoyed so keenly.
She was put in a hearse hung with flowers and
drawn by six white horses, and this hearse the
poor mother had the courage to follow, on foot, to
the Eussian church where the funeral ceremonies
took place, and then on to the cemetery at Passy,
where a monument has been erected to Marie's
memory. But I began to speak of the works of this girl,
who died eleven days before what would have
been her twenty-fourth birthday. "Would they
be wonderful in themselves, these works," a friend

184 LAZY TOUES.
asked me, "if there were no more romantic in
terest attaching to them than to the pictures, for
instance, that hang in the New Salon ? " Yes, I
think I may safely say that they would be valu
able and interesting in themselves, even if they
were the work of some artist likely to paint for
a half-century to come; but of course one's in
terest in them is intensely emphasized by the
thought that this girl, so much more keenly alive
than the rest of us, died almost before she had
learned the secret of life, and can paint for us
no more. Here, within these four walls, is the
legacy to the world of her brief, brilliant, tortured
life, her burning, restless heart. And a remark
able legacy it is.
Her portraits of her cousin, now Comtesse de
Toulouse, are admirable, full of character, and
bear the unmistakable stamp of close study
from the life. Her pictures of Paris gamins are
delightful. " The Meeting," in the Luxembourg,
represents half a dozen of these gamins occupied
in the discussion of the use to which a piece of
string they have found shall be applied, with
as much excitement as a group of congressmen
might show in discussing the silver bill, or a group
of authors in arguing concerning the results of
international copyright. She gave to each face
its own individuahty, and the flgures of this group,
snatched from the street, stand out strongly from
the sombre background.
I liked even better "Jean and Jacques" (ex-

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 185
hibited at the Salon of 1883), which I saw in the
studio at 63 Eue Prony. Two boys, victims of
compulsory education, are trudging reluctantly
to school. The elder brother, Jean, leads the un
willing little one by the hand. Jean has a make-
beheve paper cigarette between his lips, and he has
the responsible business-like air one sees so often in
the children of the poor who have been accus
tomed to take care of their baby brothers and
sisters from the time they could stand on their
feet. Another striking painting is " The Um
brella," in which a girl of about twelve stands in
the midst of a driving rain, wrapping her old
shawl round her, and holding over her head a
great shabby umbrella. Then there is a vigorous
picture of Julian's studio, — that scene of Marie's
own toil and hopes and fears and her heartburn
ing jealousy of Breslau.
There are some adorable landscapes in this
studio ; one, " An Avenue in Autumn," which has
a tender melancholy, a poetic suggestiveness, it
would be hardly possible to praise too strongly.
There are visions of spring, — such as Marie painted
in words in her wonderful " Journal," — where she
describes the fresh green of the young leaves, the
blue of the rain-washed April sky, the colors that
affect you as do the tones of a flute heard across
an inland lake.
But others besides Marie Bashkirtseff have
painted strong and faithful portraits ; others have
given us the gamin of the street (though perhaps

186 LAZY TOUES.
few have painted him with so intimate and clear
sighted sympathy as did Marie) ; others have
painted the melancholy of the autumn, the young
gladness of the spring; and I should do Marie's
art injustice did I mention these things only, and
omit to speak of its fantastic and entirely original
phases. Strong and fine as was her work in the
directions in which it ran parallel with that of
others, one gets a yet subtler perception of her
character from its vagaries. Here, for instance, is
a child nursing at a breast. You see of the woman
only this fair young breast to which the baby's
lips are pressed. All the rest of her is veUed in
impenetrable shadow. Here are two hands ; one
rests on a sheet of paper, the other holds a pen
and is writing, — who knows what ? A palmist
would construct the whole woman and her fate
from these nervous, impatient fingers. Again, here
are two feet, with the slender limbs to which they
are attached cut off just above the knees. Here
is a single hand which holds an apple. Is it the
hand of Eve, plucking the future misery of her
race from the fatal tree of knowledge ? Here is
a girl, quite nude, but rich in all the loveliness of
life, looking into the eyes of a skeleton, who seems
to have come upon her unaware. Does she hear
a murmur from the fleshless lips, — " What I am
thou shalt be ? " Here is a man with murder and
mystery in his look, a convict whom she painted
in Spain, — such a man as would make one shiver
and grow cold if one met him upon a lonely path.

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 187
Ugh! let us turn from him to this jolly little
peasant child, trotting along with a bottle in one
hand and a tin pail in the other ; or this burst of
honest sunshine through the pink blossoms of the
orchard. Ah, what years were those last two or three
of Marie's life ; those years in which she coquetted
with grim death while she read Homer, and Livy,
and Dante ; improvised music, painted pictures,
and modelled in wet clay ! And, indeed, her few
pieces of sculpture were scarcely less wonder
ful than her pictures. There was one — a bronze
statue of " The Grief of Nausicaa " — which im
pressed me profoundly. The head was bowed upon
the arms, — you do not see the face at all ; but I
can think of no more perfect expression of hopeless
and absolute despair.
Marie herself wrote that, from the point of view
of an artist, there was nothing wanting in her
environment. She had an entire story of the
house appropriated to herself. The spacious studio
had a glorious light, and on one side was a gallery
to which one mounted by a short stair. Her
library and her sleeping-room were on the same
floor. In this library one still finds the best edi
tions of the Greek and Eoman classics beside the
chief authors of Italy, France, Germany, England,
and Eussia. Opposite the writing-table is a
striking photograph of Zola, of whose lurid power
Marie was an ardent admirer.
In the bed-chamber one came strangely near

188 LAZY TOUES.
to the real Marie. She was more than usually
fastidious about her appearance, and more than
usually eager for admiration. Her dainty hands
were scarcely more a source of pride to her than
were her Cinderella-hke feet ; and in her sleeping-
room is a cupboard with (so I am told by some
one who took the trouble to count them) forty-
five pairs of foot-gear, — shoes, slippers, boots, etc.
One almost fancies the leather or the satin warm
still with the pressure of those little feet. I think
no one ever lived so fast as did this marvellous
girl. She herself wrote in her " Journal," " No
one, it seems to me, loves everything so much as
I do." In the last year or two of her hfe her
sensations almost overwhelmed her. Time seemed
so mockingly short that she longed to do every
thing at once. She learned to know Bastien
Lepage then ; and surely she came, in that knowl
edge, nearer to love than in any other experience
of her life. Her admiration for Bastien's art was
unbounded ; and I think her feeling for him was
the sweetest, tenderest, most unselfish of her life.
It was that life's impassioned sunset. He told
her no other woman had ever achieved such noble
work in art at so early an age ; and she was
wildly happy at such high praise from the painter
of " Jeanne d'Arc " and " Le Soir au Village."
Then they were both Ul together. He, too, was
looking into the awful eyes of death, as was the
girl in Marie's symbolic picture.
During the summer before Marie's death these

PAEIS AND PICTUEES. 189
two met almost daily. The same goat whose mUk
Marie drank served also for Bastien. One almost
feels that she would have dreaded his recovery,
since then he could not have gone with her into
the valley of the awful shadow. That summer
she began a picture, to be called " La Eue," which
hangs now half-finished in her studio, — an infi
nitely pathetic reminder of those last sad weeks
and the courage that endured to the very end, when
strength failed her to hold brush or pen. The
picture is of a seat on the Boulevard des Batig-
noUes, with its usual occupants. She had had a
photograph taken of that corner of the street ; she
had made her preliminary sketch, and she said
pathetically : " All is ready. It is only I who am
missing." But she began the picture, and worked
on it till her strength gave way. It hangs there
now, half-done ; and one can see how strong and
fine it would have been had death been less clam
orously impatient.
One of her last works was a portrait of herself,
with her palette in her hand. I can scarcely
recall any pictured face by which I have been so
moved. She was so young and so lovely; those
passionate deep eyes of hers were so full of the
longing for life and joy ! She makes me think,
somehow, of Amy Levy ; but she never would have
done what, at the last. Amy did. It was not in
Marie to invite the approach of unwelcome death.
And yet, in the sombre, brooding eyes of these
two there seems to me some strange kinship.

190 LAZY TOUES.
How happy Marie should be if the dead people
are aware of what goes on in this world they have
forsaken ! She wrote once, — in a moment of mad
revolt against her fate, — " To die, great God, to
die ! without leaving anything behind me ! To
die hke a dog, — like a hundred thousand women
whose names are scarcely engraved even upon
their tombstones ! " If she can know that the
French government has enshrined two of her pic
tures among the art treasures of the Luxembourg,
that her "Journal" is read wherever the French
or the English language is spoken, that her studio
is a shrine for art lovers from far-off lands, —
must not that restless, longing soul of hers, with
its desperate thirst for fame, be appeased and
happy ?
1890.

RAMBLES IN SWITZERLAND.

IN SWITZEELAND: AT LUCEENE.
TO leave London at ten o'clock one morning,
and arrive in Lucerne at half-past two in
the afternoon of the next day, not having stopped
longer than twenty minutes upon the way, is to
be too tired to be roused to appreciation by any
thing short of a miracle, and that a miracle of
lovehness, as Lucerne is.
As you stand, on the quay, the lake stretches
out before you in its wonderful beauty. At the
right, Mount Pilatus rises rugged and dark ; and
at the left the Eigi rears its proud height to catch
the sun on its summit. These mountain kings,
crowned with clouds as with a diadem, hold their
high court forever above the placid lake and
busy town lying below ; and to turn one's eyes
toward them is to catch, among the small tumults
of earth, a glimpse of the peace and the splendors
of heaven.
I drove out of town quite by myself, the first
day I passed in Lucerne, and came back through
the falling dusk. What a region of soft enchant
ments Lucerne seemed, wrapt about with the magic
and the mystery of twilight ! One would not
have been surprised to meet Fay Vivien upon the
13

194 LAZY TOUES.
shore, or to know that the Happy Islands of Ava-
lon lay off there in the vague blue distance.
The Swiss are certainly a commercial people.
They have something to sell you at every turn ;
but you need not buy unless you choose. I must
own that you usually do choose, and that you are
usually sorry afterwards.
The shops are full of wood carvings and of
ivory carvings, of lapis lazuli and amethysts and
Ehine stones. Usually you buy during the first
week you are there a rather large assortment of
cuckoo clocks, and Swiss cottages carved in wood,
and various other rather bulky articles ; and then
you pass the rest of your time in wishing you had
never seen them, and contriving how to get them
into your over-full trunk.
One thing amused me greatly in these Swiss
shop-keepers. When they had pressed upon you in
vain some bit of carving, or some Alpine painting,
and you had shown yourself obstinate and obdu
rate, they were wont to inform you, as a last
persuasion : —
" Madame, it is the work of my famUy."
Eeally there was something almost touching in
the household sentiment which took it for granted
that the wares on sale were in some sort enriched
and adorned by this link with domesticity.
There is one carving only in Lucerne which is
not for sale, and which must endure as long as the
town itself endures. I refer to the celebrated
Lion of Lucerne, modelled in clay by Thorwaldsen,

IN SWITZEELAND: AT LUCERNE. 195
and sculptured in the living rock of dark gray
sandstone by Lucas Athorn.
Carlyle has written some glowing words about
this Lion of Thorwaldsen's, which one of our own
countrymen calls "the most moving piece of
sculpture in the whole world."
An artificial cavern has been hollowed in the
rock, and within this cavern lies, stretched in the
agonies of death, the lion, a broken lance piercing
his side, whUe his paw rests on the Bourbon coat-
of-arms, in token that even in death he will not
forsake his trust. A pool of clear water sleeps at
the base of the rock, and over it arch oaks and
maples. The murmur of streams trickling down
from the heights above falls pleasantly on the ear ;
you can almost fancy that the sylvan peace about
him is soothing the lion in his immortal pain.
This noble piece of sculpture is a monument to
the valor of the soldiers and officers of the Swiss
Guard who laid down their lives, to the number of
about eight hundred, at the Tuileries in Paris, in
defence of King Louis XVI., in 1792. Above the
lion, carved in the rock, is the inscription, Helve-
tiorum Jidei ac virtuti (To the faith and valor of
Switzerland), and beneath are engraved the names
of the slain officers.
From Lucerne almost every one makes the
ascent of the Eigi. We went up in the a'fternoon,
that we might see the sun set, and stayed there all
night, that we might behold the splendid pageant
of his rising. Early in the afternoon three ladies

196 LAZY TOUES.
might have been seen, as G. P. E. James would
have said, making their way to the steamer landing
at Lucerne, where they embarked for Vitznau, a
sail of an hour's duration.
At Vitznau we took the Eigi Eailway for the
Eigi Kulm, or summit. This railway is seven
thousand seven hundred and fifty-five yards in
length. It reminds one of the railway up Mount
Washington, but the cars were better arranged for
seeing. They were open all round, though roofed,
and one could get a good view from every seat.
The locomotive, whether in going up or coming
down, is always at the lower end of the train. It
pushes it, in the one case, and holds it back in the
other. The views, as one winds slowly along, are
beautiful beyond any power of words to describe.
The Eigi Kulm is six thousand feet high. It is
clothed with grass to its summit, and I gathered
familiar wild-flowers of New England from its
very top. It commands a sweeping and magnifi
cent prospect of blue lakes, green valleys, and
snowy mountains, — a picture some three hundred
miles in circumference. We reached the top
about two hours before sunset, and spent the
intervening time in studying the details of the
superb panorama, — the Bernese Alps with their
crowns of perpetual snow ; the lovely lakes, —
Lucerne and Zug and Sunpach ; the valleys crossed
by shining streams ; the mountains that seem so
perpendicular you would scarcely think any but a
winged creature could climb them, and yet which

IN SWITZEELAND: AT LUCEENE. 197
are dotted here and there by tiny little cottages in
which some one hves, at the imminent risk, as
Mark Twain would say, of fallmg out of his front
yard. At sunset a strange glory flushes all this wide
landscape. No pomp of dawning can compare
with the enchanting loveliness of the day's de
cline. A rosy mist seems to bathe the whole
scene, and the charm of vagueness, of suggestion,
of infinite possibility, takes hold on the soul like
the most wonderful music, the divinest poetry.
It seemed almost a sacrilege to go in from this
scene of enchantment to the prosaic refreshment of
a well-served dinner in the spacious dining-room
of the Eigi Kulm Hotel.
With the prospect of sunrise before us we went
to bed early. Our rooms were comfortable and
pleasant, but in each one was a printed placard
forbidding the visitor to wrap himself in his bed-
blanket to go out to see the sun rise. The idea
would not have occurred to us but for this warn
ing, upon reading which we began to reflect how
nice the scarlet blankets would have been by way
of wraps, and to feel it an actual hardship that we
were prohibited from their use.
We slept the sleep of the weary, which I
think must be even deeper than that of the just.
Never was night so cruelly short. We seemed but
just to have got to sleep when the Alpine horn
began to sound its reveille through the halls.
Not one mild summons, but a wild clash and

198 LAZY TOUES.
clang, which one almost fancied would awaken
the dead. Surely never people dressed in such
mad haste before. In an incredibly short space
of time we had joined the shivering multitude out
side, who were awaiting in motley garb the rising
of the kindly king of day, so gracious or so great
as not to be particular about the toilets of those
who assisted at his levee. How cold everybody
looked ! How they all huddled together and drew
their wraps about them ! I even saw three or
four rash men making themselves comfortable in
the prohibited bed-blankets.
We had been out there for a good half-hour be
fore his majesty arose, — but then one is used to
wait in the courts of kings. Eose-clad heralds
appeared first in the east ; then cloud-shapes
touched with fiaming gold ; and then, suddenly, a
whole wide burst of splendor, and you knew the
sun was there, but you were forced to turn away
your eyes from the brightness of his glory. It
was a magnificent spectacle certainly ; but, of the
two, 1 would rather behold the sun's decline than
the too dazzling pomp of his up-rising.
We went in wUhngly to a warm breakfast ;
and in an hour or two more we were again on our
way, by rail, to Vitznau. From Vitznau we sailed
to Fluelen, and from Fluelen back to Lucerne, the
whole lovely length of Lake Lucerne, which is
twenty-seven miles. This most beautiful of the
Swiss lakes is nowhere more than three mUes in
breadth, and it so winds in and out among its

IN SWITZEELAND: AT LUCEENE. 199
circling hills that it often seems as if you were
saihng straight against the solid, impassable rock ;
and it is only as you draw near that your watery
way opens before you. The water of the lake is
the lovehest blue-green, — a peculiar color that I
have found nowhere else, — and the scenery along
its banks is such as no one who has not seen
Switzerland can possibly imagine for beauty.
It seemed to me that it had never been so
softly beguiling as when I drove about it that
night after my return from the Eigi, and knew
that I was saying farewell, and must go away
from it all on the morrow.

TO, AND IN, GENEVA
THE single day's journey from Lucerne to
Interlaken over the Briinig Pass gives the
traveller a sufficient feast of beauty to reward him
for his pilgrimage to Switzerland, if he went no
farther. You start at seven in the morning by
boat from Lucerne, and cross the lake to Alpnacht,
— a sail of somewhat more than an hour. This
sail takes you under the very shadow of Mount
Pilatus. Pilatus is an out-post of the great Alpine chain,
so lofty that its top is almost always shrouded in
mist. It takes its name from a wild legend that
Pontius Pilate, after he was banished from Galilee,
fled thither, and dwelt for a time among the jagged
rocks which form the top of this mountain, and
from thence — when he could no longer bear the
burden of his loneliness and his remorse — flung
himself down into the lake below.
At Alpnacht you take the diligence for Brienz, —
or rather, if you are wise, you don't take it, for a
diligence is not half so agreeable as a carriage;
and the laggards, for whom there is no room in the
diligence, are put into supplementary carriages.

TO, AND IN, GENEVA. 201
The drive, some seven hours long, was a con
stant succession of delights. One very quickly
exhausts one's adjectives in Switzerland. There
is nothing for it but to say, " Oh, how beautiful it
is ! " and then again, " Oh, how beautiful it is I "
Early on the way we passed the place where
St. Nicholas, or St. Klaus, the children's friend,
was born. The first Christian church in the
neighborhood of Sarnen was named for him, and
they say his bones are resting in it to this day.
He had a family of ten children, so he certainly
had domestic experience enough to know what
children want. At the age of fifty he is said to
have left this family and betaken himself to a
hermitage ; and the legend is that he subsisted for
the first twenty years of his seclusion solely upon
the sacramental bread and wine, of which he
partook once a month.
After his death he was canonized as a saint,
and his memory is held in the greatest reverence
by the peasantry in the valley of the Melchthal,
where almost every cottager possesses what passes
for his likeness.
What shall one say of the heights we passed
that day, dotted with little chalets here and
there, and with white, feathery mountain cascades
leaping and tumbling down them, spanned by
rainbows !
It was a perfect day, until just before we
reached Brienz, when a sullen, unaccommodating
rain began to fall. We took a steamer at Brienz

202 LAZY TOUES.
and crossed Lake Brienz to Interlaken, or rather
to Darlingen, some ten minutes from Interlaken
by rail.
On the way we stopped at Giesbach, and saw
the beautiful waterfall, in a state of nature then,
but destined to be turned into a show that and
every other evening of the tourist season, and
illuminated bravely with Bengal lights, bathing
it in sudden floods of brilliance, changing swiftly
from red to green or white, and back again.
You pay thirty cents to look at this show from
a good place, and it has countless spectators in
the course of the season; so that altogether the
people of Giesbach make good money by it.
It was between five and six in the afternoon
when we drove into the busy main street of
Interlaken, and halted at last before one of the
numerous green-embowered hotels.
Interlaken is shut in between two ranges of
hills. All the hotels front the range, behind and
above which towers the Jungfrau, white as a bride
and shy as a maiden. Most of the time she wears
her misty veil upon her head, but early in the
morning she lifts it to greet the dawn, and reveals
the cold, pale beauty of her stately shape. Morn
ing after morning I rose early to see the splendor
of her unveiling, until I quite felt that I had
made her intimate acquaintance.
The Hoheweg of Interlaken, a double avenue of
walnut-trees, is the chief resort of visitors. Be
sides the hotels, it is flanked with tempting shops.

TO, AND IN, GENEVA. 203
where all the accustomed Swiss commodities repeat
themselves, and where I saw more beautiful speci
mens of the Swiss precious stones than anywhere
else. Walking along that path one day I beheld a
sight painful enough to my American eyes, ¦ — a
woman to whom a small cart of refuse was
attached, which she was drawing as patiently as
if she had been a horse, and with a man beside
her who was probably her husband, and who
appeared to be driving her.
All through that part of Switzerland where the
German language and German customs prevail
you will see women working in the fields. This
may be equally true of French Switzerland, but I
did not happen to notice it so much.
Interlaken offers the pilgrim the most charming
walks and drives. One pleasant ramble is to the
ruined Castle of Unspunnen, which legend says
is the veritable Castle of Bluebeard. We climbed
to it on a summer afternoon, and saw, or fancied
that we saw, the turret from which Sister Anne
looked forth to see if her knightly brothers were
on their way, while the sad-fated wife was saying
her prayers.
There is a Kursaal in Interlaken, for the use of
which your hotel charges you, whether you make
use of it or not. There you go, if you like, to
read and chat; there you can hear very good
music from three to five in the afternoon, and
from eight to ten in the evening.

204 LAZY TOUES.
While you sit at little round tables in the open
air listening to the music, girls move to and fro
among the people, bringing trays of ices or glasses
of mild beer. They are picturesque creatures in
their peasant costume, with black velvet bodice
and stiff' white sleeves, and numerous silver chains
and ornaments.
We lingered at Interlaken for a week, and then
went to Berne, taking steamer first over the lovely
lake of Thun to Thun itself, and then from there
proceeding to Berne by rail.
Scarcely had we washed from our faces the dust
of travel before we set out to " interview " the
famous bears of Berne. There is a great bear-den
in the heart of the town, — a sort of enormous cir
cular hole walled round with stone and divided
by a stone wall through the centre.
On one side were the younger bears, and, on the
other, two large, venerable, and gigantic creatures,
who looked almost as if they might have been
coeval with the city. To these latter we paid our
loyal tribute of bread, which they caught cleverly,
sitting up in a very human kind of way and hold
ing out their expectant fore-paws.
Everywhere in Berne you see the bear, the
heraldic emblem of the town. Bears appear in
the pediments of monuments ; they keep guard at
the entrances of stately buildings ; they suiround
the fountains ; and a whole troop of them, moved
by some skilful mechanism, march round a seated
figure on the clock -tower whenever the hour strikes.

TO, AND IN, GENEVA. 205
In the shops you find bears upholding drinking-
cups; bears ornamenting clocks; fiddling-bears,
dancing-bears ; bears adapted to every conceivable
use under the sun.
Berne has preserved its ancient characteristic
features more faithfully than has any other town
in Switzerland. In the old part the houses are
built over stone arcades, underneath which the
foot-passenger finds his way. The site of the city
is perhaps more beautiful than that of any other
Swiss town. It is built on a peninsula of sand
stone rock formed by the windings of the river
Clare, which flows a hundred feet below, and
down to which lead grass-grown terraces.
Its one unrivalled attraction is the superb view
it commands of the snow-clad Alps of the Bernese
Oberland. From every coign of vantage you can
see these distant, surpassingly lovely heights,
contrasting with the shining river near at hand,
the happy, verdant fields, and the great trees with
their boughs waving softly in the summer air.
Interlaken was too shut in to seem to me a
pleasant place for a long-continued stay ; but
Berne was so bright and breezy, and with such a
magnificent outlook, that I felt as if one could
linger there forever with ever fresh delight.
In spite, however, of all its temptations, we
gave ourselves only a day and a night there, and
then hurried on by rail to Geneva, — another
paradise. People are always passing through Geneva to

206 LAZY TOUES.
go somewhere else ; and very few of them seem to
find out what a really charming place it is for a
protracted sojourn. It has the commonplace merit
of being the richest and most populous town in
Switzerland. It is full of good shops and good
hotels, and is the headquarters of Swiss watch
making, so that the class of travellers whose chief
object is to spend their money could find here
plenty of opportunities. It is an excellent place,
too, to improve one's mind.
Here are a fine conservatoire of music, a good
university, an extensive public library, museums
of pictures and sculpture ; museums, too, of arche
ology and of natural history ; a botanical garden,
with over five thousand different plants ; in short
" apples of wisdom " are to be gathered in every
possible direction.
If you are worshipfuUy inclined, you can go to
church at every corner. The old church of the
Madeleine dates from the ninth century, and is
the first one in which the Eeformation was
preached ; and there are churches of all ages, from
this venerable Madeleine to that youngest Protes
tant church whose comer stone was laid by our
American General Grant in 1878.
Then, again, Geneva has antiquity enough to
delight a fossil. It was an important place in
the time of the Eoman empire, and Julius Caesar
writes in his " Commentaries " of stopping to
throw up some fortifications here. In the fifth
century the town embraced Christianity, and in

TO, AND IN, GENEVA. 207
the sixteenth century it was one of the most
prominent centres of the Protestant reformation.
On yonder hill, near the town, Calvin had that
good Unitarian, Servetus, burned for his heresies,
and for many years Calvin practically ruled
Geneva. He not only told the Genevese what
they must believe, but how many courses they
might have for dinner. I should think they would
have been glad when they buried him at last.
They can't show you his grave, for by his direc
tions no stone was placed over him, and no one
knows just where he lies.
The most exacting lover of the beautiful would
be content with the site of Geneva, on the shore
of its own fair lake, with the sleepy Ehone, arched
by six bridges, running through the town and
cutting it in twain; and with the range of the
Juras on one side and the Saldves and Mont
Blanc on the other. Midway between two of the
bridges, the Pont du Mont Blanc and the Pont des
Bergues, is a pretty little island called Eousseau's
Island, and consecrated to the memory of this later
Genevese celebrity, who was perhaps the greatest
contrast to the austere reformer, Calvin, that one
can well imagine. Eousseau was a thorough
Frenchman, though he was born at Geneva in
1712, and passed a good deal of his life here. On
his " island " is his bronze statue by Prkdier, — a
beautiful work of art. The self -torturing sophist
— the too frank confessor of sins he had not moral
sense enough to blush for — the man who preached

208 LAZY TOUES.
human kindness and sent his own children to
foundling hospitals that he might not have the
trouble of taking care of them, — looks down with
an enigmatical smile on the people who come to
study his lineaments thus immortalized in bronze.
This statue of Eousseau is the only good out-
of-door monument in all Geneva. Most of them
are ugly, and the most hideous of all is the
huge, costly one to the Duke of Brunswick in
the Place des Alpes. A droll old reprobate was
the duke, but he deserved a monument from the
Genevese, for he bequeathed to their town a nice
little present, —no less than $5,000,000. He
was an extremely eccentric old gentleman, and
had almost as many wigs as Queen Elizabeth had
dresses. As a lady of fashion arranges with her
maid what gown she shall put on for any occa
sion, so this old duke used to discuss with his
valet what color and style of wig he should
assume each day. He had martial-looking wigs ;
wigs of sentiment, in which to go wooing ; wigs of
a certain chic suggestiveness; blond wigs, brown
wigs, curly wigs, straight wigs ; and he had a
room full of barbers' blocks, on which these wigs
were carefully dressed and set forth, and from
this various assortment the old fellow chose each
morning, according to his mood. He had also
the largest collection of jewels in the possession
of any private individual, and various grand resi
dences in one place and another, among them a
costly and curious palace in Paris, a haunt for

TO, AND IN, GENEVA. 209
Sybarites, and celebrated for orgies not unworthy
the maddest of the Eoman emperors. I wonder
where his wicked old soul is now ! At any rate,
his big, ugly monument is here in Geneva, and
the Genevese are grateful for his money, and would
pray, no doubt, for his unquiet spirit's repose,
only that they are such strong Protestants they
dare not.
Near Geneva is the Maison Diodati, where
Byron and Shelley lived for a time together;
where Mrs. Shelley wrote the strange, grewsome
tale of " Frankenstein, " and read it, evening by
evening, to the two poets ; where our " sad, bad,
mad brother " Byron, as Swinburne would call
him, made fatal love to Mrs. Shelley's half-sister,
who had the dishonor of being the mother of
Byron's daughter AUegra.
A short and most charming drive from Geneva
takes you to Ferney-Voltaire, the last residence
of Voltaire, the French philosopher, playwright,
novelist, man of affairs, historian, etc., whose
influence on the mind of the eighteenth century
was hardly second to that of any other. You
drive out from Geneva, with the grand Alps rising
on one hand and the mist-shrouded Juras on the
other, and of course you quote Byron. Ferney
is the place founded by Voltaire, to which he
retired in 1756, to remain until his death in
1778. One of the flrst things you notice in
approaching it is the Protestant church which
Voltaire built for his humbler neighbors, and
14

210 LAZY TOUES.
which bears the haughty inscription : " Deo Erexit
Voltaire " (erected by Voltaire to God). I have
no doubt the arrogant philosopher thought that if
there should happen to be any God he would be
greatly flattered by this attention. At the gate
of Voltaire's grounds is a lodge, in which there
is an interesting room hung with numberless por
traits of the great man, — Voltaire young, Voltaire
old, Voltaire crowned by the French Academy,
Voltaire in all sorts of attitudes and costumes,
but always with the same cynical, self-pleased
face. The grounds in which the house stands com
mand a delightful view, with fountains making
murmurous music and great old trees overshadow
ing tempting seats. Going indoors you are shown
Voltaire's sitting-room and his bed-chamber, and
they are full of mementos of himself. In the
salon is the mausoleum which was constructed
to hold his heart, and bears the inscription,
" His spirit is everywhere, but his heart is here. "
This record is no longer true, however, since his
heart has been carried away and placed in the
Bibliothfeque Nationale in Paris.
The chair-covers in the salon were embroidered
by Voltaire's nieces. On the table is his ink
stand, in which you dip your pen to record your
name in the visitors' book. Paintings by Titian,
Boucher, and Watteau, of the philosopher's own
choosing, are on the walls of the salon, and pic
tures of more personal interest are in the adjoining

TO, AND IN, GENEVA. 211
bed-chamber. Here is the stiff little bed where
the wily Frenchman used to sleep, and on the
walls of this bed-chamber hang the portraits of
those whom he most loved or most honored.
I was especially interested in that of Madame
du Chatelet, who loved him, not wisely indeed,
but so long and well that one is moved to forgive
her unwisdom. Ah ! how fair she is, in her blue
velvet robe, with the soft laces around her soft
neck, with her powdered hair framing her charm
ing face, holding in her hand a mystic rose of
silence, looking forever toward the bed where her
lover dreamed and died, and smiling a strange,
inscrutable smile, which lights her beguiling eyes
and curves her fresh and tender lips.
Here, too, hangs the grand, full-length portrait
of Catherine the Great of Eussia, presented by
herself to Voltaire ; and, near by, his portrait,
embroidered by her imperial hands. What a
woman she was! Looking on this picture you
cannot help believing her capable of all the cruel
wickedness which history ascribes to her; and
yet she has a stately presence. A royal devil
she! Near a fine portrait of Frederick the Great
hangs a picture of Voltaire's pretty little washer
woman. Can she, possibly, have been the rival
of Mme. du Chatelet? One never knows" of what
a man, and a Frenchman, may not have been
capable. Besides these portraits of especial and personal

212 LAZY TOUES.
interest, the remaining space is covered by like
nesses, chiefly engravings, of the men whom
Voltaire delighted to honor, — Milton, Helvetius,
Franklin, Washington, and many another; so that
the old Frenchman and his sweethearts are in
good company.
Coppet is another pleasant excursion from
Geneva, — Coppet, where for some time Mme. de
Stael resided; and not far away from Geneva
was that quiet home where the fat historian
Gibbon went wooing Mme. de Stael's mother,
Suzanne Curchod. There is a funny story about
Gibbon's thinking it the proper thing to kneel
before this lady, and, once having got upon his
knees, being too fat to get up again without
asistance. There are plenty of distinguished dead people
in Geneva. In the same churchyard with Calvin
lies Sir Humphry Davy ; and all about the town
there is an odor of dead eminence. For my part,
these memories of the past are the most interest
ing associations with the spot. They fitly haunt
its beautiful streets and suburbs, and I like well
that place where I move in the good society
of gentle ghosts; yet sometimes their company
oppresses you, and you turn willingly to the world
of to-day, — to see the peasant washerwomen wash
ing the city's linen in the Ehone, or the gay little
pleasure-boats, with bright awnings, waiting for
passengers, as the gondolas wait in Venice.

CHAMOUNY AND THE MEE DE GLACE.
'T'HE easiest and pleasantest way of reaching
¦*- Chamouny is by diligence from Geneva ;
and we paid our five dollars apiece, two or three
days in advance, and chose our seats on the front
bench of the banquette, — the best seats for seeing
that a diligence has to offer.
The diligences on this route are well arranged.
The seats are so high that you mount to them by
a ladder, and as they are only roofed, and the
affair is quite open at the sides, they afford an
excellent view of the lovely land through which
one journeys.
There were, I should think, nearly thirty people
in this one diligence. It was drawn by six horses,
three abreast, and these horses were changed at
the end of each hour and a half. Sometimes,
where the road was very hard, a seventh horse was
fastened on, though I could not see how he could
possibly do any good from his position, far on the
right side.
With each change of horses came a ohange of
drivers, and the first time this took place I was
intensely thankful. Our first driver continually
heartened up his horses with a strange guttural

214 LAZY TOUES.
sort of cry, a kind of " Hoo-oo-oo ! " which inspired
me with a wild desire to imitate it.
I sat behind the man, and I did not think he
would notice my feeble effort. I was mistaken;
he turned his head round over his shoulder and —
looked at me. That was all he did, but what a
look it was !
A while afterwards, just to try him, I asked
him the name of some mountain we were passing.
He answered not, but once more he turned and
looked at me. Then fear entered into my heart.
Would he accidentally put out my eye with that
convenient whip he brandished so freely ? Would
he, by chance, drive us all over a precipice, just to
punish me ?
I was glad when he got down from his perch
and was replaced by a brisk young man with a
flower in his hat. You may be sure I let him
" Hoo-oo-oo ! " to his heart's content (for they aU
did it), and made no further attempt to learn his
language. The journey from Geneva to Chamouny occu
pies about eight hours, including a halt at St.
Gervais-les-Bains for luncheon. The distance is
forty-nine and a half miles, and after the first
fifteen miles the scenery becomes constantly more
and more enchanting.
It is well to have plenty of small coins in your
pocket, for at every stopping-place chUdren sur
round you, reaching up fruit for your inspection.
They have a sort of pole, hke the trunk of a

CHAMOUNY AND THE MEE DE GLACE. 215
slender tree, from which spring metal branches,
each one terminating in a hook, and from each
hook hangs a graceful little basket full of plums,
or pears, or grapes, or peaches.
If the fruit were not a sufficient temptation in
itself, you could not resist the winning smiles and
the bright eyes of the youngsters who offer it to
you. Then there are other youngsters who jodel along
beside you, and expect all your pennies as a tribute.
I cannot say that the Swiss jodel is delightful as
music, but it belongs to the mountains, and you
would feel defrauded if you did not hear it.
About twenty miles, by the winding carriage-
road, from Chamouny, the dazzling height of
Mont Blanc suddenly becomes visible. It is
twelve miles or more away from you, as the crow
flies, but its gigantic shape conquers the distance,
and you feel it to be your near and awful neighbor.
At a little past three o'clock, if you leave
Geneva as we did at seven in the morning, you
drive into Chamouny, a little village which seems
all shops and hotels. There is plenty of time
before sunset to explore the town. It is full of
travellers. Everywhere you meet ladies on mules,
or see groups of people waiting their turn to
look at Mont Blanc through the telescopes, — with
one of which each hotel is provided, — or bargaining
in the little shops for drinking-cups, or wood-
carvings, or strings of beads.
We went to the Hotel des Alpes, endeared to my

216 LAZY TOUES.
memory by its hospitable and genial landlady. It
has a charming httle garden, where the people
group round the accustomed telescope.
My room was at the back of the house, con
fronting Mont Blanc ; and almost underneath my
window was a mountain torrent, with a loud and
constant roar, which some guests complained of as
giving them a headache, but which lulled me to
sleep like a cradle-song. I knew nothing more
until just before sunrise the next morning. Did
some watching spirit of the hills awake me just at
the- right time ?
I only know that about twenty minutes before
the sun rose I stood at my window watching and
waiting for the coming glory. Of course I thought
of Coleridge's " Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale
of Chamouny," as every Enghsh-speaking traveller
is bound to think. I chanted to myself : —
" Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course ? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc 1 "
Just then the morning star faded in the greater
radiance of coming dawn; then a ray of gold
crowned first one snow-capped height and then
another, until all the kings were crowned, and
the day was come. It was very different from the
sudden burst of sunrise splendor which blinded
us as we looked down from the summit of the
Eigi into the valley below. This sunrise at
Chamouny was not dazzling. There was some-

CHAMOUNY AND THE MEE DE GLACE. 217
thing unutterably solemn in it, as if each cold,
pale, chaste height were consecrated with its own
especial glory.
That was our sole day in Chamouny, and we
devoted it to an excursion to and across the Mer
de Glace. Four of us set out, triumphantly, at
eight o'clock of the brilliant morning, — three
ladies and one man, — each one on a mule, and
each with a guide. The ascent to the Montanvert
— two hours of mountain-climbing — is toilsome,
but not dangerous. At the Montanvert we gave
our mules into the charge of a boy, who was to
take them round to await us at the edge of the
forest below the Chapeau.
We lunched at the Montanvert, and bought the
inevitable paper-knives and sleeve-buttons, and
then we started for the Mer de Glace. As you
look at it from Montanvert, it has the aspect of
a sea whose rough and rapidly in-coming tide has
been caught and frozen in mid-career.
Farther on it is like a sea frozen in the midst
of a frightful storm, with great billows and gulfs
of ice. We struggled down to it over the Moraine,
a collection of rough bowlders of all sizes, and not
the pleasantest walking in the world. To traverse
the Mer de Glace itself was by no means so toU-
some ; but it gave you a shiver to look into the
deep, blue crevasses of ice, and think h6w easy a
single false step would send you to make part of
their mystery.
The descent from the Mer de Glace to the Cha-

218 LAZY TOUES.
peau on the other side is infinitely more fatiguing,
and the portion of it called the Mauvais Pas, or
Evil Eoad, is enough to daunt the timid. I remem
ber a description of it in one of Frederika Bremer's
books which curdled my blood when I was a
little girl.
A precipice of jagged rocks, I wUl not say how
deep, is below you. Your only foothold is a series
of small steps cut into the perpendicular rock, and
your only hope of safety is in clinging desperately
to an iron hand-railing secured to the rock. It
takes you about half an hour to traverse this
wicked bit of road, and you are rather apt to be
seized with a trembling fit when you reach the
Chapeau and feel that it is all over.
From the Chapeau you climb down, if such a
contradiction in terms is allowable, to the edge of
the forest, where your mules await you. I confess
that the farther descent upon mule-back was the
crowning misery of my day. I was very tired, and
no doubt fatigue had demoralized me. When I
first mounted, the mule mildly objected to the
descent which awaited her. She intimated her de
sire to back round on a path about six inches wide
¦and overhanging a frightful precipice. It took the
utmost strength of the guide to restrain her from
carrying out this cheerful intention. I asked
desperately, —
" Is she vicious ? "
" No, madam,'' the guide answered, reassuringly,
"only reluctant."

CHAMOUNY AND THE MEE DE GLACE. 219
Wherewith I began plunging down the moun
tain on a reluctant mule. I certainly never ex
pected to get down alive. I gave the survivors
instructions how to telegraph to my friends. I con
cluded that I dreaded death and loved life. I am
afraid I shrieked a wild entreaty or two to be taken
off the back of that unwilling mule ; and I know
my heart rejoiced when at last we reached the
farther edge of the forest and came out into day
hght and a level road.
We reached Chamouny about five o'clock, and
joined some people who were watching, through the
telescope, a party making the ascent of Mont
Blanc, having left Chamouny that morning.
These people who were struggling up the great
mountain did not excite my envy. I concluded I
would rather ascend Mont Blanc by telescope than
in any other way.
That night it looked like rain, and we debated
the chances of driving next day to Martigny by
way of the Tgte Noire. We would not go if it
rained, — on that we decided as firmly as mortals
may ; and then we took a last look at the lowering
sky, and went to sleep with the wild, hoarse song
of the mountain torrent in our ears.

OVEE THE T:&TE NOIEE, TO CHILLON.
WE woke in the morning and it was raining ;
not a quiet, friendly, August rain, but such
a rain as they have in the mountains, — sullen,
heavy, a great deal wetter than other rains, and
possessed, as it seemed, with a dogged intention of
going on forever.
At eight o'clock the driver, whom we had
engaged the night before with the solemn and
distinct understanding that we would not go if it
rained, appeared with his carriage and pair be
fore our door.
We mildly remarked that it rained. He con
descended to assent ; but he said that if it kept on
raining, the roads might be quite impassable on
the morrow, and if we were going, it would be weU
to start at once.
Just then a sudden rift in the blackness of the
sky revealed a faint hne of blue, to which the
guide pointed triumphantly. He assured us that it
would clear in an hour or two, and we said that we
would start if it stopped raining any time before
eleven o'clock, and with that understanding the
man went away.
Then evil tales began to be told us of fatal ac
cidents in crossing this same T§te Noire. Only

OVEE THE TilTE NOIEE, TO CHILLON. 221
one week before, a party of three had attempted to
drive across it, and a storm had come on. The
guide had vainly tried to persuade his passengers
to take refuge in a mountain hut, but they had
insisted on going forward.
At last they came to a place — a sort of bridge
— which the guide fancied might be dangerous,
and here again he counselled them to walk, but
they refused.
He himself dismounted and went to the head of
his horses. He had just stepped across the dan
gerous place when there came a sudden crash, a
wild, wild shriek of horror, and horses, carriage, and
three human souls were all struggling together in
the mountain torrent far below.
Two of the bodies were recovered and one wheel
of the carriage ; but no trace had been found of the
other body or of the horses.
To hear of this terrible and so recent calamity
was not a pleasant preparation for our own journey ;
but a benevolent Englishman, who seemed to know
Switzerland well, assured us that just after an
accident an unusual amount of care was always
exercised ; and told us that within the last week the
road had been thoroughly inspected and repaired,
under the care of the efficient Swiss Eoad Com
missioners. He added that a day of rain might,
however, make it unsafe again, and that it would
be far better for us to make the trip that day if
possible. Just before eleven the clouds lifted and the rain

222 LAZY TOUES.
ceased. Promptly our charioteer appeared upon
the scene. Some one looked out at him and told
us that he was the very guide who drove the un
fortunate people the week before. I supposed, ac
cording to our English consoler, that would only
make him more careful; but one had a sort of
grewsome feeling in setting off with him all the
same. However, we started.
For half an hour all went merry as a mar
riage-bell; then the whole sky darkened again,
and it began to rain as if a second deluge were im
pending. Still we all voted against turning back.
The road would be worse to-morrow; the day
might clear by-and-by ; anyhow, we had started,
and on we went.
It was a woeful day. The shining, distant splen
dors of the snow-crowned mountain-kings which
should have rewarded us for our peril were for
the most part hidden from us by the rain; but
near at hand we saw the precipices whose very
verge we were skirting.
Much of the way the road was so narrow that
it seemed as if, should the horse swerve six inches
to one side, we should never see again " the cheer
ful light o' the sun."
We had made up our minds beforehand that
at least we would not lose our hves by refusing
to walk when we were told to do so ; and it
seemed to me that the driver had divined our
resolution, for the amount of walking he invited
us to do was prodigious. Whenever we came to

OVEE THE TliTE NOIEE, TO CHILLON. 223
a pull hard for the horses he would tell us
gravely that it was a dangerous place, and he
thought we should do well to get out.
I will not hazard a guess at the number of
toilsome miles we walked that morning, plashing
through soft mud, ankle-deep, and soaked through
and through by the persistent, untiring rain.
Midway in the journey we stopped for lunch
eon, and then proceeded with another carriage
and horses, and a fresh driver, — a funny little
old man whom we called " grandpa." For perhaps
two hours we were climbing steadily.
Grandpa walked all the time, and the rain
seemed to chill him seriously ; so that, as a
matter of protection against the cold no doubt,
he quaffed at the doors of various little shanties
the red wine of the country. At length it
seemed not only to have warmed but to have
inspired him. He mounted his box. He said,
" We climb no more ; we descend always now."
And descend we did. We actually rushed down
to Martigny.
The day before, on the back of my " reluctant "
mule, I had arranged for having my decease tele
graphed to those whom it might concern ; now,
in this carriage, whirling down the mountain at
the rate of countless miles an hour, and turning
corners with two wheels in the air, I began to
make my will.
I assured my companions very solemnly of my
belief that we should never reach the level ground

224 LAZY TOUES.
alive. I even ventured a slight expostulation with
" grandpa " ; but he only smiled, and tore along
as madly as ever. I could hardly believe my
eyes when the lights of Martigny came in sight,
and we drove quietly into town through the rain
and the mist.
The next day it rained stUl. There was no
pleasure to be had at Martigny in the rain, and
we went on by train to ChUlon, where we passed
part of the long wet afternoon in writing letters
to our friends, and the rest of it in reading aloud
Byron's " Prisoner of ChUlon."
The morrow's morn rose with a superb brU-
liance of sunlight. The sky was a deep blue
lustrous vault, — as clear as if no cloud had ever
darkened it since the world began.
Of course we made our way at once to the
castle. A portion of it is stUl used as a prison,
but the rest was open to our inspection. Ex
ternally it is a vision of beautiful architecture.
Its shape, its color, and its location all lend them
selves to enhance the ideal charm which Byron
has bequeathed to it by his poem.
The origin of this castle is buried in darkness.
It is a Gothic building, with massive and irreg
ular walls, flanked by six towers and surmounted
by turrets. The square tower in the centre is a
lofty structure, whence you can see the whole lake
and its borders ; and it still contains the alarm
bell which of old used to summon the inhabitants
of the surrounding country to the defence of the
castle.

OVEE THE T^TE NOIEE, TO CHILLON. 225
In the other towers are the deep, dark dungeons
where captives lingered out their painful and hope
less days ; the chamber of the Question, where
every conceivable instrument of torture was used
to bring the prisoners to confession; and the beams
from which the doomed men were hanged at last.
The fair blue lake used to be their convenient
sepulchre. The last and largest of the dungeons
is the one to which Byron refers in his poem,
where he makes his prisoner say : —
" There are seven pillars of Gothic mould
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old ;
Seven columns, mossy and gray,
Dim, with a dull, imprisoned ray,
A sunbeam which hath lost its way.
And through the crevice and the cleft
Of the thick waU is faUen and left
Creeping o'er the floor so damp.
And in each pillar there is a ring,
And in each ring there is a chain ;
That iron is a cankering thing,
For in these limbs its teeth remain."
This dungeon was occupied for four years by
Bonnivard. He was confined for six years in ChiUon
Castle, but the first two were passed in a more
comfortable apartment. Here, in the dungeon of
the seven columns, his weary steps, passing so
constantly over the pavement, have worn a little
path in the rock.
He was a martyr to his love for Switzerland and
for liberty. In 1530 his confinement began, and
in 1536 the combined forces of Berne and of
15

226 LAZY TOUES.
Geneva effected the conquest of the castle, then
held by the cruel Duke of Savoy, and the release
of Bonnivard.
He was found chained to a pillar ; and his first
question when his chain was broken was whether
his beloved Geneva had also regained her freedom.
The Genevese from that time heax3ed upon him all
the rewards it was in their power to bestow, and
he died at last in 1571, full of years and of honors.
It has been supposed by some that Byron's
poem was written in commemoration of the suffer
ings of Bonnivard ; but Byron has distinctly stated
that when he wrote the poem he had never heard
the story.
No picture could render all the aspects of the
place more faithfully than Byron has done. There
are the old columns, looking as if they would
stand forever ; and there the long, narrow opening
on high, through which the feeble daylight strug
gles, and at which Byron imagined the lovely blue-
winged bird came to sing ; and there the footing in
the wall by which the prisoner strove to gain the
narrow outlook from which he could see a glimpse
of sky. Among the thousands of names inscribed
upon those old pillars we found that of Byron
himself, and that of Victor Hugo.
In the afternoon we bade farewell to Chil
lon, and took the steamer for a five hours' sail
back to Geneva. I have no words of praise left
for the blue waters of Lake Leman, — the bluest
waters in all Switzerland, — or for the shining

OVEE THE T^TE NOIEE, TO CHILLON. 227
heights which are constantly coming into view as
one sails over those fair waters.
After four weeks in Switzerland one becomes
bankrupt in expression ; but one has learned to
love the place as one loves no other. Surely its
haunting beauty must draw every traveller back,
again and again. And to have seen it once is to
be forever after as homesick as a Switzer for its
hUls and its lakes.

A POSTSCEIPT: AT EAGATZ.
I HAVE now been at Eagatz for two weeks, and
my comnassion is at the service of any one
who does not know this paradise.
It would be a very small Swiss village but for
the stranger within its gates, and the prepara
tions made to receive him. Left to itself, it has
scarcely two thousand inhabitants ; but the num
ber of guests during a single season, including
passing travellers, often amounts to fifty thousand.
The private houses are few, and mostly unpre
tending ; but the hotels are various and agreeable.
The best are the Quellen-Hof and the Hof-
Eagatz, both belonging to Herr Simon, the rich
man of the town, and both connected with the
Neubad, or new bath-house. In the same en
closure are the Kurhaus and its beautiful gar
dens. Besides these two grand hotels there are
various others of lesser importance and less
agreeably situated.
Quite as many people come to Eagatz for the
beauty of the scenery as to avail themselves of .
the " cure ; " but it first came into public notice
through the building of Pfsefers's Eoad from the
Gorge of Pfaefers, two and a half or three miles

A POSTSCEIPT: AT EAGATZ. 229
distant, and the construction of the conduit of the
same length to convey the waters from the Pfaefers
hot springs for the use of bathers in Eagatz.
The little town is in the valley of the swift-
flowing, mad little Tamina, and — as the local
guide-book amusingly informs you — near the
railway station beyond the village " the Tamina
pours its sparkling waters into the youthful
Bhine. "
Many a time, standing on the bridge that spans
the Ehine near Eagatz, I have followed in my
thoughts the long journey of this river, which, at
this place, it almost seems as if one could wade
across, and which flows from hence on and on,
away from Switzerland, through Germany, into
Holland, and loses itself at last in the North Sea.
In Eagatz you have none of the shut-in feeling
which depresses you at Interlaken ; yet the heights
are near, — some of them tree-crowned bowers of
beauty, others rough and rocky, and with the
snow glistening white upon their summits.
On one height stand the picturesque ruins of
the Wartenstein, and on another the equally pic
turesque ruins of the once mighty Freudenberg.
The Guschenkopf is another near height, the path
to which leads through an enchanted wood. Any
one of these is an easy ramble for a summer
afternoon. Another walk is up the valley to the Gorge of
Pfaefers, and every step of the way is from beauty
to beauty, from grandeur to grandeur. All the

230 LAZY TOUES.
time beside your path the Tamina is foaming
down to Eagatz. At every turn some new aspect
of the heights confronts you. Silvery waterfalls
pour into the ravine from almost over your head,
and the rocks so nearly meet that there seems,
as you look forward, to be no passage between
them. Fir-trees spring from the bare crags above you,
and sweet Alpenrosen start up almost from under
your feet. I have traversed this path again and
again, and always a fresh sense of its beauty takes
me by surprise; for it is a beauty so changeful
that you could never learn it by heart, or lose the
haunting desire to see it again.
At last you get to the end of the ravine, and
come upon the great stone building — half bath
house and half hotel — through which you must
enter the gorge. You procure your ticket, and
start on your expedition to the hot springs,
whence the water in which you are to bathe in
the village below starts on its journey.
The guide leads you by a narrow, sombre pas
sage, into the very heart of the mountains, where
you half expect to be compelled to dispute your
right of way with the elves. You pass along a
narrow wooden footpath, five hundred yards in
length, under which the Tamina froths and foams,
and over which the jagged limestone rocks so lean
together that scarcely a ray of light can find you
out, and you need an umbrella to protect you from
the water that drips from them.

A POSTSCEIPT: AT EAGATZ. 231
In a niche of the rocks near the end of this pas
sage is the little Chapel of St. Mary Magdalen,
where in other days the " cure " patients used to
stop and pray for their healing. A little farther
on you are shown the place from which, long ago,
the sick used to be let down by ropes, and not
drawn up again until they were supposed to be
cured. At the end of your wooden pathway between
the rocks you take off your wraps and leave them
outside, while you enter a dark tunnel, ten yards
in length, and with a temperature like that of a
vapor bath. The tiny light carried by your guide
only serves to make darkness '' visible, " and you
feel a strange sense of awe and helplessness as
you stumble along to the place where the hot
spring bubbles up, and drink the accustomed
draught from the subterranean tea-kettle.
You come out drenched with vapor and per
spiration, and are glad to hasten back through the
grand and sombre gorge, and out into the cheerful
light of common day.
Down to the town you go hurrying along by
the side of the hurrying Tamina, and reach the
Quellen-Hof just as the band is closing the after
noon with music. You walk about in the sunset
through the pleasant gardens, where the fountains
toss their spray high into the air, and the roses
and oleanders and heliotrope fill the gloaming
with their penetrating fragrance; and then the
soft dusk steals down from the hills, and closes

232 LAZY TOUES.
in round you, and you go in to your excellent
dinner, and finish the evening in the drawing-
room, where you may be sure there wUl be such
good company that it is a real sacrifice to go to
bed early, — but you do it, all the same.
The next morning at half-past six you are
awakened by the music under your window, to
begin the quiet pleasures of a Eagatz day. First
among these I should reckon the morning bath.
In Eagatz there are four hydropathic establish
ments, eighty-one ordinary baths, and a large
swimming bath.
Staying in the Quellen-Hof, you go to the
Neubad by way of a long corridor, without leav
ing the house, and you find a luxurious bath
awaiting you. It is octagonal in shape, fashioned
of white tiles which look like white marble, and
nearly full of the clearest, softest water by which
tired limbs were ever caressed.
The temperature is ninety-seven degrees Fahren
heit, and this degree of warmth does not change,
for it is the natural heat of the springs, and it is
fresh every moment, since it is constantly flowing
in through one pipe and out at another.
It is so transparently pure that it fairly glorifies
the bather, and you understand the secret of that
beauty which belongs to the water nymphs.
In connection with each bath is its own little
dressing-room, and the attendant brings you soft,
hot linen, in which you luxuriously wrap yourself
dry. Then you go back to bed for half an hour of

A POSTSCEIPT: AT EAGATZ. 233
rest, and then comes the dainty Swiss breakfast of
snowy rolls, fresh butter, new-laid eggs, excellent
coffee, and honey in which, bee-like, you seem to
taste the flowers.
And then you pass your busy, idle day : write
your letters, read your books, chat with your
neighbors, listen to the music, and, above all,
climb the mountain paths, and so fill your very
soul with the rapture of their beauty that it will
rise before you, like a splendid vision, in days to
come, when you are far away.
Besides the excursions I have mentioned as
within the compass of an easy ramble, there are
many longer ones, for which good guides are
easily procured.
Moreover, the place is on the way to the
Engadine, to Italy, to everywhere, and only three
hours from Zurich, whither I must soon betake
myself, leaving this sweet seclusion with some
thing of the same regret with which Eve must
have looked back into the forsaken loveliness of
her Eden.

CERTAIN FRENCH CURES.

AT AIX-LES-BAINS.
WE drove away from our hotel in Paris at
8 A. M. , and that gave us barely time to
catch the 8.55 morning express from Paris to
Aix-les-Bains, at the distant Gare de Lyons. The
French are a very economical nation, and their
system of railway travel is by far the least com
fortable of that in any country with which I hap
pen to be acquainted. I should think at least
three times as many railway carriages, in propor
tion to the traffic, must be employed in England
as in France. In Great Britain, by the judicious
expenditure of a few shillings, even a party of
two or three can almost always secure an entire
compartment; but in France the directors have a
sterner eye to profits, and put on so few carriages
that each one is crowded. There were seven
people in the compartment into which the
Dark Ladye and myself were hurried on that
August morning when we left Paris. Two corners
were occupied by a Frenchman, who wore the red
ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and his portly
wife. The two other corners had been appro
priated by the typical travelling Englishman and
his pretty daughter. Next to the young English-

238 LAZY TOUES.
woman sat her French courier maid ; and the Dark
Ladye and I meekly seated ourselves where we
could. We did not lose very much, however, by not
being next the window, for one can hardly imagine
scenery more monotonously uninteresting than
that along this route, until the train reaches
Culoz, some time in the late afternoon. After
Culoz there is a change. Nature seems to have
awakened from her long nap, and determined to
see what she can do. She gives us mountains
and ravines, and still deep lakes, and gay little
streams that frolic from rock to rock, and great
trees that laugh at the wind's will.
And then, as we sped along, came the splendid
pageantry of sunset.
A man crowded in to fill the vacant six inches
in the carriage. He looked aggressive rather than
penitent, but I suppose he could not help himself.
We might have been vexed at him but for the
magic of the sunset, which diverted our minds
from corpulent and intrusive Frenchmen. A low
wind sighed its vesper hymn through the tree-
boughs. Strange fires were kindled on the moun
tain-tops. Gates were opened into the very
heavens ; and suddenly one felt that a few inches
more or less of space on that flying train mattered
little when our eyes could roam at will through
the spaces of earth and sky. And then, before the
sun had fairly set, the moon — fair empress of a
dead world — arose, and looked down on us royally.

AT AIX-LES-BAINS. 239
It was nearly 7.30 when we reached Aix-les-
Bains, and lo ! on the platform I saw the faces —
familiar and beloved — of two waiting friends,
and instantly I was at home. Shall we feel thus
" at home, " I wonder, if beyond the sea of death,
when the grim ferryman moors his bark and lands
us on the far-off, long dreaded shore, we meet the
gaze of eyes that our own have held dear in this
lower world ? I hope so, for who could bear the
utter and horrible solitude of a strange land, peo
pled only by strangers ? I was soon " at home " in
another way also, for we came to the Hotel Venat
et Bristol, my abode when I was here in 1885.
The intervening years seemed to me scarcely to
have changed the place at all. We slept in front
rooms on the night of our arrival; or perhaps it
would be more in accordance with facts to say we
tried to sleep and failed, for it seemed that there
was not one half -hour, even in the dead waste and
middle of the night, when wheels were not clamor
ing over the stony pavement underneath our win
dows. Next day, however, we came in for a
stroke of good fortune, and moved to pleasant
chambers on the garden side of the house. We
look out into a soft labyrinth of trees and shrubs.
White marguerites are in bloom down there, and
blue corn-flowers, and red geraniums, and some
thing yellow, I don't know what; and the grass
is lush and green, and the tree-boughs droop
toward it tenderly. And all is as peaceful as if
we were in the wilderness, and there were no town

240 LAZY TOUES.
here at all, and no stony streets or grinding wheels
anywhere. Far away, over the housetops, we can see the
beautiful range of the Lower Alps. How I love
to watch the sunset light on them, or the pale
rose of the dawn ! Sometimes a wild tempest of
thunder and lightning springs to fierce life among
these hills, and the very earth seems to tremble
before it. No one knows what a thunder storm
can be who has not encountered it in a region of
mountains. Of course we saw our doctor on the first day
after our arrival; and the second morning we
began the " cure. " When I hear the bearers
stamp along the hall and set down their sedan
chair outside my door, I always think of the men
that will bring the hearse, some day, for my coffin.
It is a grim association ; but I cannot escape from
it. They are careful and kindly burden-bearers,
these Savoyards. My pretty and sweet-voiced
maid, Lucie, swathes me in flannels, and tucks
me in as if I were a baby, and then the men take
up the chair and carry me down two flights of
stairs into the street ; and at that hour, — seven of
the morning clock, — lo ! the whole street seems
alive with these striped sedan chairs, and all Aix
seems on its way to the fitablissement.
My prescription sounds rather formidable; for
it begins with eight minutes in the " boiling
room. " It rather suggests the Inferno ; but I go
in bravely, and it proves to be the hottest of hot

AT AIX-LES-BAINS. 241
vapor baths, where for eight minutes I am left
alone to boil at my ease. Then I go into the next
cabinet for my douches; and here are two good-
natured peasant women who pass their lives in
these hot rooms. They douche me, they knead
me, they pat me in amiable approval because I
take my doom patiently; and, meantime, I am
wondering what the life must be like that is passed
from morning till nightfall in tasks like these. I
am foolish, no doubt; but I feel very sorry for
these women. Perhaps they are far happier than
I am myself, and would be amazed at my pity if
they were aware of it; but I should not like to be
in their hot places.
" At what time in the morning must you get
up ? " I said to them to-day.
" Oh, at half -past two in the summer, and get
to the Hospice at three to douche the poor. Now
it is later, and we don't get up till three. "
" Till three ! " Ye gods ! Fancy getting up
every morning, Sundays and all, not later than
three o'clock ! What would life be worth under
those conditions ?
I inquired about the Hospice. It is a free
Stablissement for the treatment of the poor; and
suffering wretches come to it from all the country
round, — from Geneva, from Lucerne, from far-off
Paris. And because all the comfortable' and con
venient hours of the day must be reserved for pay
ing patients, these sad-fated recipients of charity
must be boiled and douched, and the rest of it,
16

242 LAZY TOUES.
between three and five in the morning, and the
women of the baths must be up and ready to
attend to them.
" It is hard, " I said, when they had told me
all about it.
" It is life, " they answered philosophically.
It is always well to begin one's treatment here
at an early hour, so as to have time for something
else later on. I reach the fitablissementat seven ;
I take my " boiling " and my douching, and am
back again in my bed at eight o'clock. I am
ordered to lie here for an hour; but at nine I may
rise and dress, and then I have the rest of the
long day to myself.
One might do much worse than to come to Aix
for pleasure, for it is a charming place ; but of
the thousands — some twenty-five thousand per
year — who come here it would be safe to say that
nineteen-twentieths have come either in pursuit
of health for themselves, or as the companions of
health-seeking friends. An Englishman I met
the other day was an exception. I had lost my
way, and I asked him, in my best French, if he
could tell me where was the house of Dr. Blanc.
" I am English, and I am well, " was the some
what startling reply ; and, having astonished me
by this statement, he proceeded to add that, being
well, he had had no occasion to know where
doctors lived. I have seen no other such speci
men of proud independence ; for it is as a " cure, "
technically so-called, that Aix is chiefly known.

AT AIX-LES-BAINS. 243
though Eousseau loved and lauded its beauty in
his time. The regular inhabitants of Aix scarcely
number five thousand; and it seems to me that
most of them are either physicians, doucheurs, or
keepers of hotels. I do not mention shopkeepers,
for they are chiefly summer butterflies, — no, let
me say, rather, keen-scented and industrious bees,
— who come here from winter resorts like Cannes
and Nice, and sell goods to the unwary at prices
far higher than one would pay in Paris. Of
course the great centres of attraction are the
thermal establishment for health, and the Casino
for amusement. Everybody wants to go to the
Etablissement des Bains in the forenoon, so as to
have the afternoon free for pleasure ; but also, of
course, not every one can be so fortunate as to
secure the early hours. The Etablissement is an
imposing building, and contains swimming-baths
and douches of every possible variety, vapor baths,
rooms for inhalation, steam baths for hands and
feet, — patience would fail were I to try to enu
merate them all. The doucheurs and doucheuses
of Aix-les-Bains are said to be the best in the
world. If the early bird catches the worm, worms must
have a short life of it in Aix-les-Bains, for the
birds are very early indeed. I hear them singing
in the garden under my window when the morn
ing is only two or three hours old; and by
4.30 A. M. all Aix-les-Bains is astir, as well as
the birds. The bath establishment opens at 4.30,

244 LAZY TOUES.
and if you go into the streets at that hour
you find them well filled with porters bearing
invalids to their douches in sedan chairs. These
chairs are like the old-fashioned square-bottomed
chairs of a country farm-house. They are fastened
to long poles, and each is borne by two men.
Their occupants are curtained from the intrusive
gazer with a sort of coarse hnen, striped in pink
and gray. The bearers jog on with them at a
steady pace, which soon brings any one in this
small town to the estabhshment of baths.
This little town, with its wonderful waters of
healing, is situated in one of the most picturesque
valleys of the Alps, bordering upon the Lake of
Bourget, and not far from that of Ann^cy. It is
three hours distant by train from Geneva and
twelve hours from Paris. Its chmate is deli-
ciously mild, and the air is so pure and the water
so good that nothing hke an epidemic has been
known here within the memory of man.
It is a lovely view which one has looking off
from the terrace of the H6tel Splendide, over the
little village and the blue lake, to the beautiful
mountain range of the Dent du Chat. I have
seen this view when the mountains were clothed
in storm clouds on the left, and the rays of the
setting sun kindled the sky on the right to a
golden glory which, contrasting with the grim
darkness of the confronting storm, seemed almost
too bright for the eye to endure.
If you want to be in Aix when the Enghsh and

AT AIX-LES-BAINS. 245
Americans are here, and the streets are vocal with
your mother tongue, you must choose May, June,
or September for your visit. In July and August
the place is pretty well given up to the French.
By the flrst of July Monaco and the Eiviera
have sent hither their faded hahituecs and the
streets swarm with the world of the Paris boule
vards. For these gay comers the " Villa des Fleurs "
and the Casino — called " The Cercle " — provide
unfailing amusement, as indeed they do for the
more sober guests of the earlier season. The
Casino is the centre of the social life of Aix. It
has an admirable theatre, a large and perfectly
appointed ball-room, a music-room, coffee-room,
billiard-room, an extremely well supplied reading-
room, several small sitting-rooms, besides the
grand central hall ; and, in a quiet corner, a room
for baccarat, where the devotees of high play can
lose their tempers and their fortunes as comfort
ably as at Monte Carlo or Monaco.
The grounds of The Cercle are beautifully laid
out, and on warm nights, when the whole place is
Uluminated with colored lights, and the band
plays in the little kiosque in the garden, it is as
pleasant a spot in which to while away an even
ing as one need ask for. Sometimes there is
comic opera, sometimes a French play,- a concert
in the music-room, a dance in the ball-room. And
always there is the unholy fascination that lures
one to the baccarat tables. I do not know the game,

246 LAZY TOUES.
and I have never even sat down at the tables ; but
sometimes I linger near and watch the players.
Here are brought together all sorts and conditions
of men. Men of rank and title sit side by side with
Jewish pawn-brokers; and ladies thorough-bred
to the finger-tips, are elbowed by cocottes well-
known to the Bois de Boulogne. What a tragedy
I read in one woman's face ! She looked as if
she had come out of one of Ouida's maddest novels.
She was well-dressed. You saw that she had once
been handsome, though now her face made you
think of a bird of prey. It was masked with
pearl powder and rouge; but nothing could dis
guise the expression of ferocious greed, the look
of the cormorant. I could read the whole progress
of the game as I watched her. Now an evU hght
came into her eyes, like the flame the wreckers
kindle to lure a ship to some fatal coast ; again
she wore an expression of baffled desire and un
holy rage. A pretty, innocent-looking girl sat
near her, and modelled her play on that of the
elder sinner. The freshness of life's pure dawn
ing was in the girl's blue and tranquil eyes and
on her smiling lips ; but how long can innocence
play at baccarat, and be innocent still ?
One reads of awful tragedies as the outcome of
these evenings at baccarat; but you hear from
the players nothing more than a murmured
" Sacre ! " and the man on whose dead face to
morrow's sun will shine is as self-controlled
to-night as is the one at his elbow who is winning
everything.

AT AIX-LES-BAINS. 247
Ais is, above all, the chosen refuge for people
afflicted with neuralgia, rheumatism, gout, and
that disease we are wont to call rheumatic gout,
though Dr. Garrod — the great London physician,
who is its godfather — has given it a more stately-
sounding name, which I am sorry to have forgotten.
" I might almost claim to have discovered rheu
matic gout," said Dr. Garrod, in an interview I
had with him in London. I silently wished that
he had not made this discovery. " I mean," said
he, perhaps by way of self -justification " that I
differentiated the disease and classified it, as no
one had ever done before. Twenty-seven years
ago I gave it a name and wrote a book about it."
" You are then, in a way, its proprietor," I sug
gested humbly.
"I might almost say so. I have hundreds of
patients with it in a single week. They come from
every quarter of the world, — India, Australia,
New Zealand, North and South America; and
they are of all ages, too."
" Literally ? "
"Well, pretty nearly. The youngest patient I
ever had with it was a child of three years old,
with every pronounced symptom, chalk deposits
and all, and the eldest was an old man of eighty-
seven, who had never had a touch of the disease
till he reached that age."
I think he loves rheumatic gout, this Dr. Garrod,
as an astronomer loves his telescope, or a chemist
his bottles. And he believes in Aix-les-Bains

248 LAZY TOUES.
devoutly. If you want to come here, you have
only to go to Dr. Garrod' s office, and he wUl send
you. Almost everybody here is ill, — not desperately
ill, but suffering. " Who is your doctor ? " " Are
you here for rheumatism " " Are your pains less
severe this morning ? " These are the questions
which form the staple of conversation. You dis
cuss douches over your dinner, and pity your
neighbors' aches as you walk about between the
acts at the theatre. At any hour of the day, from
half past four A. m. to five P. M., when the estab
lishment closes, you meet the pink-curtained
sedan chairs on their winding way. The " cure " is
emphatically a water cure ; but the chief rehance
is placed on the baths and the massage, though
you are usually required to sip a little malodorous,
sulphur-impregnated water from time to time.
The very monotony of the days makes them
pass quickly. You seem to have done nothing,
and yet it is night. Scarcely have you gone to
sleep before the birds tell you that it is morning.
Then more douches, doses, drives, and dreams ;
and so the month of your stay has worn away
before you know it. I have seen some honey
moon couples here. I don't know whether they
came because they had twinges in their joints, or
because they feared they might have, some day ;
but here they were, billing and cooing with the
other love-birds in the garden, or standing with
interlaced arms in balconies, or watching each

AT AIX-LES-BAINS. 249
other, instead of the stage, at the theatre ; and the
sober rest of us laughed at them and envied them.
What a good thing it is to be young and foolish ;
and who would be old and wise if he could
help it!
I see the other extreme here, too : old, old
couples come, — so old that time seems to have for
gotten them, and they are interesting, in all the
world, only to each other. And they too smile,
toothless smUes, in each other's faces, as they tot
ter along side by side, — smiles, perhaps, over
memories of old days, when they were young.
Even they — ah, who knows how soon they may
be young again in some other world! God bless
them !

It was Achard, I think, who said of Savoie : " It
is Normandy, with the horizon of Switzerland and
the sky of Italy."
I realized the truth of this sentence of descrip
tion a few days since, when the Dark Ladye and I
spent four or five hours of the afternoon in a drive
among the loveliest of the points of view which
. make the environs of Aix a perpetual delight.
We drove along the shores of beautiful Lake
Bourget, and saw mirrored in its placid waters
high mountains, low-growing trees, rooks, clouds,
— all the overhanging world. We skirted heights
too lofty for our stout pair of bays to climb ; we
drove through avenues dense with leafage; we

250 LAZY TOUES.
smelt the new-mown hay that blue-bloused peas
ants were binding into bundles ; and, best of all,
we came home along the lake, when the whole
world was aglow with sunset and the superb
pageant on high repeated itself in the deep bosom
of the waters.
Do you know that Mont Blanc, which we are
wont to speak of as in Switzerland, really belongs
to Savoie ? Why Switzerland ever got the repu
tation of owning it I cannot see, for the property
of Savoie it has always been, and Aix-les-Bains is
on the direct road to it, though the ascent of it is
oftenest made by travellers who are sojourning in
Switzerland. Of all the watering places with which I am
familiar Aix has the most accommodating climate.
It is never too cold for endurance, and it is never
so hot that — to quote Sydney Smith — you want
to take off your flesh and sit in your bones. Its
bathing season, therefore, begins with April, and
does not close until the very end of October. It
is only since 1860 that Savoie has been annexed
to France. King Victor Emmanuel of Italy was
the hereditary Duke of the House of Savoie, and
it was he who bartered this fair inheritance to
France in a kind of commercial treaty. The
character of the Savoyards seems to me both more
sincere and more amiable than that of Parisians
of the same class. I think one could not dwell
among these people, even for a brief space, with
out loving them; and surely one could not come

AT AIX-LES-BAINS. 251
here at all and not love the natural beauties of
the place. It is full of literary associations, too.
Lamartine's " Eaphael " might serve as an excel
lent guide-book for this fair neighborhood. He
makes his hero, Eaphael, choose Aix for his resi
dence, because it combines the charms of valley
and plain with the majesty of the on-looking
mountains. Eousseau is yet more closely iden
tified with Anndcy and Chamb^ry, the neighbors
of Aix ; for while " Eaphael " was a romance,
the real life of Eousseau, in its most interesting
years, was passed in Ann^cy, where he first met
Madame de Warens, and in Chamb^ry, where he
lived in the days of his golden prime.
Chamb^ry was the birthplace and capital of
the House of Savoie. The old residence of this
princely house was almost entirely destroyed in
1793, though three towers and the chapel remain.
But I fancy more people think of Cham-
b^ry in connection with Jean Jacques Eousseau
than even in connection with the House of Savoie.
Near Chamb^ry is the little place called " Les
Charmettes, " which was the home of Eousseau and
Madame de Warens; and it is quite unchanged
since they lived there. It is possible to make an
excursion from Aix -to La Grand Chartreuse and
return in a single day, but it is much easier and
pleasanter to take two days for the trip. The
men of your party will be allowed to pass the
night in the monastery which shelters the holy
monks, but the ladies must seek humbler refuge

252 LAZY TOUES.
outside the gates, in a little inn kept by some lay
sisters. Another charming excursion is by rail
way to Ann^cy. There is a lake which flows up
to the town, and the soft loveliness of the spot
equals that of Como. But to find beauty and
interest enough one need not go so far afield. A
drive of twenty minutes brings you to the entrance
of the Gorge of Gresy, and then a little steamer
takes you through the Gorge. Your boat glides
on silently. Trees meet over your head and seem
to close impenetrably before you. Not a sound
save the wind's low whisper breaks the stillness.
You are veritably in some realm of Faery. Pan
has taken refuge there, perhaps; and the wood-
nymphs and the water-sprites meet on these banks.
You hold your breath for very rapture, and glide
through the charmed silence, too happy to break
it by a word.
How glorious is this September weather in
Savoie ; and what a beautiful world this is when
the sun shines on it ! I think people grow lovely,
too, when they dwell in the light. I wonder,
sometimes, whether trouble, and privation from
all the heart longs for, can possibly be good for any
one. I am greatly inclined to doubt it. What
plant thrives on which the sun never shines ?
What bird sings a blithe song in the gloom of
November? If one is very unhappy one's self,
what compassion has one to spare for other
people ? " Yes, " we say, when we hear some tale
of misfortune, " yes, it is hard ; but then every-

AT AIX-LES-BAINS. 253
body has something to bear. Why should any one
expect to be exempt from the common lot ? "
No; it is when we are glad, when the world
smiles for us, that we are grieved to see other
people suffer, and feel moved to do somewhat to
comfort them. What troubles one most of all
is the inequality of human destiny. Why, for
instance, should there be, here at Aix, fair ladies,
clad in purple and fine linen, and with all the
good things of the world at their command, and
others who rise at three o'clock in the morning
to begin a weary task that ends only with the
night ? Why, as Carlyle said, are one -half the
world born saddled and bridled for service, and
the other half booted and spurred, ready to ride
them? Who knows?

BEIDES-LES-BAINS.
"\ NYWHEEE, anywhere, out of the world!"
-tV So might the pilgrim sing who sets forth
on his way from Aix to Brides-les-Bains. At all
events, one finds out what it is to travel by dili
gence in Savoie. The traditional " slow coach " is
nothing to it, for the slow coach was supposed to
keep moving. From Aix-les-Bains you go by
train to Albertville, and there you will find the
diligence with its five strong horses and its blue-
bloused driver. The sun is bright, the air is
clear, and the mountains are a joy forever. And
on you go, or rather you don't go. Presently the
diligence stops. The driver gets down and leaves
his five horses to their own sweet will. You
wait and wait, until finally you get tired of
waiting. " Why don't we go on ? " you ask.
" Pardon, madame ; the driver he drinks, "
answers your French neighbor.
" But he can't drink forever ! "
You are answered by a shrug of the shoulders,
which intimates that even that would be very
possible. However, Jehu comes back at last, and

BEIDES-LES-BAINS. 255
the diligence jogs on a bit farther, and then comes
another stop. What is it this time? Oh, this
is a post station. The driver leaves one mail bag
here, and picks up another. He might be writ
ing the letters from the time it takes him. Then
you go on for another space. Then he drinks
again. Then another post-office. Then a change
of horses. During the three hours it takes to go
from Albertville to Moutiers you are tranquilly
waiting the driver's pleasure for at least one hour.
At Moutiers you part company with the dili
gence, and you wait another hour for the omnibus
which is to take you on to Brides-les-Bains. You
get into it at last, and on you drive, through
scenery so lovely that you hardly dare mock it
with an attempt at description.
You reach Brides-les-Bains at last, — droll lit
tle place in the hollow of the mountains, with
its half-dozen houses and an almost equal number
of hotels, the porters of which rush out and sur
round you as flies do a pot of honey, and deafen
you with invitations to their several lairs. You
are fortunate if you know beforehand, as I did,
where you are going. I soon found myself at the
HStel des Thermos, in the grounds of which is
" The Source, " as it is called, where you drink
from the spring of healing. The bath establish
ment is in connection with this hotel, and so
is The Cercle, or Casino, with its great salons,
where the music plays, and where is one table for
baccarat and another for some game of which I

256 LAZY TOUES.
am not learned enough in gambling to give the
name. For what does one come here ? For various
things, I believe. The waters are something of
the same nature as those of Carlsbad, and are cele
brated for their beneficial effects on the liver, and
as a general tonic. Also, a few years ago one
of the doctors here discovered, and proclaimed far
and wide, that they were a cure for too much flesh.
This last I think it was that really made the pop
ularity of the place. I have seldom seen so many
fat people gathered together even at a " cure. "
Here are fat women, fat men, fat boys, fat girls ;
the Ohio fat girl of American fame would have
seemed a sylph compared to some of them.
In this hotel there are, besides myself, only four
persons who speak the blessed English language,
— an American physician, with his wife and
daughter, and an English spinster, so old she must
have forgotten that she was ever young. She is
very thin, and she looks with holy horror on the
troops of the fat who arrive daily.
"There is another!" she will say tragically.
" Look at her ! Look ! Just see the size of her
dress-improver, — as if she were not big enough ! "
I glance at the new-comers thus pointed out to
me, and verily they are an ever fresh amazement.
How they have ever grown to be so big without
bursting, I daily marvel. They surround " The
Source " in the early morning and from five to six
in the afternoon. They appear in all sorts of cos-

BEIDES-LES-BAINS. 257
tumes, from the most gorgeous Paris toilets to a
dressing-jacket and skirt, and, one and all, they
drink, and they drink!
The system of treatment here is drinking, sup
plemented by baths ; but the drinking is the chief
thing, as the baths and massage are at Aix. If
you are too thin, you drink; if your liver has
gone crazy, you drink. If you have rheumatism,
gout, paralysis, still you drink. You take a glass
of- the slightly warm, rather nauseous water, and
then you walk for ten minutes, getting, mean
while, what amusement you can from watching
your fellow-sufferers. At the end of another ten
minutes you drink again. Then you walk ten
minutes more, after which comes your third glass ;
and then still again you must walk for twenty
minutes or half an hour, and at the end of this
final promenade you go in, extremely ready for
the single roll and cup of coffee which constitute
your breakfast.
The doctors are out in great force in these morn
ing hours. They are dignified-looking creatures,
in their black coats and their tall, shining beavers,
which they seem to wear officially, as a priest
does his cassock. They brood over one patient
and then over another, and they smile, and bow,
and congratulate you if you say you feel well, and
if you groan with some recurring twinge assure
you that you never do feel the real good of the
treatment until afterwards ; and so up and down
they go, administering greetings and consolations.
17

258 LAZY TOUES.
Some of them speak a little English; mj
doctor does, for instance, and he is very proud of
it. He is also the medical adviser of the English
spinster, who is, alas, in a state of chronic dis
content, and nearly drives the poor man wild with
her doubts and her difficulties.
" You know Mees Blank ? " he asks me. " You
know Mees Blank. Yes ? " and there is a touch
of pathos in his voice.
" Yes, " I answer.
" She is what you call in English an old girl,
is it not ? " and he smiles self -approvingly, quite
innocent of any intentional slang, and persuaded
that he has conquered an English idiom. I echo
his self -approving smile, and then he sighs.
" She is, is, what in English you call — " He
pauses. The occasion is too serious for his English,
and he subsides upon French. " She is — difficile. "
" Yes, " I say, " rather ; " and I quite under
stand the undercurrent of pathos in his tone.
Miss Blank is too good a woman for this unsatis
factory world. Her room is next to mine, and I
wonder how many times a day she comes in to
assure me that she never would have come to
Brides had she not been misled into thinking it
was bracing ; " which, " she adds tragically, " you
can't say it is. " As if, indeed, I were a lawyer
enlisted for the defence of Brides, and determined
to maintain its reputation at whatever cost to
veracity. The music troubles her. She had a room on

BEIDES-LES-BAINS. 259
one side of the house, where the noise of the
rushing torrent deafened her. She moved to the
other side, and now the impertinent band will
play under her window. They dance every night
in the grand salon, and this she seems to regard
as a personal injury. " Who wants to see them ? "
she asks daily. " It 's so uninteresting, you know,
to see grown-up people dance. If it were chil
dren, now ! It is pretty to see children dance. "
Her opposite neighbors at table grieve her,
because they are, as she says, " so common. "
Their French tongues wag too freely; their
French laughter is too merry. The meat at din
ner is too tough. The tea at breakfast is too
weak. The whole world, in short, is out of joint.
She approves the scenery sometimes, but her
highest praise is to pronounce it " quite Swiss, "
ds if the only hope for poor little Savoie were that
it should resemble Switzerland. Am I wasting
too much space over her ? If I were Howells or
James I would put her into a novel.
I have had nothing to do with the bathing
establishment at Brides. From an external point
of view it seems to be a very good one. There
are baths simple, Eussian baths, vapor baths,
douches ; and the fat people who come here to be
turned into sylphs soak in them, day after day.
I think I see them already melting, a'fe I look at
them, morning after morning. They bathe, they
drink the waters, they take incredibly long walks ;
in short, they undergo a system of training so

260 LAZY TOUES.
vigorous that I am inclined to think, as soon as
they get away and resume their usual habits of
living, the too solid flesh will come back again.
Is Brides, then, of no use as a health resort?
On the contrary, I have the highest esteem for
it. I believe its waters have a great tonic power.
Your physician will usually advise you to supple
ment them with the salt baths at Salins, where
the water, he will tell you, " is the water of the
sea quite entirely, and altogether fortifying. "
Brides is surely the smallest watering-place
extant. There is nothing here but " The Source,"
the hotels, and the doctors. When I first came
there was precisely one shop, — a combination of
grocer's and bakery. Later on a sort of summer-
house was put up, where laces are for sale; and
on the way to " The Source " some people from
Moutiers have set up their transient tent, and
offer you guide-books and stationery, and those
familiar Swiss trifies of which you buy so many
on a first visit to Switzerland, and which you are
never tempted to purchase afterwards. You go to
Moutiers — the nearest place of any size — for
everything. Your food is brought from there,
your medicines must be sent for to Moutiers, you
go there for a paper of pins or a button-hook.
" What if one should be poisoned and want an
antidote ? " I asked. " I suppose one must send
to Moutiers ! "
' But one never is poisoned here, madame, " was
the serious answer.

BEIDES-LES-BAINS. 261
I thought, naturally, you could get everything
at Moutiers, and being starved for an English
paper, I sought one there during the last week of
June. No, in all Moutiers there was not an English
newspaper, or even an English book.
" It is not asked for, madame, " said the shop
keeper. " We have for English books and news
papers not the demand. But soon, yes, even on
July the first, will the HStel des Thermes com
mence to take ' The Times of London. '"
And truly, on the morning of July 3 " The
Times of London, " dated July 1, made its appear
ance, and since then I know, even here, what
happened three days ago.
I wonder why one likes this slow little out-
of-the-world place, — for like it you do, as soon as
you have become a little accustomed to its quiet.
Partly, I think, it is that in that very quiet there
is something soothing. The monotonous days and
nights slip into one another, and you hardly know
when one ends and the other begins. Then the
place itself is very lovely, though the English
spinster is fond of calling it " a hole. " It is a
tiny valley, over which the mountains stand sen
tinels. Through the midst of it the mad torrent
tears along. The sun rises gloriously over the
hill-tops in the fresh morning, and fiets with a
kind of lingering tenderness, leaving the sky
bright with a rosy after-glow. I am not sure
that I would come here out of the world merely

262 LAZY TOUES.
in pursuit of pleasure, but I am sure that, having
come here in pursuit of health, one finds plenty
of pleasure also.
It is a short journey from Aix-les-Bains in
point of distance, though we were seven hours on
the way. It could be done in less time, however,
by using, instead of the diligence, a private car
riage. Two hours by rail takes you to Albert
ville, the nearest railway station to Brides, and
at Albertville the deluding diligence awaits you
and takes you in.
I think at least every fourth lady here is a
comtesse or a marquise, and every fourth man is
decore. It seems a popular resort for the French
nobility, as well as for the French bourgeoisie.
One very stately marquise never condescends
to sit at table d'hOte, but has her dinner in
solitary solemnity in the very same room, at the
very same hour, and not two feet away from
the rest of us. The other titled people seem as
friendly and simple as if they had no de to their
names ; perhaps more so. In spite of French
novels, I believe the body of the French people
to be singularly domestic. You see husbands
and wives here who are as constantly together as
were the Siamese twins in their day ; mothers
surrounded by their children as a hen gathers
her chickens under her wings ; and the few wives
who are here without their husbands have an
air of patient waiting which blossoms into hope.

BEIDES-LES-BAINS. 263
as Saturday draws nigh, when mon mari appears
from somewhere to gladden the conjugal heart.
If you love quiet and monotony, and the cheer
ful clatter of the French language; above all, if
you have found out that you have a liver, come
to Brides.

LIGHTS AND SHADES OF TEAVELLING
IN SAVOIE.
FEOM Brides-Les-Bains I was to go to Les
Voirons, in Haute-Savoie, a journey it would
have been easy to make in a short day anywhere
save in Savoie. Not so here. To begin with.
Brides is twenty-four miles from Albertville, the
place where I was to pass the night, and the
journey must be made by dihgence, unless you
choose to take, at some frightful cost, a private
carriage. I arranged to leave Brides at 2 p. M.
Of course it was 2.30 before we fairly got off; but
we arrived at Moutiers, our first stopping-place,
only too soon, since the corresponding dihgence
for Albertville was not expected to depart until
five o'clock. From 3.15 till 5 o'clock was long,
with nothing to do in the empty hours.
It seemed to me that every third house in
Moutiers was a caf^ ; but one cannot drink
coffee forever, and there was hterally nothing
else to do, save to follow the example of 'Ziekel
in Lowell's "Courtin', " who
" — stood a while on one foot fust,
Then stood a while on t' other.
And on which one he felt the wust,
He could n't a-told ye, nuther."

TEAVELLING IN SAVOIE. 265
Of course the five o'clock diligence did not start
till 5.45, and then there were twenty miles
between us and supper. The driver assumed
an air of breathless haste, just as if he had not
been standing about and gossiping with his
"pals" for three-quarters of an hour after he
should have been under way. However, he was
a very good fellow, as I found ; for I took my
seat beside him, the better to see the view.
And what a lovely view it was, — beautiful
enough to make up for small discomforts ! The
road leads through a valley, and on either side
the high mountains climb toward heaven and
lose their tops in the sky ; and all the way
beside you rushes on the swiftly flowing Isfere, —
a strong, turbulent, fascinating river, full of rest
less energy.
" How it hurries ! " I said to the driver.
"Yes, madame, it goes all the way to Grenoble,"
— as if that were reason enough for its haste. And
so on we drove beside it, on its way to Grenoble.
The quaintest httle peasant chUdren came out
and stood by the wayside to watch us, — grave
httle women, with their gray gowns as long as
a grown-up person's, and the drollest gray caps
on their heads. They had serious faces, — and,
unhke the children in Italy, none of them begged.
They seemed solidly independent and ' respectable,
like their peasant fathers and mothers whom we
saw working in the hayfields as we drove by, the
. women quite as busily as the men.

266 LAZY TOUES.
" The women work hard in Savoie," my driver said,
as he saw me watching them. " I beheve they don't
work out of doors, the women in your country ?"
" No," I answered.
" I suppose the summers are too hot," he sug
gested, as if no other possible reason had dawned
upon his mind. And then he added, with inno
cent pride, " We have good wives in Savoie."
Had he ever been to Paris ? I asked him. No,
he had never had the time. But he had been to
Geneva. As Geneva is but a short distance away,
his travels had not been extensive.
I made my appearance at the bureau of the
dUigence in good time. I had been told the night
before that it would start at 8.30 ; but of course it
was nine o'clock before we finally got away, and then
we had not reached the other end of little Albert
ville before the driver dismounted for a glass of
beer at a cafd where some of his friends were
drinking at round tables in the open air. He and
I and my luggage had the httle diligence to our
selves, and, hke most of the Savoie drivers, he
turned out very well when once he had satisfied
his thirst.
One would be hard indeed to please, whom the
lovely Lake of Ann^cy should not dehght. Its
shores have not the rugged grandeur of outline
that surround some of the Swiss and Itahan lakes ;
but they are charming to the last degree. Soft
hills which the green trees chmb, fields smUing
in the sunshine, bonny httle vUlages, here and

TEAVELLING IN SAVOIE. 267
there a grand chateau looking down from some
lovely height, and between these sunny shores
the lake winding like a river, so that sometimes
the very path seems closed before you. Ah, it
is a dehghtful hour and a half that one spends in
voyaging from Doussard to Ann^cy !
Ann^cy is a pretty town, where, if one were
French, I should think one might hve hap
pily. Unlike the smaller towns in Savoie, it
is fresh and bright and clean. Its position is
lovely, on the borders of the lake, with the moun
tains watching over it like sentinels, and that gay
httle river, the Fier, wandering away from it
through peaceful meadows ; one could not ask
for a spot more smilingly picturesque. And yet
an hour's drive into the suburbs brings you to the
wildest spot I know, the Gorge de Fier.
It was for the sake of this gorge that I had
stopped over at Ann^cy, and within an hour of
my arrival I was on my way thither. After I
left the carriage, a few minutes of steep descent
brought me to the entrance of the gorge. Of
course there was a franc to pay, and of course a
fat, garrulous old Savoyard guide trotted on with
me, when I would much rather have gone alone ;
but there I was, in the very heart of the world.
I have never before seen such a place. It looks
as if some awful earthquake had rent the solid
rock foundations of the earth asunder. There is
little more than space m this passage for the
narrow gallery in which you can walk single file,

268 LAZY TOUES.
and over the raUing of which you seem to look
down into the under world.
How this frail, wooden gallery, at least half a
mile long, was ever built midway up this steep,
straight height of rock one can hardly conceive.
But somehow the workmen were suspended from
above while they made it, and the guide pointed
out bolts driven into the solid rock for them to
chng to. It seemed, even now that it was done,
a frail and perUous pathway ; but it is daUy
traversed by many feet, and one hears of no
accident there. It would be perfectly hopeless
to try to describe the gorge. It is as if the in
fernal regions themselves yawned underneath you,
and in that narrow, sullen black stream far below
you half expect to see the boat of Charon round
the corner. High, high, high above your head the
trees wave in the summer wind, and even to the
solid rock ivy chngs here and there,- and hardy
mosses have gathered on its sides.
But it was a grewsome place, and one was glad
to leave it and climb to the cheerful hght o' the
sun, and drive back behind the strong little Savoie
horse to a good dinner at that pleasant refuge of
the traveller. Hotel Verdun.
Travelhng in Savoie is beset with as many
hindrances as it is possible to contrive. Whether
it is that the Savoyards are a stay-at-home people,
and wish to show their disapprobation of gad-a-
bouts, or whether in some forlorn hope that if
they make it very difficult to get away you will

TEAVELLING IN SAVOIE. 269
stay on with them and spend all your money, I
know not ; but I do know that it requires super
human energy to travel there. For instance, I
wished to go, next day, to Les Voirons ; and to do
this I must meet the Les Voirons omnibus at
Bon St. Didier at 1 o'clock p. m. Now, consider
ing that the actual railway journey from Ann^cy
to Bon St. Didier occupies rather less than three
hours and a half, you would think, in common
reason, that you could breakfast comfortably at
Ann^cy, start from there at ten or eleven o'clock,
and arrive at your destination in plenty of time.
Not at all.
I consulted my landlady. The only possible
way to arrive at Bon St. Didier in time for the
Les Voirons carriage was to leave Hotel Verdun
at 3.45 o'clock in the morning, walk to the rail
way station, and take the 4.10 train. "Was
madame, indeed, of such courage ? "
" Madame must be of such courage. Could I have
morning coffee ? "
" But, madame, at that hour, so early, there will
be no fires. No one shall be up but the porter,
who will awaken you, and carry to the Gare your
luggage." Needs must, again. I submitted to my fate,
went early to bed, and found myself on my feet
at three o'clock next morning; and at" 4.10 I was
in the train, rubbing my sleepy eyes, and waiting
for the sun to rise.

LES VOIEONS: A PAEADISE ON A
HILL-TOP.
TO leave the forlorn Eestaurant de la Gare, at
Bon St. Didier, is of itself enough to raise
one's spirits, albeit the " Carriage of Les Voirons "
turns out to be a queer little nondescript affair,
with striped calico curtains and an entire absence
of luxury. I mounted beside the driver. Josef,
the " whip " of the Les Voirons Coach, is a good
man and true, and properly proud of the beautiful
country through which he conducts his passen
gers. I was ready to admire his favorite points of
view to his heart's content, and soon we became
excellent friends.
The ten miles which climb from St. Didier to
Les Voirons occupy four hours. Looking up the
mountain from the foot, it seems as if you must
go up a ladder to reach the summit ; but the road
winds and doubles, and winds and doubles again :
and now you face the east, now the west; now
you are looking at Mont Blanc, and now, far
down, at the blue waters of Lake Leman. And
as you go on and up, wild-flowers thicken about
your path, and you come into the sweet-breathed
shelter of the great fir woods, and your spirits rise
with the rising way.

LES VOIEONS: A PAEADISE. 271
At five o'clock you come in sight of The Her
mitage, — the solitary hotel on this mountain -top.
The " Guide-Book to Savoie " assures me that this
is " a magnificent hotel ; " otherwise I should have
said it was the simplest one, to be fairly comfort
able, that I had ever seen. But simplicity suits this
shy spot, which seems quite apart from and above
this world; though, truth to tell, you can reach
it very easily from Geneva. Upholstery and
gorgeous appointments would be as out of place
here as a ball-dress in a whortleberry pasture.
The view which the hotel commands is the great
thing, and that must be a joy forever. On one
side is the Alpine range, with Mont Blanc crowned
king of the whole. On the other side you look
down to the blue waters of the lake, and to
Geneva, which seems like a toy village in the
distance. Many a legend is connected with the site of
this hotel. It is called " The Hermitage" because
it was formerly the retreat of certain hermits who
founded a convent here. But its traditions go
much farther back than the hermits. Long ago,
when the world worshipped the gods of Olympus,
— when Pan sat on a rock and tuned his pipes, and
the wood-nymphs played in the shade of imme
morial trees, — here, on this very spot, had the
worshippers of Venus erected a temple in her
honor. In this temple was an oracle, whose fame
extended far and wide ; and long after Christianity
had conquered the valley. Paganism still reigned

272 LAZY TOUES.
on the height, and the mountaineers used to come
to the Venus-berg to consult the oracle.
At last, however, a good bishop of Geneva was
so scandalized by this idolatry that he led a band
to overthrow the temple and break the statue of
the goddess ; and henceforth the oracle was dumb,
and poor Venus lost her shelter. But Satan was
not disposed to quit his old haunts : so he entered
into the shape of a wild boar, and ravaged the
country, and tore in pieces all the wayfarers who
refused to deny and dishonor Christ and the
Apostles. One day while hunting in the moun
tains, the pious chevalier, Amdd^e de Langin,
encountered the Satanic wild boar. The boar
devoured the servant of De Langin in a trice, and
wounded the chevalier himself; whereupon the
noble lord uttered a vow that if he were delivered
from death he would build on the spot a chapel,
and consecrate it to the Holy Virgin. This
excellent offer was accepted by the higher powers,
and the wild boar forthwith expired under the
sword of the knight.
The Sieur de Langin erected the chapel accord
ing to his promise ; and beside it he built a her
mitage, whither he retired from the gay uses of
the world, and passed the rest of his life in peni
tence and prayer. In the chapel he had set up
a statue of the Virgin, of which the figure was
black, while the face was gilded. This " Black
Virgin, " as she was called, worked many miracles ;
and people came to her from far and near to be

LES VOIEONS: A PAEADISE. 273
healed, as they had come in other times to consult
the oracle of Venus. The Black Virgin was par
ticularly severe on Protestants. One of these sin
ners impiously took away the statue of the Virgin.
She allowed him to convey her a little distance ;
then suddenly, so runs the legend, she arrested
him and his wicked crew, and no efforts on their
part could move the statue one inch farther. They
turned their heads to look and wonder at this
prodigy, and lo ! they never could turn them back
again ; and to this day, if you seek long enough,
you may find, in the neighborhood of Les Voirons,
some of the descendants of these wry-necked men.
Another miracle was wrought in favor of a
beautiful girl named Brigitta. Brigitta was a
shepherdess, and, alas, one of the hermits saw and
loved her, — for sometimes sin enters even into
the abode of the holy. Brigitta herded her sheep
near the hermitage, — which was a pity, for it was
putting temptation in the poor hermit's way.
Suddenly, one day, he rushed out, and caught her
in his arms, and she cried aloud on the Black
Virgin ; and as she cried she took a leap — an
awful leap — over the near precipice. The priests
rushed forth in search of her, and, an hour later,
they found her, quite unharmed; for the Black
Virgin had sustained her in her fall, and deposited
her gently in the ravine below. Do I not know
that this is true, for I have seen the rock whence
she flung herself down, and they call it, to this
day, the " Saut de la Pucelle, " — the Maiden's Leap.
18

274 LAZY TOUES.
After this wonderful miracle the chapel was
repaired, and the Black Virgin was set bravely
upon her pedestal, and people came to seek her
favor more numerously than ever. Hermits of
high degree sought rest and peace in the her
mitage, and prayed, and dozed, and died there;
and all went well until 1769, when the monastery
was burned. Then the hermits had to retire to
Ann^cy, and the Black Virgin was taken to a
church in Boega, where, I believe, she still
abides. Since that time the mountain-top of Les Voirons
has been given up to worldly uses, though there is
a chapel here, near the ruins of the old one, and
a good cur4 lives in his little house near by, and
gathers from among the guests of the hotel a faith
ful few for his morning Mass.
Some years ago — I don't know just how many
— Dr. Lombard, of Geneva, wrote a good deal
about the great benefit for certain classes of
invalids to be derived from mountain air, and
called attention to Les Voirons, where he deplored
the absence of accommodation for visitors. Thus
it came about that one of the mayors of Boega
built the hotel called " The Hermitage, " and threw
open to the public this spot, which I think I have
justly called " A Paradise on a Hill-top. "
The view of Mont Blanc from Chamouny is not
to be compared for beauty with the nearer one from
Les Voirons. On the east is the mountain chain
of which Mont Blanc is king ; and the aspect of
these various heights is never twice alike.

LES VOIEONS: A PAEADISE. 275
Sometimes the air is so clear that the moun
tains seem preternaturally near, and that means
that a storm is threatened. Sometimes the lower
mountains are covered with clouds, and you would
fancy a great inland sea spread out before you,
from which Mont Blanc lifted, like a strange god,
his snow-crowned head.
I have risen to see the sunrise kindle these
mountain-tops with sudden flame; and I have
lingered to see the after-glow of the sunset flush
them with rose-color as delicate as lines the heart
of a sea-shell. I have seen them with a full moon
bathing them in white splendor till they seemed
like hills in Ghost-land. And morning, noon,
and night their beauty thrills me with ever-fresh
surprise. The wonder is that people live here just as they
live down in the lower world, and flirt and gossip,
and play billiards, and smoke cigars, as if this
were not paradise, and the heavenly gates did
not open above the hills at night and morn.
For true lovers this might indeed be the veri
table Garden of Eden. Paths lead duskily among
the fir-trees, — paths soft with the fallen leaves of
many a vanished year. The air is full of balsamic
odor, and the climbing is just steep enough to give
excuse for the constant pressure of a helping hand.
Then there are seats on which to linger at ease,
and dream, while the tempered sunshine sifts
through the green boughs, and the happy, unafraid
birds call to one another over your heads.

276 LAZY TOUES.
Bliss here is cheap, moreover. You have no
need of the purse of Fortunatus. The terms of
the hotel are reasonable, and you cannot spend
money for extras, since the only thing you can
buy here is a postage stamp. Shops and their
commonplace temptations are of the lower world.
Here — on the heights — you are neighbor to the
sun, and to moon and stars, — the night's proud
company.

HOW THEY CURE THEMSELVES
IN GERMANY.

MAEIENBAD AND NUEEMBEEG.
IT is a far cry from London to Marienbad. We
started — the Pretty Widow and myself — at
9.40, A.M., on a Friday. The Pretty Widow's
soul was grieved because it was Friday. Some
awful judgment, she thought, was sure to over
take us for tempting fate in this rash manner. I
silenced her by telling her that, if we had left
London on Thursday, we must have left some
where else on Friday, and that would have been
equally dangerous. We crossed from Dover to
Ostend on a sea of glass, so smooth was it, —
though the very name of the Channel frightened
some timid souls into sea-sickness. At 4. 30 o'clock
we were speeding across level Belgium, catching
sight of picturesque bits of landscape, with appro
priate windmills, all trim and neat, as the Dutch
painters like it. It was nearly midnight when
we arrived at Cologne and drove to my old haunt,
HStel du Nord, where, for the first time, I found
a difficulty in obtaining rooms. The friendly
porter recognized me as an old customer.
" You have not telegraphed from London — No ?
It was so great mistake ! We have of the world
mooch, at present. We turn away so many, " — ¦

280 LAZY TOUES.
with a widespreading gesture of the hands which
seemed to indicate half the world, at least. " But
I will give you rooms ; yes. Follow me. " And
on he walked, like a shepherd leading a fiock
of sheep. It was not to an apartment in his
own hotel, as his words had given us hope, that
he conducted us, but through a large courtyard
and along a silent street to another house, where
we had a noble salon, and a landlady who spoke
English " as she is taught " nowhere. We should
have slept the sleep of the weary but for the beds.
The beds in the Hotel du Nord are very well ; but
those in the Hotel Braun were the regular German
bed, lifted up at the head, like a steep inclined
plane, and with a few feet square of feather bed
for covering, which falls off every time you turn
over. These curious beds are hard and rounded,
and one needs to be an acrobat to perch judiciously
enough on the very middle to escape the sensation
of rolling down hill. We managed to conquer
circumstances sufficiently to get a reasonably good
nap, and then woke to realize how much better
German coffee is than English. We went round,
after coffee, to the H6tel du Nord, and in its read
ing-room we heard some of our own country-folk
discuss their plans with that charming frankness
which characterizes the American on his travels.
Hotels, pensions, banks, routes, dressmakers, —
all were talked over and pronounced upon ; and we
were richer by the benefit of a good many personal
revelations. Warned by the last night's expe-

MAEIENBAD AND NUEEMBEEG. 281
riences, we telegraphed for rooms to Hotel Bavaria,
in Nuremberg, and at mid-day we were again on
our way.
Much of our second day's journey was along
the banks of " Father Ehine, " as the Germans love
to call their noble river. We saw the storied
castles on the heights, the fay-haunted woodland
paths climbing the green hills, the unutterable
tranquillity of the landscape, all verdurous with
summer, and with scarcely a sign of human life
anywhere. Our train, rushing through its peace,
seemed an impertinence for the sylvan gods to
punish with their thunderbolts. When the sun
set came, — when day was robed and crowned for
dying, and her mourner, the dusky twilight,
settled down over the solemn hills, — the beauty
of it all seemed almost too much to bear. Per
chance it was to escape its spell that the Pretty
Widow went to sleep, and I — for we had a
carriage to ourselves — sat and looked out into
the gathering star-lighted darkness, and crooned
to myself old ballads written by men long dead ;
and silent shapes came down from the silent
hills, and they and I went on through the night
together. Again it was midnight when we reached our
hotel at Nuremberg. Hotel Bavaria, like most
of the other hotels in Nuremberg, is quite a jour
ney from the railway station. The train stops
where there seems to be nothing to invite its
delay, and we drive across the long bridge over

282 LAZY TOUES.
the river, and on and on into the heart of the
sleeping town. Arrived at the hotel, we announce
our names and see the good result of a telegram.
" Vera true, ladees ; you have sent ze telegram,
and ze chambers are ready. "
So we follow the uniformed porter, who looks
like a soldier, up the stairs and along the hall.
He throws open two doors, he lights a cluster of
candles in each room, bids us a kind good-night,
invokes good sleep for us, and departs. The morn
ing sun shirks his duty, and does not shine on
Nuremberg. Instead, the rain pours, in a reso
lute, steady-going way, as if it were not in the
least in a hurry, but never meant to stop. Nurem
berg has always a curious charm for me. It is
such a mysterious looking old town. Not a few
of the houses have six, seven, and one or two even
eight stories, in the roofs alone, represented by
eye-shaped windows, which seem to watch you
furtively from under their lids ; for each of these
eye- windows has a little projection over it, shaped
like an eyelid. What goes on in those sky-
chambers ? What men and what women look out
of those eye-shaped windows ? It needs a Zola to
climb up there and find out their secrets.
Before noon we were on our way again, speeding
toward Austria-Hungary. The rain went with us
everywhere, and the black roofs of the houses, as
we neared Hungary, gave a singularly melancholy
expression to the landscape. I kept thinking of
a bit of dialogue from " Bluebeard : " —

MAEIENBAD AND NUEEMBERG. 283
" Sister Anne, sister Anne, what do you see
from the turret ? "
" I see the pump and the trivet, and the houses
all in mourning, and tie rain. "
We, too, saw always " the houses all in mourn
ing, and the rain, " and we saw little else. Only
twice during that day's journey was there any
sign of human occupation, except at the infrequent
railway stations. Once we saw a sort of carriage,
old-fashioned enough to have been the resurrection
of some fifteenth century vehicle, moving slowly
across a field. It seemed to have come from
nowhere, and to be going nowhere, and it only
made the rainy landscape more desolate. And
once we saw a melancholy peasant girl, in a deep
blue cotton gown, and she, too, seemed to have
come from nowhere, and to be going nowhere, and
her unsheltered head was but an item of the gen
eral desolation of the scene, — a bit of the " com
position " of the sorrowful picture.
The passage of the custom-house at Eger is a
mere form, — no box or bag was unlocked. I
think the Hungarians are only too glad to open
their gates to the foreigner, with his British gold.
From Eger to Marienbad is a lovely route when
the sun shines on it; but with the rain falling
still on the black-roofed houses, and the sullen,
brooding clouds hanging low, it was by no means
cheerful. When we arrived at our destination we
found all the omnibuses of all the many hotels
awaiting us. We asked for the Hotel Klinger,

284 LAZY TOUES.
and the porter of that hotel came forward, — a
tall, handsome fellow, with the melancholy Hun
garian eyes. He saw to our luggage, and we were
driven to the hotel and pu^into rooms which Lady
Chatfield had been good enough to leave vacant
that very day, — lovely rooms, looking out on the
park, so that before our windows the fleeting show
of Marienbad makes perpetual march. Beyond
the park rise the beautiful hills, solemn with
their dark groves of fir and pine, and the winds
bring hither their healing balsam.
I should feel sure that I recognized in Marien
bad the Garden of Eden, so long ago closed to the
public, were it not for the absence of the four
rivers which ought to flow through it. Indeed,
the sole lack of the landscape is the absence of
visible water. The Ancient Mariner complained
of " Water, water everywhere.
Nor any drop to drink."
Here the case is reversed. There is no water that
eye can see; but the inexhaustible springs seem
to hold enough for all the armies of the earth to
drink. Perhaps the nymphs of the hiUs and the
forests water the place by night; for one would
think it had rained all night long, in the very face
of the moon, to see the morning freshness of the
whole green, beautiful world. It is a true hill-
country, with scarcely a level stretch anywhere,
and the deep charm of these forest-crowned hiUs
holds one like a spell.

MAEIENBAD AND NUEEMBEEG. 285
Said my German neighbor at table d'hote, "I
come when I am ill, to be cured. And I come
when I am well, as now, that I may not get ill.
So I come year after year. It is good always."
And many others — English as well as German —
come yearly, and gladly, as one goes back from
the too busy world to the quiet of some early
home. It is in the northwestern part of Bohemia, this
pleasant Marienbad, some two thousand feet above
the level of the sea. It is not difficult of access,
being but five hours by rail from Nuremberg and
nine from Frankfort. High as it is above the sea,
it is still in a ravine, sheltered and surrounded by
mountains, on all of which are forests of fir and
pine. Charming walks and drives — of which one
might choose a different one every day for a month
— lead over the hills to rural-looking cafds, where
you can find the best of coffee and bread, the fresh
est of eggs, and the wholesome, sound wine of the
country. The air is said to be rich in ozone, and I sup
pose it is that which imparts to it its peculiarly
stimulating quality, and makes the heart light
within you.
When it is left to itself, in the long, snow-bound
winter, Marienbad has only some two thousand in
habitants. In summer it is full of a countless,
ever-changing throng. Grand people come from
London, — Lady H  , for instance, has been
passing some weeks here. She came with two

286 LAZY TOUES.
London doctors in her train, a courier, a dame de
compagnie, two maids, and two or three men ser
vants. She occupied, with her suite, twelve rooms
of this hotel; but what she was here for only the
London doctors knew, for she kept to her own
rooms, of which the windows were never opened, —
she neither drove nor walked, — and when she
left, at last, scarcely a creature in Marienbad
had seen her face. But it was a face that had
looked on the world for seventy-seven years, and at
seventy-seven one may be allowed, perhaps, to
retire from view, — at least if one is a woman.
Lady Ashburton, whom all the peasants seem to
adore, is here now with her nephew ; and Sir Charles
Eussell, Q. C, and Lord This, and Lady That, and
they go in and out among us, simply clad, and
courteous, and eat their frugal meals in evident
obedience to the rules of the cure. There are
hordes of Germans — you hear their rather harsh
tones everywhere ; there are a few French — and,
thank Heaven, there are but very few of the Polish
Jews, with their rusty gabardines, and their long,
oily black curls. It is at Carlsbad that the Polish
Jews swarm like bees.
I should hardly dare to say how many hotels
and lodging-houses there are here, — a good many
more than a hundred, I believe, — and in June,
July, and the first half of August, they are well
filled. Hotel Klinger alone, where the Pretty
Widow and I found shelter, includes three large
and stately hotels under one management.

MAEIENBAD AND NUEEMBERG. 287
The only drawback to my complete comfort is
the necessity of making known my wants in a
tongue my knowledge of which is somewhat
limited. This trifle does not discourage the Pretty
Widow. Not one word of German does she know ;
but she declares she will make them understand
Enghsh. To this end she speaks very loudly and
clearly. " I want some eggs, not much cooked."
"Me not know," says Bohemian Anna, with a
pathetic glance of her dark eyes.
"I want some eggs, not much cooked," the Pretty
Widow repeats, very emphatically indeed. Anna
looks ready to cry with despair. I come to the
rescue with my two words and a half of German,
and all goes merrily again.
" I can make the good English language carry
me anywhere," I once heard a venerable American
lady say, in Italy ; and my Pretty Widow shares
that opinion. I hear her constantly making
long speeches to uncomprehending German ears,
with that slow emphasis we use for the beneflt
of those stupid people who don't understand our
native tongue. Just now her fair face is troubled.
I came in from a walk, and I laid my umbrella
down on her bed.
" Oh, don't, don't ! " she cried, almost turning
white with terror. " It 's such a bad sign to put
an umbrella on the bed."
It seems that, in my ignorance, I am constantly
defying the Fates, or whoever it is who avenges

288 LAZY TOUES.
our disregard of omens — and what will become
of us as a consequence, I'm sure I do not
know.

And now, alas, I am alone. Whether it was
because we started for this place on a Friday, or
because I put the umbrella on the bed, or in some
other benighted manner affronted Destiny, I
cannot say, but Dr. Ott, the wise man of Marien
bad, decided that this " cure " would not do for
the Pretty Widow, and sent her off to Kissingen.
" Shall I go too ? " I asked. He shook an oracu
lar finger. " No, madam, you will not go. By
just so much as Kissingen is better for her, by just
so much it would be worse for you." So there
was nothing to do but to part company, and here
I am making the cure alone.
I get up at an hour I do not like in the morn
ing. At six o'clock the music begins to play, and
it plays till eight. This was very well,
" In summer when the days were long."
but just now, for the first hour, the music seems
to address itself to empty benches. I don't as
pire to get down before seven. I don't realize
my aspiration usually tUl nearly eight. Then I
drink a large glass of Kreuzbrunnen water, which
a tall man in uniform, who salutes me in French,
sometimes hands me, and sometimes a brown
little peasant girl who smiles and says " Morgen,"
with a quaint little bob of her head.

MAEIENBAD AND NUEEMBEEG. 289
Having drank the first glass, I walk up and
down for fifteen minutes. Then another glass,
then another walk of fifteen minutes, then a
third glass ; and then, if I obey orders, a walk of
nearly an hour over the hills to some far-off cafd,
where I get my morning meal This morning
repast consists of a slender stick of bread, a cup
of coffee, and one soft-boiled egg. I don't always
march over the hills to get it ; but quite as often
walk lazily to and fro, between the rows of
shops in the park, and go to my ¦ own near hotel
for the little feast which seems more delicious
than any fine banquet elsewhere.
Then I may rest, or, as Dr. Ott says, "repose
myself " with a book until eleven o'clock ; and
then comes my mud bath. I stay there for
half an hour, and then a stout peasant woman
appears, and I am rinsed off and put into a bath
of clear water, and brought back to cleanliness
again. And then I must " repose myself " for
another hour.
After the two o'clock dinner, one must again
" repose one's self ; " but by four P. M. every one
is astir. The streets are full of comfortable open
carriages ; but I, who am bidden to walk, seldom
use one. Off over the hills one goes. Walking
between the trunks of these tall trees, one feels
as if in a cathedral, — one realizes how Gothic
architecture came to be. And the religious sug
gestion is enhanced by the rude little wayside
shrines you chance upon so frequently. Aus-
19

290 LAZY TOUES.
tria-Hungary is an intensely Catholic country;
and the people seem to me to profit by their reli
gion. They are good and simple and honest. I
wonder, sometimes, if there are any criminals
among them. I never think of locking up any
thing, and I feel sure that all my belongings are
as safe as if I held them in my hand.
I began to say that at about four p. m. every one
is en route for somewhere. In the regular season
there is almost always an afternoon concert at
some distant cafe to go to, so that your walk may
have at once an object and a reward. At six
o'clock until the end of August, and at half-past
flve, now that it is September, the band begins to
play, and plays for an hour, in the little temple in
the park ; and the world of Marienbad, if not other
wise amused, gathers there, and the cure patients
drink their afternoon glass of Kreuzbrunnen while
they listen to the music.
Dr. Kirsch has written very exhaustively about
the treatment here, and his list of the things for
which one should come to Marienbad seemed to
me to include nearly all the ills to which flesh
is heir. I think that for weakness or fatty de
generation of the heart, for gout and rheumatism
and neuralgia, for weakness of the nerves and a
tendency to hysteria, Marienbad is one of the best
places possible. Law lords come here to repair dam
ages ; barristers, worn out by hard work ; every
body, in short, who wants his nerves strengthened.
Marienbad is said to be the salvation of hypochon-

MAEIENBAD AND NUEEMBEEG. 291
driacs, who go home feeling that they have been
born again. The waters and the mud baths are also
very restorative for any one who has had one attack of
apoplexy, and are said to prevent its return. I should
think these things were enough for any bathing
place to do, so I'll not make the list longer.
Strict obedience to the physician's orders is
very important. Dr. Kirsch says that " moral emo
tions are to be avoided as much as possible."
These are his very words. Precisely what they
mean I don't know, — or whether the good doctor
thinks immoral emotions less dangerous to the
health than moral ones. Mental excitement is
imperatively forbidden. One's reading must be of
the lightest, since one's mental digestion should be
as little taxed as one's physical. The system of
treatment here seems to me sensible and thorough,
— the place, as I have said, is a garden of Eden, —
and it is no wonder that My Lord This and My
Lady That come back here, year after year, to for
get the world for a space, and to live a natural,
simple, healthful life, in which system of living,
no doubt, a great part of the cure consists.

Before I left, " the season " had fairly closed.
Most of the hotels had shut their doors for the
winter. The shopkeepers " aus Prague," " aus
Vienna," " aus Berlin," were packing up what were
left unsold of their wares, and departing. The
music played in a half-hearted way, and was about

292 LAZY TOUES.
to stop altogether. On Saturday, September 17,
there was a general exodus of most of the people
whom I knew. I left on Monday, the nineteenth,
and went to Nuremberg. Somehow, one is always
going to Nuremberg. I arrived there in the after
noon, and discovered that I need not drive into the
far-off old part of the town for a hotel, since, really,
there is a very good one — Hotel Wtirtemberg —
a rod or two from the station. I settled myself
in a room there, and then walked about the old
town till sunset.
To get really acquainted with a place, I perceive
that you must walk. Hitherto I had only driven
around Nuremberg, stopping at the most impor
tant churches and fountains, and regarding the
place from the point of view of the guide-book.
Now I wandered through the by-streets — stopped
at a httle shop for a bit of gingerbread, played
with some children and their cat, lost my way
over and over, and found it again, — wandered on,
in short, at my own sweet wUl, whUe the furtive
eyes blinked down from the lofty roofs on me, the
solitary pilgrim from an alien land. During my
whole long walk I never encountered one person
who looked other than a German, or caught one
syllable of any other tongue than DeiUsch.
How beautiful the quaint old mediaeval city —
the finest mediaeval city in all Germany — looked
in the westering light ! The river Pegnitz flows
through the town, as the Grand Canal does through
Venice ; and, with the sunset glow on it, in some

MAEIENBAD AND NUEEMBEEG. 293
places where the balconied houses rose from the
river's bank, and the trees bent low and looked at
themselves in the clear water, it seemed as beauti
ful as Venice itself. One of the bridges over the
river is copied from the Eialto ; and from that, as
from almost all the bridges that span the Pegnitz,
you have such enchanting perspectives as might
of themselves make Nuremberg seem worth the
trouble of exploring, even without all else that
renders it interesting.
The old town is stUl almost surrounded by the
high wall, with towers and ditches, which fortified it
so strongly long ago ; and the interior has faithfully
preserved the character of an imperial town of the
middle ages, with its balconied houses, its glorious
old Gothic churches, its fountains, and its squares.
In one of these squares I came suddenly upon the
great sitting statue of Hans Sachs, the cobbler
poet. He looked like some gigantic old heathen
god of feasting and laughter, ensconced in the
sUent place. He died in 1576, but his house is
standing still, turned into a Weinzimmer (wine
shop) now, — a not inappropriate use for the abode
of this man, who drained so many deep glasses
and sang so many drinking songs in his far-off
time. Nuremberg treasures loyally the memory of her
great men, and she has had plenty of thefti to treas
ure. Albert Diirer, the sincerest of German paint
ers, was born here, and Adam Krafft, the sculptor,
and Peter Vischer, the bronze founder, and many

294 LAZY TOUES.
another " cunning artisan," as Browning has it.
About the year 1500 the prosperity of Nuremberg
was at its height, and at one time there were more
than fifty masters here of the goldsmiths' craft, —
men who made of their craft an art.
The old town has at present a population of
one hundred thousand, of whom three-fourths are
Protestants, three thousand are Jews, and the
rest Eoman Catholics. The most beautiful of the
Protestant churches is the Gothic church of St.
Lawrence, with its great rose window, its wonder
fully carven " Bride's door," and its high towers.
Its noble Gothic interior, its wealth of sculp
tures, and its glorious old stained glass make
this church worth a long visit. But stately
churches are numerous in Nuremberg, and so
are fountains which are works of art, and
solemn old houses that seem to be nodding to
each other, as their projecting windows almost
meet across some narrow street. And, above all
— literally above, since it overlooks all the
rest — the very ancient castle, first mentioned in
documents bearing the date of A. D. 1050. An
old lime-tree stands in the courtyard, said to
have been planted by the Empress Kunigunde
in 1020. How many generations of men and
women it has seen come and go, and what in
significant, butterfly creatures we must seem to
its eight centuries of observation !
There are interesting pictures of Lucas Cranach's
time, in the audience chamber of the old castle ;

MARIENBAD AND NUREMBERG. 295
and in one room there is a collection of ancient
instruments of torture, the very memory of which
is a nightmare. The pentagonal tower of the
castle is the oldest bit of architecture in vener
able Nuremberg. In this tower a robber knight,
Eppelin von Gailingin, was once imprisoned, and
he escaped by a bold leap on horseback over the
castle moat. Not so successful was the similar
leap of the knight of Altenahr, in that most stir
ring of Kingsley's ballads, for —
" They found him next morning down there in the glen,
With never a bone of him whole —
But heaven may yet have more mercy than men
On such a bold rider's soul."
Nuremberg contains some of the noblest build
ings and some of the finest works of art in all
Germany ; paintings, mellowed by time ; wonder
ful old armor in which knights long dead did
battle; portrait-statues of rare excellence, and —
gingerbread! I mention the gingerbread because
the guide-book declares that " the long-renowned
gingerbread of Nuremberg must not be forgotten,"
and my sweet tooth remembers it gratefully. I
can fancy passing happy months in Nuremberg,
under the spell of its Old World charm ; but some
how one always seems to be running away from
it, as I did next morning.
1887.

TO AND AT CAELSBAD.
AS befits a lazy tourist, I came to Carlsbad
slowly. I left London at 11 A.M. , by way
of Dover and Calais, reached Brussels at 7. 30, and
passed the night at the Grand Hotel. Next
morning, at 10 o'clock, I was en route again for
Cologne, where I arrived at about 4. 30 P. m. , and
there was plenty of time to drive about the town,
to see the cathedral, and buy photographs and
eau-de-cologne before dinner.
I passed the next night at Frankfort, and went
on, the third day, to Nuremberg. The old town,
with its streets full of ghosts and of memories,
had the same charm, subtle and powerful, which I
find in it afresh every time I go there. The same
eyes look furtively at me from the many-storied
roofs ; the old houses nod sagaciously at each other
across the narrow streets. Hans Sachs sits in the
market-place, near his favorite wine-cellar. It all
seems as if it had been there forever, and as if it
would be there, unchanged, when the last trumpet
sounds, and the round world itself rolls together
like a scroll. I did not want to leave it, after a
single night there, to come on to bustling Eger,
and then on again to Carlsbad.

TO AND AT CAELSBAD. 297
Why am I here? Because the doctors com
manded it. I suppose I should have been too
happy at Marienbad, among the pine-crowned hills
and with the same delightful companionship
which made last year's August and September a
joy to remember. Carlsbad always seems to me
to have been built by a whirlwind. You see here
and there houses standing comerwise to the street.
Nothing is harmonious or orderly in arrangement.
The streets are impertinent, turning up where they
have no business to turn, as if to look into some
body's window.
Yet — when I forget Marienbad and its associa
tions — I can find here much to enjoy. It is a
lazy place. I think one might live here a score
of summers, and scarcely know that one of them
had passed. One day is so precisely like another
that you forget to name them by their names, and
when Sunday comes it takes the Carlsbad people
till one o'clock in the afternoon even to find it
out, for none of the shops close until after that
hour, and some of them not at all. I have never
seen any one shopping on Sunday, but the shop
keepers look placidly out of their open doors, and
the rings and bracelets glitter in the jewellers'
windows, and the pretty wax girl behind the
milliner's plate glass turns her brainless head
over her shoulder, and smiles from under her new
hat of the latest French mode.
Carlsbad seems to have been built and arranged
for the stranger, and the Carlsbadians exist in the

298 LAZY TOUES.
stranger's service, and on his gulden. Nature was
very good to the place. The Tepl, bright river of
healing, dances through it, and lovely, tree-clothed
heights surround it, and over these heights foot
paths lead through a soft mystery of greenness to
mounts of vision, whence you catch glimpses of
far-stretching beauty.
The Alte Wiese, or Old Meadow, on the west
side of the Tepl, is the haunt of the shop-keepers
from Paris and Vienna, who come here for the
summer, and spread out their glittering tempta
tions. Shopping, or at least looking into the shop
windows, is as legitimate a part of life in Carlsbad
as is drinking the waters.
I live on the west side of the Tepl, — on the
Schlossberg, — the pleasantest part of Carlsbad.
My hotel is the Victoria, and in connection with
it is the King of England.
Madame Teller dispenses the hospitalities of the
Victoria, while Monsieur, her husband, adminis
ters the affairs of the King of England.
" If you like these rooms not, " said Madame,
in her quaint English, when we were seeking for
an apartment, " you shall live well in the King of
England. Yes ? "
The Schlossberg overlooks the Miihlbrunnen
Colonnade, and in the colonnade an excellent band
plays from six to eight in the morning, to cheer
the water-drinkers in their imbibing.
The first morning I did not know from whence
the music came, and rubbed my sleepy eyes with

TO AND AT CAELSBAD. 299
a vague notion that I was being serenaded. I
concluded, however, that it must be my pretty
neighbor in the next room, whose name is Maud,
who was being invited to " Come into the Garden, "
and I turned over and went to sleep again. I
behave better now.
When the concord of sweet sounds begins, I
begin, too, and make my morning toilet in time to
the music. Then out I go. I pass several springs
on my way to the one whose waters are for my
own healing, — the Felsenquelle. I struggle for
a pathway through the motley throng surrounding
each different spring, and finally reach my own
place. There, inside the railing, are four flaxen-
haired little Bohemian girls to dip up the water,
and there, to watch over them, is also a bland
policeman, who always touches his hat and says
" Good-mommg, " with an Austrian accent, and a
gentle pride in his knowledge of English.
Then I reach out my cup. First little girl takes
it, and hands it to second little girl. Second
little girl receives it, and puts it under the faucet
whence the hot spring water is flowing ; and then
these two turn back to repeat this performance for
a long line of other drinkers. My eyes follow
my own cup. Third little girl lifts it up, full,
and gives it to fourth little girl, who stands a
step above her. Fourth little girl hands it to me,
and with a parting bow from the bland police
man I move away, and drink slowly, as the doctor
enjoins, my not at all disagreeable warm water.

300 LAZY TOUES.
There are fifteen minutes to dispose of before
the next draught. They are passed in the lovely
Kaiser Park, just at hand, watching the foun
tains toss their rainbow -tinted spray into the sun
light. Or I lean over the great odorous roses,
lifting their scented beauty to the morning air,
— and such roses, it seems to me, only Carlsbad
knows. Fifteen minutes pass very quickly, and
then back to the four flaxen-haired Bohemian
girls, and the picturesque policeman, and the
second cup of warm water.
This time I go across the Tepl, to the quaint,
out-of-doors fruit and vegetable market, and see
the droll little old women, in gay -colored peas
ants' clothes, sitting on the ground, and selling
the most tantalizingly delicious- fruit that ever
was forbidden since the apples in Eden. For you
must know that all uncooked fruits are inter
dicted to any one who is drinking Carlsbad water.
Wild legends are fearfully whispered of rash
people who have disobeyed, and who have swelled
up and died an evil death, as if they had been
poisoned. I don't think I quite believe these
legends, but I respect them sufficiently to be
proof against the beguilements of the market-
women. Such pears, such peaches, such raspberries, such
blackberries — I flee from temptation, and hie me
to the spring for my third and final glass. After
that, I must walk yet an hour before breakfast is
permitted.

TO AND AT CAELSBAD. 301
" Madame has mxoch letters this morning, " says
the red-cheeked Austrian boy, who is cashier in
the queer little bank where I receive my mail ;
and madame walks away, contentedly reading.
Next, a look in at the shop-windows, or a stroll
off by a winding path under the trees, and a
breakfast in some caf^ on a hill-top, an hour away
from home. Or I go to the Stadt-House, and
order a donkey for an afternoon drive: or into
the meat-market, and see the deft-handed women-
butchers cut up their meat and arrange it on
marble slabs.
Whatever I do, you may be sure that I know
when my hour is up, and seat myself gladly foj
my out-of-doors breakfast. I have bought my
bread on the way. All Carlsbadians buy theii
own bread, and carry it home in pink paper bags.
You can count a thousand pink paper bags during
your morning walk any time in the season.
My own pink bag contains "zwieback; " that is
to say, rolls cut in two, and toasted until all
moisture has been dried out of them. I order one
egg, and a little pot of coffee. The egg is fresh
and the coffee good, and I eat, oh, how slowly,
that this slight repast may seem as much a ban
quet as length of time can make it.
Then I go home, answer my letters, read my
book, rest a little, and, before I know it, it is
time for a mud bath. I had made the acquaint
ance of mud baths in Marienbad. They sound
uninviting, but really they are not so bad. The

302 LAZY TOUES.
mud is clean mud, — perhaps it should be called
peat rather than mud. It is first dried, then
pulverized, then mixed with mineral water until
it is of the consistency of a thick paste.
You feel a sort of horror, a kind of buried-alive
sensation, as you sink into it for the first time;
but you make your plunge, and soon you experi
ence a curious sense of exhilaration. The bath
stimulates the action of your heart, quickens your
pulses, and brings a glow of the keenest life to
your very finger-tips.
You remain in this dirty bliss not more than
fifteen minutes, and then step from it into a fresh
water bath, which is standing beside it, and soon
you are as clean as ever, and much more alive. It
is as if the earth of which we were fashioned had
warmed us to fuller life in her dark bosom.
You go somewhere to dinner. Every one dines
in the middle of the day, and scarcely any one dines
at home. If you are energetic you may walk for an
hour, out to the Freundschaft Salle (Friendship's
Hall), or some other distant caf^, and dine under
its trees among a crowd of friendly sparrows ; but
more likely you stop on the way at Pupp's Caf^
Salon, as he calls it, and you get there a good
though simple dinner, — delicious trout or carp,
caught from the clear mountain streams, followed
with mutton, beef, veal, or chicken, and any one
kind of green vegetable, such as peas, beans, or
spinach. Between three and four o'clock you see crowds

TO AND AT CAELSBAD. 303
of people starting for one of the out-of-doors con
certs. These are from four to six o'clock, and
the plaintive music seems the very voice of the
sweet, dreamy summer landscape. Under the
trees we sit and listen to it at our ease. Some
of the ladies knit or sew ; quick -footed Bohemian
girls go to and fro, carrying little pots of afternoon
tea and coffee, and the thin cakes called Oblaten.
In the pauses of the music you sip your coffee and
chat with your companions, but while the music
plays no other sound breaks the stillness.
Six o'clock always comes too soon. With six
o'clock the viol strings are mute, and the harpers
cease their harping, and we go, in the gentle
gloaming, back along the tree-bordered way, to
eat a lingering but most abstemious supper, and
then for home and bed.
Thus passes one Carlsbad day after another,
except that sometimes you vary the programme
by a donkey ride up the heights crowned with
pines or beeches, or a drive to some of the beauti
ful environs of the town, where you will see views
well worth a pilgrimage.
Your road will wind between fair fields among
the hills, through which, perhaps, the goose-girl
of the German story-books leads her flock of hun
dreds of white geese on to Strasburg ; or, on the
sunny harvest slopes, women in red petticoats
bind the golden grain in sheaves. Bright little
streams will dance by you down from the moun
tains, and broaden in the valleys below, and

304 LAZY TOUES.
mirror sky, and trees, and the wind-swept grass,
and your own face, if you stoop to look, happy
with the placid happiness of Carlsbad

" Just where is Carlsbad ? " asks some would-be
pilgrim. Carlsbad is in Bohemia, and Bohemia
is part of the great Empire of Austria-Hungary.
The town is in the narrow valley of the Tepl,
near the Eger, and is surrounded by high hills
covered with forests of pine and beech.
It is fourteen hundred and eighty feet above the
level of the sea, and its very air is itself a tonic,
so pure is it, and so invigorating.
It has nine separate springs, differing very much
from each other in temperature, and somewhat,
also, in the proportions of the different minerals
with which they are impregnated. These differ
ences are so important that it is considered neces
sary to see, as often as every third day, a physician,
who observes the effect of the waters upon the
patient, and prescribes at what spring and in what
quantity he shall drink. As the cure progresses,
he usually changes the spring.
Of these springs the Sprudel is the most remark
able. Its waters seem actually to boil. Over it
has been built a spacious stone colonnade, a long
hall, wher^ hundreds of people march to and fro
between six and eight in the morning, while the
band is playing. As you approach the Sprudel,
you can see its steam rising in clouds, and the

TO AND AT CAELSBAD. 305
noise of its boiling comes distinctly to your ears.
Drawing nearer, its hot breath warms you.
Bare-headed Bohemian girls surround it, each
with a long pole, at the end of which is a sort of
tin mug, in which you place your own cup, which
is thus let down into the seething waters and
filled. You take it gingerly by the handle, when
it comes up again, and drink the hot water through
a glass tube.
The Sprudel petrifies whatever vegetable growth
it touches. I have seen ears of corn which were
turned to stone by it, and one of the industries of
Carlsbad is to make carvings and mosaics from
these petrifactions.
Next to the Sprudel in interest is the Miihl
brunnen, also a hot spring, and also under a long
stone colonnade, where a band plays from six to
eight every morning during the Carlsbad " season "
— that is to say, from the first of May to the first
of October.
Carlsbad has its guests, however, out of season,
and even in the winter, for the waters are said to
be equally beneficent in their effects at all times
of the year, though I can hardly conceive of the
place except under a summer sun and glowing
with roses. The diseases for which the Carlsbad
waters are most frequently prescribed are , gout,
rheumatism, and troubles of the livar and the
kidneys. Of the nine springs, the most frequented are
the Market-brunnen, the Miihlbrunnen, and the
20

306 LAZY TOUES.
Schlossbrunnen ; and it is impossible to approach
any of these in the early morning except by form
ing a so-called " queue, " — a sort of procession
in which people march, two by two, slowly and
solemnly, each pair pausing to get the glass cups
— which they usually wear hung round their
necks on leather straps — filled by the busy little
nymphs of the spring, the lint-haired girls of
Bohemia. During the " season " Carlsbad gives itself up
to " the stranger within its gates. " The city has
twelve thousand inhabitants of its own, and nine
hundred houses. But, as long ago as the season
of 1885, there were twenty-eight thousand visit
ors, and the number is said to increase with every
year. It is thronged by all sorts and conditions of
men, especially by Polish Jews, who seem espe
cially to thrive here. Each man of them has a
sleek, oily ringlet, evidently the result of curl
papers, hanging down on either cheek. Each man
of them, too, wears a long, robe-like black coat, or
gabardine, which comes quite down to his heels.
Some of these garments are of the richest satin and
lined with costly fur, and others of humble black
camlet ; but all are precisely alike in shape.
Here are a larger number of enormously fat
women than ever, surely, were collected together
anywhere else, — even at Brides-les-Bains. You
see, also, hundreds of pretty, bright-eyed, rosy
girls, who look as if no ache or pain could ever

TO AND AT CAELSBAD. 307
have found them out, and they drink the waters,
and laugh their happy, girlish laughs between
their sips.
Here, too, are prosperous, comfortable-looking
husbands and wives, who go about arm-in-arm,
each with a drinking -cup, and chatting cheer
fully. Handsome young men come here for their
vacations, and tone up their tired livers with
Schlossbrunnen or Kaiser-Karl.
But also, among these holiday-makers, you see
a sadly large percentage of invalids, such as no
kind soul could look upon without a pang.
Wilkie CoUins's blue man is here; and there are
several quite green, and one of a vivid, livid
orange, who somehow seems to me the most piti
ful sight of them all. Here are half-crippled
sufferers, with pallid, ghastly faces, limping to
the springs on crutches, and looking as if their
next step would be into their graves.
The " cure " lasts from two to six weeks, accord
ing to the special needs of each special patient.
Three weeks was the term prescribed for me.
One of my friends was sent away at the end of
two weeks, and others were detained for six.
Life here is simple and quiet to the last de
gree. The wildest dissipations are only prolonged
till ten o'clock, and, as a rule, Carlsbad is in
bed and asleep as early as nine. This regularity
and simplicity of living are, no doubt, of great
assistance to the waters, but it is certain that
the springs themselves are important curative

308 LAZY TOUES.
agents, and also that, taken at random, they may
be very powerful for harm.
The peasantry round about show their faith in
the cure by hurrying to Carlsbad whenever they
are ill, and Austrian priests and nuns are numer
ously represented among the guests.
It is a good lesson in contentment for a woman
to come to Carlsbad. She sees how much worse
her lot might have been had she been bom here.
I have often wondered what part of the hard work
the men do. "
To be sure, many of them wear uniforms, and I
suppose that fact releases them from other labor;
and then men drive the horses, and beat the
donkeys, and play in the bands, and blunder in
the post-office, and change money in the banks,
but they seem to do nothing that requires much
strength or exertion.
I have seen only women working in the fields
near Carlsbad; and besides being butchers and
fruiterers and vegetable-mongers and shop-keepers,
they are literally hewers of wood and drawers of
water, and they carry, in great baskets on their
poor bent backs, burdens which a well-cared-for
Yankee horse would resent. Yet, in spite of this,
they are a blithe-looking, happy set, and they
laugh and chat with each other as if life were
good and toil a pleasure. Everything in this
Happy Valley is bright and sweet and peace
ful enough to put the veriest grumbler to shame.
It is not so lovely here as at Marienbad; but

TO AND AT CAELSBAD. 309
then, what other place is so lovely as Marienbad ?
Comparisons aside, this other " Bad " is good
enough for anybody. It is almost the only one
of the important European watering places which
the much prowling Eoman does not appear to have
found out. Tradition attributes the discovery of
the healing springs to Emperor Charles IV. At
any rate, he gave the place its name and its
charter. After his time a long succession of royalties
came here, and among them was George III. of
England, then crown prince. He gave a grand
entertainment to the inhabitants of Carlsbad, at
which he himself put on livery and waited on his
guests. Augustus, King of Poland, came here
also, and he, too, gave an entertainment, — a
grand ball, — ¦ at which he showed the charming
playfulness of his disposition by having Sprudel
water conducted in pipes to the ball-room, and
when the dancing was at its height, ordering it
turned on his guests, giving them a thorough
drenching. Peter the Great of Eussia came here
in 1711 and 1712, to be cured of rheumatism.
His doctor told him to take three glasses of the
water before breakfast. He got the idea that it
was to be three large pitchers full. He had taken
one, and was struggling with the second, when
the opportune appearance on the saene of his
physician stopped the performance.
But the royal person whose visits to Carlsbad
most interested me was that king of poets, — ¦

310 LAZY TOUES.
Goethe. He came here first in 1785, when he was
thirty-four years old, and he subsequently passed
here many of his happiest and most productive
seasons. He made fourteen visits here in all,
and the different houses in which he resided are
marked with marble tablets. It is believed that
Carlsbad did much to prolong his life and his
vigor of both mind and body. His very last visit
here was in 1823, and, though he was seventy-
four then, his heart was as good as new, for he
fell desperately in love with a charming young
lady, — Fraulein von Levetzov. He proposed
marriage to her. She declined the proposal ; but,
having been honored by the love of Goethe, she
never married any one else, and when his bust
was unveiled here, in 1883, she, — think what an
old heart to remember so freshly, — she, whom
Goethe had asked sixty-two years before to be his
wife, sent a wreath of roses to be laid on the
pedestal !
In 1791 the other great German poet, Schiller,
came to Carlsbad with his wife, whom he had
married the year before ; and he speaks in his
letters of his sojourn in this Happy Valley as the
pleasantest period of his life. The cure-books
at Carlsbad bear the names of Bach, Beethoven,
Catalani, Sontag, Paganini, Schopenhauer, Chateau
briand, Auerbach, Turgenieff, and many another
distinguished author or artist.
The absolute literalness of the German hand
maiden is as amusing as it is vexatious. I am

TO AND AT CAELSBAD. 311
about to leave, therefore cure rules are somewhat
relaxed for me; and as I had a slight headache
last night I thought I would take a little longer
rest in the morning. " Teresa, " I said, " I
don't want to get up at 6.30 to-morrow. Don't
call me. Order a warm bath for me at eight
o'clock, and call me then. " " Yes, ma'am, at
eight o'clock. " She departs, and as she goes out
of the door, I call again, " Not until eight, Teresa. "
She vanishes with a final " Yes, ma'am. " I read
late — I am to have a good long sleep in the
morning. Has morning come when my door
opens ? It is so dark I can hardly see Teresa.
" Is it eight o'clock, Teresa ? " " Oh, no, ma'am ;
it is half-past six. " " But I told you not to call me
until eight o'clock. " " But I don't call, madame "
— and such a hurt look comes into her eyes — " 1
only bring the hot water that madame has said
was always to come at half -past six. " What could
I answer ? I had not remembered, when I told her
not to call me, to add, " Teresa, I don't want my
hot water until eight o'clock. " Faithful, yes —
much more faithful than the sun, who only shines
here when he pleases ; but of a placid stupidity it
would be hard to match. They are honest as the
day, these Madchen. They will even carefully
pick up and restore to you the rubbish you have
thrown away. But a French maid, who might
put her hand in your pocket, would do it grace
fully, and make you a hundred times more com
fortable.

312 LAZY TOUES.
I don't think the Germans quite understand
what comfort means, while the French under
stand it a great deal too well. To walk, espe
cially to walk up hill, is a large part of every
German cure. You must hurry out of bed in pur
suit of the lark, and you must earn your breakfast
by an hour and a half of preparatory walking. In
Aix-les-Bains, you remember, they carry you in a
sedan chair to your morning bath, and then carry
you back again to your bed for a half-hour's
delicious rest, and then the maid brings your
dainty little breakfast, and you eat it, and dream
again, or read and write your letters, and get up
when you get ready. No such lazy fashions pre
vail in Germany or in Hungary. If you get any
good here, at least you will have worked for it.
I am rather inclined to think the German fashion
is best; and yet there are people who go, year
after year, to Aix and other French cures as faith
fully as Lord Odo Eussell came to Carlsbad for
forty years ; as faithfully as the present Prince de
Eohan arrives here every year on May 4, at four
o'clock in the afternoon.
1888.

FEOM CAELSBAD TO PAEIS.
I LEFT Carlsbad in the 11.20 A. M. train, and
reached Frankfort about ten o'clock that even
ing. I was very tired with this eleven hours of raU
way, and glad enough that I had telegraphed to the
Englischer Hof for a room and for some one to
meet me at the station. By a happy intuition their
hotel clerk stood before the door of my railway
carriage as the train stopped, and before I knew
it my luggage and myself were on a cab, whirling
through the gas-lighted town. It seems to me
that travellers write singularly little about Frank
fort; perhaps because they usually treat it, as I
had hitherto done, as a mere railway junction, a
place to stop in for the night and go away from in
the morning. This time I resolved to stay over a
day, and make the town's acquaintance, and I was
richly rewarded.
It was one of those brilliant days, warm as
summer, and yet with a certain autumnal fresh
ness in the air. There was an atmosphere of
brightness and beauty which would have lent
charms to a less charming place. Tired with my
journey of the day before, I rose rather late, and
spent the time until the one o'clock dinner in

314 LAZY TOUES.
some of the well furnished shops near the hotel,
shops as tempting as those of Paris.
Dinner over, I took a cab and proceeded on
a solitary sight-seeing expedition. I saw Lessing's
monument, and Schiller's, and Goethe's, and Goethe
had a wreath in his hand with which one felt quite
sure he would have had no hesitation in crowning
himself. I saw also the cathedral, with its beau
tiful stained glass ; and the oldest house in the
town, enriched with such wonderful wood-carving
as would set a modern wood-carver crazy with
jealousy. And then I went into the town-haU
where are the portraits of centuries full of German
emperors ; and among them was Albrecht II. of
the early fifteenth century, who looks so much hke
Wilson Barrett that I am inclined to beheve that
the emperor of centuries ago is reincarnated in the
actor of to-day. Many of these old emperors, from
the great Charlemagne down, were handsome men.
What a set of fighters they were ! and yet, one
after another. Death, the stoutest warrior of aU,
laid them low, each one.
I drove back and forth across the Main, and
looked up and down the beautiful river, and then
into the old street of the Jews, and saw the
humble house where was born the founder of the
great Eothschild family, Charles Meyer de Eoth-
schild, who died in 1855, and whose splendid monu
ment is in the new Jewish Cemetery. My driver
pointed to the old house where the Eothschilds
began, and made a significant gesture, pointing to

FROM CARLSBAD TO PAEIS. 315
the ground. " So little then," he said, " and now
big as the world, and high as the sky."
He had his own opinions, this driver. Nearly
opposite the cathedral he pointed out to me
Luther's house, with the picture of the fat, jolly,
well-fed-looking reformer over the door. " Cath
olic there," he said, pointing to the cathedral —
"not Catholic here," pointing to Luther. "And
which do you love ? " I asked. " I love not Cath
olic," he answered, with energy. " You will see
the house of Goethe ? " he suggested ; and of
course it was the place I wanted to see above alL
It is quite worth while to stay over a day at
Frankfort, were it only to see that house. There
was Goethe born, and there he passed twenty-seven
years of his life. He was of gentle blood, and the
coat of arms of his father is over the door. In his
mother's chamber, under a glass case, were two
little silken jackets and a pair of tiny shoes that
she had worn when she was a chUd of two, —
how long they had outlasted their wearer ! How
strange it seemed to linger in the room where
the mighty master first saw the hght !
It was yet more interesting to go into his study.
I sat down at his great capacious desk and wrote
my name in the visitors' book, dipping my pen in
his own inkstand. All round were traces of him.
Here was the manuscript of a noval, there of a
poem, and there were pictures of him at almost
every age. The last was a full-length oil portrait,
painted when he was eighty, and this portrait won

316 LAZY TOUES.
my heart for Goethe as nothing had ever done be
fore. It was such a noble, benignant face, with
such power, and yet such goodness, in the eyes.
I felt sure from it that he grew spiritually nobler
as he grew older, and I saw, too, how becoming
old age can be to a man. Alas, I don't think it
ever is to a. woman. Looking at this picture, I
wondered that when he proposed marriage to
Fraulein von Levetzov at Carlsbad, she did not
make haste to accept him. He was only seventy-
four then.
The beautiful picture of his beloved Lili was on
the wall ; and there hung the presentments of
various others of those fair human flowers he
wore briefly in his heart, as a man wears a rose
in his button-hole. There was an engraving of
Werther's Charlotte, too, and her marriage contract
— not a copy of it, but the veritable contract itself
— framed under glass. There were treasures in
numerable, of all sorts ; and the roly-poly old Ger
man Frau, who showed them to me, seeing that I
really cared for them, gave me a leaf from the
wreath with which some loving hand had crowned
the poet's bust, in the chamber where he was
born. I went from the Goethe house to the Statuary
Museum, to see Dannecker's " Ariadne." What a
graceful statue it is ! The lithe loveliness of the
limbs, the beauty of every curve and hne, would
hold one captive but for the head. The head is
pretty enough, with its curls and wreath ; but it

FROM CAELSBAD TO PARIS. 317
is the prettiness of a successful circus rider. You
are sure that the tiger has been tamed to figure in
a show, and that the hthe rider is waiting for the
plaudits of the amphitheatre to break forth.
Having driven till I was tired, I walked about
for a little while, and then I thought I would try a
Frankfort street-car, which was going by me, on
its way to the Palm Garden. Street-cars in Frank
fort are not like street-cars elsewhere. You pay
everywhere from two cents to five, according
to the length of your ride, and the conductor
hands you a ticket on which he has marked the
amount of your fare, and as he hands it to you he
says " Please," or at least the German equivalent
for please, and when you hand him the money he
says " Thank you ; " and when a lady got out he
civilly helped her, and then touched his hat by way
of adieu. I wish this conductor, or his like, lived in
America ; but it would be his fate to be misunder
stood. Perhaps they would shut him up in an in
sane asylum.
One day was far too brief a time in which to see
Frankfort. There is a picture gallery, and a thea
tre, and an opera house which cost over a million
and a half of dollars. The performance there be
gins at 6.30 P. M., and it is quite the fashion to come
over from Homburg to the opera, and go home
again to supper. From an historical point of view,
Frankfort is interesting. Charlemagne had a
palace here, and held a council within its walls
in 794, more than a thousand years ago. Later on

318 LAZY TOUES.
it became a free city and the seat of the German
Diet, and remained so till 1866. In 1871 Prince
von Bismarck and Jules Favre signed, in the Hotel
Swan, the treaty of peace between Germany and
France. So you perceive its historical associations,
which began with the time of Charlemagne, did
not end there.
The town has a delightful climate, and ah, how
well I like the simple, kindly, courteous people who
live there ! I came away from it with real regret ;
and I want to go back again, and see whether the
sun always shines on it, — whether it is always as
bright and glad and homehke and pleasant as I
found it.
What a different impression Strasburg makes on
one ! — the sad, solemn strong city, as it seemed to
me, when I drove about it. It did not look as if
any one could really amuse himself there ; though
it has a large theatre, and a magnfficent new opera
house. But there was no air of gayety anywhere.
Nobody lounged, nobody was in a hurry. There
were no shadows, no tender hghts. A sort of piti
less glare pervaded it. Its cathedral spire is the
highest in the world. The next highest thing of
man's erection is one of the pyramids of Egypt ;
but the pyramid stopped some fifteen feet short of
what the spire afterward attained. I wish I were
a good climber. I should like to go to the top of
that spire some night, and see if I could establish
a bowing acquaintance with the man in the moon.
After the cathedral, the most imposing thing in

FEOM CAELSBAD TO PAEIS. 319
Strasburg seems to me to be the Germania res
taurant. It is a superb palace, where you can buy
a tall, foaming glass of beer for six cents. But
it is the cathedral which makes Strasburg worth
visiting. What pains they used to take, those
men of long ago ! The edifice was begun in 1277,
and only finished in 1601. Over three centuries
went to its making. Generation after generation
of men worked on it, and died, and were buried,
and nobody so much as remembers one of their
names ; but the great fane they buUded survives
them all, and looks as if it might endure forever.
Its stained glass is wonderfully rich and beautiful ;
but its spire and its clock are the two things in
which it surpasses all other churches. I have been
to the cathedral several times, but I have never
chanced to be there just at high noon, when the
grand show of the clock takes place, — when the
cock crows, and all the images are set in motion.
The second most interesting church in Strasburg
is that of St. Thomas, which contains the monu
ment to Marshal Saxe, erected by Louis XV., and
which contains also the ghastliest thing I have ever
seen, — two bodies in glass cases, said to be those
of the Count of Nassau and his daughter, of which
the flesh and the clothes have been preserved in
their present state for over four hundred years.
On my way to Strasburg from Frankfort the
only occupant of the carriage " For Ladies Only "
was a young Englishwoman, so pretty and so
charming that she reminded me of Henry James's

320 LAZY TOUES.
remark in his pleasant volume entitled " Portraits
of Places," that the capacity of an Englishwoman
for being handsome strikes him as absolutely un
limited. My travelling companion was one of the
most shining illustrations of Mr. James's theory, —
and as piquant and original as she was beautiful.
She had been in Homburg for the season, and she
was discussing certain German characteristics. She
said, quite seriously : " I have been thinking, while
I was at Homburg, how thankful I ought to be
that I was not born a German. I might have been,
you know." " Would you have liked better to be
born French ? " I asked. " Oh, no !" with the pret
tiest little shudder. " Oh, I should be sorry not to
be English." I thought of the man in " Pinafore,"
who, " In spite of all temptations,
To belong to other nations,"
had " remained an Englishman ; " and, really, I
don't blame our English cousins for being aware
that there can be nothing on earth pleasanter or
more desirable than to be born into the higher
circles of English life ; but when one descends from
these higher circles I should prefer to have been
born elsewhere.
From Strasburg to Paris you wUl, if you love com
fort, take the " Oriental Express." You pay $2.40
in addition to your first-class fare ; and, in return
for this extra charge, you make the journey some
three hours more speedily, and you find yourself

FEOM CAELSBAD TO PAEIS. 321
in the same train with a well-managed restaurant,
where you can get an excellent mid-day meal
which you will call luncheon if you are Enghsh,
dinner if you are German, or breakfast if you are
French. The afternoon was wearing late when I reached
Paris, — this Paris radiant withSeptember sunshine.
The sun was low, and the soft rose of the western
sky, the delicate hght that rested on everything,
made on me a swift impression of indescribable
beauty. It seemed incongruous that the place
should be so noisy; and I think I had never
quite realized how horribly noisy Paris is until
now, when I came to it straight from sedate Stras
burg. The clamor seemed to me fairly deafening.
The sense of all-pervading noise comes largely
from the habit the Paris cab- drivers have of per
petually cracking their whips. I should think the
poor horses would go mad ; only, as a rule, they
are so ill-fed that they have no more energy
than suffices to hold themselves together and plod
along. But, noise and all, a fresh sense of the
abiding charm of Paris came to me as I drove to
my hotel through the air brUhant with sunset.

21

AT WIESBADEN, AND AFTER.

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN.
THE sky when I left London was dark with
clouds. They broke into rain before I reached
Dover, and the four hours by sea from Dover to
Ostend were not a joy. The rain poured stUl
as the train bore me through level Belgium on
to Brussels. Even the windmills had a dejected
air, and turned slowly and heavily, as if they
were saying to themselves, " What is the use
of whirling round and round and playing at life
in such outrageous weather ? " When I reached
Brussels the streets were like shallow brooks, in
which the people seemed afloat. I waded to the
hotel omnibus, and presently I was under cover
for the night. I had bought my ticket of Cook, and
the Cook man had advised me to go to the Grand
Hotel, for its convenience to the station. I am
afraid he gives this advice to a great many people,
for the hotel was crowded, and I could only get
a room on the topmost floor. And in the morn
ing the lift did not work. I suppose it had had to
carry up so many people the night before that
it struck, as the hands do on American railways.
But to fall in the world is easy, and the descent
from my perch was easier than the chmb to it

326 LAZY TOUES.
would have been. I got down stairs in good
season, took my morning coffee, and was off on the
ten o'clock train for Cologne.
It rained its best, or its worst, all day, and I was
glad to find myself at five P. M. in the friendly
shelter of Hotel du Nord. In the morning I was
en route again. Cook's man had told me to leave
Cologne at nine o'clock A. M., but I found the best
train left at 8.45, and I was barely in time for it.
Just as it began trembling, as a train does, with the
thrill of departure, a young man and a girl sprang
on board, the guard banged the door after them, and
we were off. I looked at my young neighbors with
that vague curiosity you feel about the people
with whom you are shut up in the small space of
a railway carriage. I should think they had just
come from their wedding. Everything was spick
and span about them. The cotton in their ears —
why do so many Germans wear cotton in their
ears ? — was as white as snow. Their clothes were
absolutely and aggressively new ; so was their hand
luggage. They were evidently planning a very long
wedding journey, for their two books of raUway
coupons, which the bridegroom offered to the
guard's inspection, were thick volumes. Diamonds
as big as hazel nuts, and of exquisite quality, hung
from the fair bride's cotton-stuffed ears. She had
a pretty gown and a dainty httle hand, and if her
teeth were too emphatic for beauty, that was at
least not her fault. The dapper little husband, in
in his speckless new gray suit, did not look like the

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 327
hero of a novel, but he was as much in love as
the exigencies of the most sentimental novel could
require. I remembered the young French lovers,
— the bridal pair who travelled with me one day
last May, when I went from Milan to Basle. I do
not think the French sweethearts were one whit
less in love, but they at once accepted me as a
part of their programme. Their joy overflowed
on me and warmed my day. I did not feel myself
an intruder, but rather as if I were the apprecia
tive spectator to whom the love-birds were not
unwUhng to coo ; and we parted almost with emo
tion, as if we had been old friends. My German
bridal pair, I could see clearly, regarded me as a
nuisance. I had settled myself in the railway
carriage before they came near it ; yet I believe
they regarded me as an unjustifiable interloper.
I think they were glad, and I am sure I was,
when they left the train at the first stopping-place,
and betook themselves and their luggage and their
innumerable railway tickets to another line.
I steamed on, quite alone, toward Wiesbaden,
and how beautiful is this railway journey along
the left bank of old " Father Ehine ! " I longed for
the guide-book I had been so careless as to leave
behind me, for I wanted to know the name of
every castle, and what legend haunted it. Lack
ing the book, however, I invented the legends for
myself. Is the Ehine the very loveliest river in
the world ? I almost think so, when you add to
its beguUing curves, its tranquil depths, its over-

328 LAZY TOUES.
hanging castles, the dignity of history and the
charm of romance, — for all these belong to it, and
are part of it. I reached Wiesbaden at thirty-
five minutes past twelve, and the Eose Hotel at
one p. M.
Wiesbaden is by far the largest watering place
in Germany, and one of the largest anywhere. It
is a town of stately dwelhngs, and the " cure "
itself goes on all winter, though the most fashion
able months here (for it is a very fashionable place
in the season) are September and October.
May and June are also good months, and even
the winter is pleasant. In July and August, on
the other hand, it is too warm for comfort, for
Wiesbaden is in a valley of the Taunus Mountains.
It is the famous hot springs which attract the
invahd world, and the place has been made fash
ionable by the visits of many royal patients.
The beloved old Emperor WUham used to
make a sojourn here every spring, and he gave to
the town theatre the name of the Eoyal Opera
House. The Empress Augusta, the late Emperor Fred
erick, Prince Charles of Prussia, the kings of
Greece and of Denmark, and many other " royal
ties " besides are familiar to these quiet streets.
Prince and Princess Christian are here just now,
and there are plenty of Austrian, Eussian, and
Polish princes and magnates from I don't know
how many other countries besides.
I know few cities fuller of beautiful private

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 329
residences than is Wiesbaden. Hundreds of lovely
villas crown the heights and border the streets;
and as for hotels, you can count them by the
score. There are forty-five mentioned in the
" Guide." I looked at several of them before set
tling myself at the Eose, which is a home-hke
place, and but a few steps from the principal spring,
the Kochbrunnen ; so that, after you have rubbed
open your sleepy eyes and jumped into your morn
ing toilet, you have scarcely to do more than go
down stairs before you find yourself under the
roof of the Drinkhall, at one end of which the
Kochbrunnen is steaming like a gigantic caldron
of boiling broth.
The water is somewhat salt. You hate it sav
agely for the first day or two, but after you get
used to it you do not mind taking the three or
four cups you will be expected to quaff, as though
they were nectar, within an hour. If you get up
early enough, the band — a very good band — wUl
cheer you while you drink, and you can march to
its music between your cups.
But the band plays from seven to eight o'clock,
and it is not so easy to be down at seven o'clock
in the autumn as it was in summer, when the days
were long.
In the Drinkhall and the surrounding garden you
see everybody you know, and everybody you don't
know, and there are flower stalls, where all the
gay young men buy roses for all the pretty girls,
and sometimes even for those who are not pretty.

330 LAZY TOURS.
In the middle of the forenoon you take your bath,
and the Eose is one of the few hotels into which
water is conveyed from the Kochbrunnen itself.
The centre of social life in Wiesbaden is the
" Kurhaus. " Concerts are given in its grand salon
in winter, or when the weather is unpleasant. At
present the music is out of doors, in the lovely
grounds of the Kursaal, and there you see a yet
larger crowd than surrounds the Kochbrunnen in
the morning, as a large proportion of the guests of
the different hotels and pensions are not themselves
" cure " patients, but only the wives, the sisters,
the cousins, and the aunts of those who are here
for their aches and pains.
In winter they say the Kursaal is even gayer
than in summer.
There is an excellent restaurant there, where
people like to dine or sup ; masquerade balls are
given there, charming and artistic concerts, pri
vate theatricals, — entertainments of every sort.
There is a room for chess, and there are in the
enormous reading-rooms some three thousand papers
and journals, the largest portion of which are Ger
man, though I found the " Chicago Tribune, " the
" New York Herald, " and one or two other Amer
ican papers.
There is a guide to Wiesbaden, and I have sel
dom seen a funnier specimen of English as she is
written by German pens than this same guide.
The soil here is sandy, and, judging by my
boots and the hems of my gowns, I should say

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 331
that Wiesbaden, with all its charms, is certainly
a dusty town.
But the ¦' Guide " assures me otherwise. It
asserts that, " By the complete absence of dust,
and the protected situation, there is, even in win
ter, plentiful opportunity of being in the open air.
The use of the Kochbrunnen raises the appetite,
and the general state of the system becomes for
complete reconvalescence. Also will one flnd
abundance of suitable and stirring occasions which
generally are only to be found in very large
cities. "
Farther on, " pleasant social realition " (what
ever that may mean) with your doctor's family is
mentioned among the attractions of the place.
There is a good picture gallery in Wiesbaden,
and an interesting museum, and I hardly know any
place from which you can make more agreeable
excursions. At the theatre — the " Eoyal Opera
House " — something is always going on. Usually
there is a play one night and an opera the next.
The great industry of this part of Germany is
vine-growing. A week ago, when it was cold, I
said to the house porter, who is supposed to be on
intimate terms with the clerk of the weather : —
" Do you think we shall have any more warm
weather this year ? "
" Why, we must, " was the answer, " or what
would become of the vines ? "
And he said it with an air of conviction, as
if there could be no power in any world that

332 LAZY TOUES.
would interfere with this chief interest of German
life. It is something, I think, on which to congratu
late myself, to have made the acquaintance of
Wiesbaden's venerable poet, Herr Friedrich von
Bodenstedt. A German friend of mine, who hves half the
year in London, brought the poet to see me the
day after I arrived here.
Picture to yourself a tall, handsome, active man
of seventy-two, with gray hair, with eyes fuU,
still, of the keen fire of youth ; with the grand
manner which belongs to the high-bred gentle
men of his generation, and the gift to please and
to charm which is not always the dower even of
a poet. Herr von Bodenstedt speaks English — as he
writes it^ — like a scholar; without priggishness,
yet at the same time in a fashion more hterary
than colloquial ; and it certainly seems to me that
a foreigner has very seldom written in Enghsh
with such grasp of the possibilities of the lan
guage. But English is only one of the many
languages which the German poet has at his
command. Friedrich von Bodenstedt has had a hfe full of
variety and of incident. He has seen many lands,
and his experiences have brought forth fruit
abundantly. In his early youth he travelled widely
in the far East; and a few years ago he visited
America and heard the waves of the Pacific Ocean

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 333
break on the shores of California. The Caucasus
and the Eockies are alike familiar to him. Be
tween these two extremes he has been almost
everywhere. He has written books so many and so varied that
I will not undertake to enumerate them ; but he is,
perhaps, best known as the author of " The Songs
of Mirza-Schaffy," that wonderful volume of lyric
poems which has been translated into almost every
written language ui the world, and of which Herr
von Bodenstedt has presented me the one hun
dred and thirty-third German edition. I think
no other work of any hving German poet has
reached so many as one hundred and thirty-three
editions. The poet took the name of Mirza-Schaffy from
an old Persian teacher of his (who himself never
wrote a poem in his life), because he wanted a
distinctly Persian name, and because he held in
honor the character and attainments of this Mirza
whose name he borrowed. For some time the
reading world supposed the book to be a volume of
translations, and wondered greatly why no one
had ever heard of Mirza-Schaffy before ; but after
a while it became generally known that it was the
original work of the young German poet, and from
that time Von Bodenstedt's position in the German
Olympus was assured.
There is something in these lyrics — warm with
the love of life and the love of love, perfumed
with the roses of the East — that reminds me

334 LAZY TOUES.
of Tom Moore. Here is one from the songs to
" Zuleika " : —
" My heart adorns itself with thee,'
As Heaven with the Sun is bright.
Thou art its glory ; wanting thee.
It would be dark as darkest night.
" So fades the fairest pomp of Earth,
When Darkness holds its cheerless sway ;
But when the smiling sun looks forth,
Its beauties spring to meet the day."
I must give you one of his quatrains. To vrrite
a good quatrain is an art by itself. See how well
Mirza succeeds in it: —
" Who would make friends of aU men
Is bosom friend to none ;
She who would please the million
Wm never please the one."
The poetry of Shakespeare has been one of the
absorbing interests of Herr von Bodenstedt's life.
He translated Shakespeare's " Sonnets " into Ger
man, and achieved the noblest and most perfect
translation of them that has been made in any
language. Later he translated ten of the most
important of the plays, and had the rest trans
lated under his supervision, so that there is now
in German a complete edition of the works of
Shakespeare, called " The Bodenstedt Edition. "
His character is not less worthy of praise than
his achievements. A man who knows him well

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 335
wrote me that he had never met any one who
united to such vast knowledge and wide experi
ence such large-heartedness, such warm sympathies,
and such perfect modesty and simplicity. His
seventieth birthday was made a festival, not only
in Wiesbaden, but throughout Germany ; and
gifts and letters and telegrams came to him from
America, from England, from Asia, from Japan,
from Africa, from far Australia, — in short, from
every quarter of the world. I have seldom seen so
many interesting curios in any house. If he had
chosen to form an art museum, he would have had
a very good foundation for it in the gifts that
came to him on that one day. But he said, half
quaintly, half pathetically : " It upset me a good
deal. Perhaps, at seventy, one is too old even to
be happy with impunity. " ^
A charming world lies round about Wiesbaden.
With two friends who joined me here, I have been
exploring the neighborhood. We went one day to
Biebrich on the Ehine, and on another we took
the long drive to Schwalbach and Schlangenbad,
— two more of the noted " cure " resorts of this
region of mineral waters. We started at 10 a.m.,
and drove on through the beautiful forest toward
Schwalbach. Last spring, when I saw at the New Salon in
Paris a picture, " La Eeligieuse, " by Pajil Hoecher
^ It was in 1890 that I had the pleasure of knowing Von Bo
denstedt. Alas, he has died since then, and all Germany mourned
for him, as all Germany had honored him.

336 LAZY TOUES.
of Munich, I half thought it untrue to nature, be
cause the grass beneath the trees was dappled with
spots of opaline light, in which the hues of rose and
green and violet seemed to blend and change, even
while you looked at them. Now I beg the artist's
pardon for my lack of faith. I saw the very same
effects on the grass under the trees on that drive
to Schwalbach. It is only that Hoecher had seen
his German forests in all lights, and I had never
seen them in this one before. I fancy there was
still dew upon the woodland grass. Anyway, the
strong September sun poured down through the
thick tree-boughs and dappled the turf below, just
as in the picture.
We reached Schwalbach at a few minutes after
twelve, and had nearly an hour before dinner in
which to ramble about the little place.
In the time of the Eomans Schwalbach (which
literally means Swallows' Brook) was celebrated
for its sulphurous springs, and the old conquerors
of the world used to come here then, just as people
come now, in some wild hope to be cured of all
their ills. When they got cold, and ached worse
than ever, I suppose the doctors told them, just as
they tell us now, that it was only the effect of
the waters, which bring all ills to the surface, in
order to drive them out forever, — as the saints
of old used to drive out the devils from those
unhappy men who were possessed of them.
Alas ! the modern devils of gout and rheumatism
do not always yield to the invocations of saints or
of doctors.

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 337
At present the most important feature of Schwal
bach is its iron spring, the Stahlbrunnen, first
discovered about one hundred years ago. It is
the resort of people whose vital forces are low,
and who need a tonic, — for to drink these waters
is one of the safest ways of taking iron ; and the
place offers the additional advantages of fine air,
and quiet almost as deep as that of the castle
behind the thorn hedge, where the Sleeping Beauty
passed her one hundred years of repose. Perhaps
Americans do not like quiet. I saw few of them
at Schwalbach, but there were plenty of Eussians
and English, and not a few Germans.
The drive from Schwalbach to Schlangenbad is a
delightful one. Sometimes you are in the depths
of the enchanted forest; sometimes you come out
into the open, and from some lofty coign of van
tage you see the vine-bordered Ehine far below,
with its brooding castles or its gay little cities.
And Schlangenbad itself, — ah, how beautiful it is !
I wanted to move over there the next day, " bag
and baggage ; " but the doctor forbade. Twenty-
five baths from the Kochbrunnen were necessary
to frighten away my rheumatic demon, and I had
had only ten !
Schlangenbad means, literally, the Serpents'
Bath. Once upon a time there was a heifer, — I
would prefer to say a princess, but I must confine
myself to facts. Everything disagreed with this
unfortunate but amiable creature. The more her
mother licked her hide, the rougher it became ; and
22

338 LAZY TOUES.
the more she ate, the thinner she grew. She got
so rough and so thin that not even a fiy of the forest
would bite her; and the sleek, handsome heifers
— her former companions — would have nothing
at all to do with her. She was very unhappy,
and after a time she disappeared from the herd.
They thought — at least I think they must have
thought — that, wounded by their slights, she had
gone off to die alone.
But no. After a few weeks she came back,
carrying her head high, her skin as sleek as that
of a grain-fed mouse, her eyes sparkling like a
deer's, and her once gaunt ribs covered with flesh.
And day by day her beauty became more conspic
uous, till at last a herdsman was so devoured with
curiosity that he resolved to watch her ; and, so
watching, he discovered that each evening she
stole off into the forest till she came to a hitherto
unknown spring of water. From this spring she
drank long and deeply, and then came back to her
mates. This marvellous story grew old, and so did the
herdsman who had made the discovery. He did
not see or hear so quickly as of yore, but one day
he pricked up his ears, for he heard them talking
about a young lady of Nassau who seemed to be
afflicted with the very same symptoms that he had
seen in the heifer in the long ago time when he
was a lithe young herdsman; and he told again
the old story. As in the song, " physicians " had
been " in vain, " and there seemed no hope for the

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 339
fair maid of Nassau. So at last, in very despera
tion, her parents consented that she should try the
spring which had proved a spring of healing in
the case of the heifer.
Proudly the old peasant led them to the fountain
of whose existence he only knew ; and the maiden
drank of its waters, and from that time her health
began to mend, and presently she was the fairest
of the fair.
The legend adds that it was afterwards dis
covered that the efficacy of this marvellous spring
was due to the presence of large serpents in the
waters near their source. I have read a fifty-
years-old book, the author of which said that he
himself had seen the creatures swimming about
near the fountain's head. I cannot hear that any
one has seen them since then. I hope not, for I
like Schlangenbad, and I don't like serpents.
It is a forest village, — this beautiful Schlan
genbad, — nestling among wooded hills. Enticing
paths wound up and away through the green depths
of the wood. The air was balmy with the breath
of firs and pines. I was sure there was healing
in every breath.
But it is not healing alone for which one goes
to Schlangenbad ; the waters are said to give one
back one's youth again, and to make one beautiful
forever. I think the guests I saw there must have
been newly arrived, and had not, as yet, begun
the " cure. "
We drove reluctantly from this happy valley,

340 LAZY TOUES.
where Easselas might have been content ; but the
day was wearing late. For reward we had the
charming drive to Wiesbaden, with its varied
views of castles on the heights and villages nes
tling in the valleys, and at last of the Neroberg,
crowned with its temple, from which the view of
town and forest is as beautiful as anything I have
seen here, unless it be the wider panorama one
sees from the base of the Niederwald monument.
You go by rail from Wiesbaden to Eudesheim,
unless you prefer to go to Biebrich, and there take
a steamer. We went by rail, and at Eudesheim
we took the cog-wheel road that carries its pas
sengers to the summit of the mountain, where
stands the Niederwald monument, erected in
memory of the victories and the heroes of the
Franco-Prussian war. The foundation stone was
laid by the old Kaiser William on the 16th of
September, 1877, and, thank Heaven, he lived to
see the glorious monument unveiled on September
28, 1883. One could hardly have borne that any
other than he should have been lord of Germany
on that day of days.
On the front of the statue's base is sculptured
Germany's own national song, " The Watch on
the Ehine."
She is a gorgeous creature, this bronze Germa
nia, the embodiment of German pride and power.
She is thirty-six feet in height, and her heaa
measures four feet from brow to chin. She looks
forth over the splendid Ehine, up which surely.

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 341
while she watches there, no enemy will dare to
sail. I chanced to be here on the 2d of September,
the anniversary of the Sedan victory. When I
went down to the Kochbrunnen at the hideously
matutinal hour on which my German doctor in
sists, I saw the streets gay with bunting. Flags
were everywhere, and in the spaces between them
hung wreaths on wreaths of artificial flowers. And
already the people had on their holiday clothes,
and the bells were ringing from the steeples as if
they had all gone mad together. I thought, at
first, that it must be the Emperor's birthday ; but
I inquired, and was told that it was the anniver
sary of Germany's triumph. There is nothing
quite like it in America. The small boys make
plenty of noise on Fourth of July, and the bells
(what there are of them) ring, — they don't chime,
because they can't; and we fire cannon, and send
off fireworks, and play that it is a holiday, — at
least those of us do who have not run away from
town to escape it : but it is all commonplace and
uninteresting when compared with this Fest of
Germany. When my doctor came to see me in the fore
noon, he told me I must not fail to go to the
Neroberg (Hill of Nero), where the true fes
tival, with games and music, would be held.
And at two o'clock, through the town marched a
grand and gay procession : drums were beating,
flags were flying; at every turn new people fell

342 LAZY TOUES.
into line, and it really seemed as if no one were
indoors and the whole town were out on a pilgrim
age of joy and triumph. I did not start until four
o'clock, when, having found a London friend for
companion, we took a comfortable landau, and set
forth to see the fun. But first we saw something
better, something serious yet glad, solemn yet
gay; for we took the long drive through the
forest, — the beautiful, deep forest, its paths softly
silent with their covering of dead leaves. It
was an enchanted wood, and I could fancy that
all the wood nymphs of the old German legends
haunted it, though we saw no one, on all our
winding way, save on one bench, under a low-
growing tree, a young man and a young girl ; and
perhaps they, too, had been enchanted like the
wood, and would linger on there and grow old
with the trees, — who knows ?
All Wiesbaden, except ourselves, had taken the
short, straight path to the Nero height, to get
there as soon as possible; and when we reached
the hill-top the wayside was walled with empty
carriages, and all the pleasure grounds about the
restaurant on the summit were so crowded that
there seemed scarcely a path for two unprotected
ladies among the throng. My friend, however,
though she lives in London, was born in Germany,
and she soothed the crowd with pleasant little
sentences in their own tongue as we struggled
on, among the hundreds of tables, in search of
one little spot where we could take our afternoon

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 343
coffee. At last two kind strangers lent us their
seats for a few minutes; we prevailed on one of
the flight of waiters, who were darting hither and
thither like busy bees, to get us our Mocha, and as
we drank it we looked about us. You could see
just such a sight nowhere but in Germany. If
I were asked to name the two most prominent
German characteristics, I think I should say beer-
drinking and domesticity. These groups that sur
rounded the innumerable tables seemed almost
all to be family parties. You would see a father
and mother and flve or six children seated at a
single table, and each one with a tall glass of
beer. And as they drank, the band played gay,
triumphant, clamorous martial music. " And so
we beat the French ! " it seemed to peal ; and then
the beer glasses were set down for a moment, and
thousands of hands would clap, and a shout — a
wild, exultant shout — arose, at which the birds,
high up in heaven, would pause on their swift
wings to listen in wonder. I never saw a hun
dredth part as many glasses of beer at one time.
I never saw a denser crowd, and I have hardly
ever seen one more kindly, even in Italy ; and I
have always thought an Italian crowd, at carnival
time for instance, the gentlest the sun shines on.
At a farther distance from the restaurant, games
of all varieties were in progress. Jt made one
think a little of some French holiday in the gar
den of the Tuileries or at the seaside, only the
French people amuse themselves more gayly. It

344 LAZY TOUES.
is the difference between beer and wine. Here at
the Neroberg, as in France, was the merry-go-
round, — but it seemed to me the lads and lassies
rode on it as if they were at work, rather than at
play ; and Lore were chances to shoot at prizes, and
to pay your pfennigs for a " grab " in a basket of
paper parcels. The crowd took all their pleasures,
however, with a sort of solemn earnestness, doing
with their might what their hands found to do. I
think the Germans are more capable of an " orgie"
than of a " lark. "
We stayed on the height until the sun was low,
and a soft rose, like a filmy veil dropped out of
heaven itself, fell softly on the summits of the
Taunus Mountains, and then we drove down to
the town again, and this time by the short path,
hedged on each side with returning pleasure-
seekers. Among these I saw one funny sight, char
acteristically German. A young peasant husband
was escorting his young wife, and the wife, if you
please, was carrying their little child. This was
not so strange, — among the same class in England
it is always the wife who carries the baby, — but
the droll thing was that the young fellow was
playing at gallantry, and had offered his wife his
arm, in honor of the holiday, and she held it
proudly, though she had a hard struggle to manage
the child with the one arm remaining to her.
But why should one laugh at them on whom the
gods smiled ? for they were young and happy,
pleased with themselves, their offspring, and each

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 345
other ; and, after all, in this disobliging world we
can be young but once, and, for the most part,
when we are young we do not appreciate our bless
ings, and the cry goes on forever, " Oh, if youth
would ; or if age could ! " It is something to have
had one real festival day, full of light-hearted
mirth, even if the baby on one's arm was heavy,
and the man at one's side ought to have carried
it, and did not.
I like to linger of an afternoon in the beautiful
garden of the Kursaal. There, in the lovely lake,
a combat goes on daily. There are two stately
swans, with snow-white bodies and long black
necks, who consider this lake their own special
domain. They are rearing there their family, —
their little cygnets. When I first came to Wies
baden, a month ago, the parent swans used to take
their little ones on their backs and swim about
the lake with them. Now the cygnets can swim un
aided, but their papa does not relax his vigilance.
In the lake are also quite a number of ducks.
Some one said the other day of the Emperor of
Germany that (like Prince Albert in his time) he
believes that the world contains only two classes
of people, — royalties, and those who are not
royalties, — and if you are not a king, or the wife
or son or brother of a king, it matters very little,
really, whether you are a count or a counter-
jumper. The papa swan evidently feels about the ducks
much as the German Emperor is said to feel

346 LAZY TOUES.
about the rest of mankind. How these " low-down
trash, " the ducks, made their impertinent way
into the lake over which he rules is an abiding
puzzle to him. Their very existence he regards
as an insult, and when they snatch a bread crumb
of those that are so liberally thrown into the
water, then he considers that insult has become
outrage. Majestically, but very swiftly, he sails to and
fro, driving the ducks before him as some great
general would drive a routed army.
I admire the swan, but I pity the hungry ducks,
and I try to throw my bits of bread where they can
get some. It is of no use. Papa Swan sees me,
and bears down on them like a steam launch, and
instantly my crumbs are carried in his bill to the
cygnets, who are watching the combat in the
sheltering neighborhood of their mamma.
I shall be sorry to part with the swans when I
leave Wiesbaden, and I shall grieve, also, to part
with the beautiful goldfish that dart to and fro in
the transparent water like live jewels ; but I shall
leave with decided relief some of the busiest
denizens of this place, — to wit, the mosquitoes.
The Duke of Nassau comes no more to his fair
Castle of Biebrich, because, forsooth, he took the
side of Austria in the war; and many another
noble lord has retired from German view, because,
in 1866, he fought under the wrong banner. But
evidently the mosquitoes were not the allies of
Austria; so they stay on in Germany.

WHAT ONE DOES AT WIESBADEN. 347
I have passed two " cure " seasons in Carlsbad
and two in Marienbad without ever having heard,
in either place, their war cry, or seen their too
swift wings. But here in Wiesbaden they sing
me to sleep every night ; and when they have sung
me to sleep, they stab me and quaff my blood as it
were wine. Perhaps without them one would be
tempted to linger too long in this happy valley
among the Taunus Mountains.
1890.

TO PAEIS, BY WAY OF FEANKFOET
AND METZ.
'' I ""HE Fates or the mosquitoes drove me away
¦*¦ from Wiesbaden at last. Once more I went
to Frankfort, which is only an hour's journey by
rail. I never miss an opportunity to pass a day
or two in gay and pretty Frankfort, — one German
town where certainly the stranger can well amuse
himself. I was here this time over Sunday and Monday ;
and on Sunday afternoon, like everybody else, I
went to the Palm Garden to hear the music. All
the year round there are two concerts a day at the
Palm Garden, — one from 4 to 6 in the afternoon,
and the other from 7. 30 to 10. 30 in the evening.
During the cold months the concerts are held in
the great hall of the Casino in the midst of the
Garden; but in summer, and in these beautiful
autumn days, only the musicians are under cover.
The band is in a sort of pagoda, roofed over, but
open at the sides, and the audience sit at little
tables on the terrace of the Casino, and drink
their afternoon coffee, or else they walk to and fro
within sound of the music.
There are fountains here and there, flowers,
palm-trees, ferns ; and in addition to all the other

TO PAEIS. 349
attractions of the place, the band is one of the
best in Germany. I was alone," but I sat at the
table with some gracious and graceful German
ladies, and I amused myself by watching the con
stantly changing crowd that marched past me,
and inventing characters and histories for them as
they came and went.
The Palm Garden is well patronized on most
days, but on Sundays all the rank and fashion
of Frankfort is to be found there.
It is loveliest of all on a soft summer night,
when all the lamps are lighted, and the fountains
plash in the gentle dusk, and the music sounds
like music in a dream.
Monday was a sun-bright day, and full of
pleasant occupation. One always wants to see
the Goethe house again, and to dream of the old,
old days when the author of " Faust " was young,
and full of hope and life, and pride and power, —
he who has been dead so long now. It may be
that Walter Besant is right when he thinks that,
if death were abolished, all that is noblest in life
would be abolished, also ; but I wish that when a
great genius is born, — a Goethe or a Shakespeare,
— he could linger on in the world somewhat longer
than other men.
I went once more to see that pert, self-conscious
young person, the " Ariadne, " as Danqecker sculp
tured her. I don't believe that he divined her
aright, and I think if there are such things as
trials for libel in Olympus, she could make him

350 LAZY TOUES.
suffer some immortal penalty, — though, to be
sure, her back is beautiful, and the lines of her
figure are, perhaps, charming enough to reconcile
her to his presentment.
I drove across the Main, over the oldest bridge
of all, to the oldest old Frankfort. Half-way
across, at the middle of the bridge, stands Kaiser
Karl, watching forever the river that he loved.
He must have thought it beautiful this night. It
was just at sunset, and the rippling water reflected
the pageant of the west. Every ripple seemed
alive with golden glory, and boat and barge were
mirrored in the sun-kindled stream. Then I drove
away from the river, and to and fro through streets
so narrow that there was barely room for the car
riage to pass, and the quaint old houses seemed to
nod at each other across the way as if they were
saying : " You and I know what becomes of these
butterflies that are here to-day and gone to
morrow. Let them stare at us while they can. "
Over the door of one old beer shop, that looked as
if it were hundreds of years old, I read the legend,
" In the New Paradise, " — so even that had been
new once.
I think Frankfort is like a charming woman.
You come here for a day, and you see the Palm
Garden, and the Goethe house, and the self-satisfied
" Ariadne, " and the shops full of pretty things, and
you think you know the place by heart; but linger
on for a few days, and you find a deeper, tenderer,
more suggestive side, touched with the light of

TO PAEIS. 351
memory, sad with the pathos of long ago, — a
Frankfort to which I could return year after year
unwearied. I hated to go away, — how is it that one hates
to go away from almost everywhere, unless it be
Long Branch or Saratoga ? It required stern reso
lution on my part to start off for Paris in Tues
day's early morning. I came by way of Metz,
without any hope of finding the place interesting
(for I had often been told that it was not so),
but simply because I had been so many times by
Cologne, and also by Strasburg, that I thought I
ought to see what a new route had to offer.
I left Frankfort at eight in the morning and
reached Metz at two in the afternoon. Some one
told me to go to the Hotel de Metz, and to the
Hotel de Metz I came. I went into the dining-
room for a hurried luncheon before starting out to
explore the town. There was a long table at
which the mid-day table d'hSte was in process.
I sat at a little table by myself in a corner, but I
glanced at the long one with curiosity. It was
almost full of officers in uniform. They were
talking so boisterously that I thought at first they
were quarrelling; but I soon saw that the loud
talking was only the military habit. Everything
is military in Metz. The manager of the hotel
told me that twenty -two thousand German soldiers
are quartered here at present, and the number is
seldom less. When the Germans captured the
place in 1870, they made up their minds to hold

352 LAZY TOUES.
it. It ought not to take so many troops to do
this, however, for Metz is one of the most strongly
fortified towns in the world. I took advantage of
my afternoon there to drive all about the fortifica
tions, as well as all about the heart of the town.
My coachman was French. A German friend of
mine, who knows Metz well, told me that when
Germany took possession of it, such French
people as could afford it went away, but the
working-people, and those who had no money for
experiments in home-making, stayed on here. So
it happens that almost all those whom a traveller
comes in contact with are French. When my
coachman found out that I sympathized with the
dispossessed race (on the principle, perhaps, which
draws one's sympathies to the under dog in the
fight), he begged me to go to the cemetery and see
the soldiers' graves. There were several monu
ments to individual officers, but the most impos
ing was a large one " erected to the memory of
7,203 French soldiers who died in the ambulances
at Metz. " The cemetery was as French as Plre-
la-Chaise itself. There was scarcely a tombstone
that had not its wreath made of horse-hair, or of
black and white beads strung on wires, in true
French fashion. In the rare instances when you
saw a German name on a tombstone, you felt as
if here were a dead intruder who ought to be
warned off the premises.
There is, all through Metz, the most curious
combination of French and German. On every

TO PAEIS. 353
street comer, so far as I observed, are two signs,
— one, the old, long-ago sign in French, and
above it the new sign, the translation of the
French name of the street into German. A shop
window would tell you in both languages what
was for sale within. Every place of business in
the town — bank, dentist's, milliner's, bakery,
everything — made its appeal thus to both na
tions. I never saw in any one place so many
habitations for soldiers. It seemed to me the
barracks almost outnumbered the houses of the
ordinary citizens. But, in spite of all this incur
sion of German soldiery, Metz still seems like
some old town in Normandy or in Brittany, — ¦
intensely French, and intensely provincial. It
has, however, one of the most glorious Gothic
cathedrals of northern France, — for one thinks
of it as French still, when one speaks of this
noble monument of architecture which French
hands reared. The cathedral was begun in the
fifth century, and was finished about the middle
of the sixteenth. It is rich in carving, both with
out and within, and it has sumptuous windows of
that glorious old stained glass that no modern
art has been able to rivah There is devotion in
the very air of a solemn old cathedral like this.
If I lived near one, I think I could find in it some
strange peace — some hope born not of this world
— which would make life nobler. Here and there
in a dark corner knelt some peasant at her prayers ;
and when a young girl rose from kneeling long
23

354 LAZY TOUES.
before one of the altars, it seemed to me one could
read in her pure eyes that she had found the grace
for which she had prayed so fervently.
I went back to the hotel in time for the six
o'clock dinner. The mid-day table d'hote seems
to be the favorite with the military, for at six
o'clock only two men in uniform lent distinction
to the motley company. I had a pretty room,
with lovely old-fashioned furniture, and mirrors
enough to content a New York belle ; but I had
such a little pitcher of water that I was reminded
again of the hotels in rural Normandy and Brittany ;
and when I rang for hot water, a little pot of it
was brought me, hardly the size of the family
teapot. I recalled the Frenchman in the story,
who said, " I have English habits ; I bathe — my
face." That was certainly as much as any one
could do at the H6tel de Metz.
I was off again in the morning for Paris. Metz
is situated on the banks of the Moselle ; and dur
ing the first two or three hours of my journey the
railway skirted that beguiling river. I believe
there are impertinent steamboats on the dear
Moselle in the neighborhood of Coblentz ; but from
Metz to Frouard it is, thank Heaven, not naviga
ble for the bateaux h vapeur, and anything more
peacefully lovely than the gentle stream and the
scenery along its banks one can hardly imagine.
I saw little islands in the river, on which clumps
of pollard willows grew. I had a hundred glimpses
of just such misty loveliness as Corot used to

TO PAEIS. 355
paint; and sometimes, when a herd of dappled
cows came down to drink, there was a " Troyon "
all ready for framing. I think that the French
landscape is the secret of French art, — at least of
French landscape art. There is nothing glaring
or obtrusive about it. It is full of softly beautiful
effects. The green of the willow-trees is subdued
and tender. There are slopes more often than
hills, and the sentiment of it all is dreamy and
melancholy, rather than passionate and startling.
I thought, as I journeyed on, what I would do
had Heaven but made me an artist ; and the pic
tures I planned still linger in my memory.
It was the late afternoon when my journey ended,
as so many of my lazy tours have, at the only
Paris, — the gayest, brightest, yet most tragic city
on which the far-off stars look down.

AN ENGLISH "CURE," AND A
GLIMPSE OF YORKSHIRE.

TUNBEIDGE WELLS.
T HAVE been making a visit to Tunbridge
-*- Wells, as charming a place to-day as it was in
the old time when Beau Nash used to saunter
through its fashionable walks. One reaches it
from London in a httle more than an hour ; and I
only wonder that it is not crowded enough to
spoil its pleasantness, — for very pleasant it is.
With the exception of Bath, it is the most noted
of the inland watering-places of England. It has
always been associated with royalty and nobility.
In fact, it was first discovered by Dudley, Lord
North, a young nobleman no better than he
should be, — I ask the pardon of his high-bred
ghost, who, very likely, may be looking over my
shoulder at this moment. Ghost-world has been
brought so near of late that one may not even
gossip about the past without saying, " By your
leave," and dropping a courtesy.
Dudley, Lord North, was a gay young fellow in
his long ago time, and he fell into a consumption
when he was only twenty-four years old, in con
sequence of having pleased himself too much.
He belonged to the court of King James I., or
rather to that of King James's son, Prince Henry.
He was a very energetic young man in the pur-

360 LAZY TOUES.
suit of his pleasure, and sad indeed was he when
he could no longer catch up with the object of
his pursuit. Bridge House belonged then, as it
still does, to Lord Abergavenny ; and to Eridge
House he was sent, to try the benefit of change of
air, and the cessation of his accustomed amuse
ments. This was in 1606, almost three centuries
ago. The gay young lord was extremely bored at
Eridge House, and finally he resolved to take his
life in his hands and go back to London. On his
way through the forest he noticed a stream of
running water in a wooded hollow, — a stream of
very peculiar appearance, with a shining mineral
scum upon its surface and a yellowish deposit in
its depths. Perhaps it was his ancestral daemon
who whispered to him that this water might be of
use to him in his debihtated condition. Any way,
he had a quantity of it bottled up, and carried it
to the most noted physicians of London. They
examined it, and pronounced it to be just what he
needed. So he returned to Eridge House, drank
the waters, was restored to health, went on his
evil, hght-minded way, and hved to be eighty-five
years old, — eighty-five years in which he had
enjoyed himself hugely, and done as much harm
as most men of his time. And with him began
the fame of Tunbridge Wells.
Of course Lord Abergavenny was much inter
ested in the new spring of healing thus discovered
at his gate, and he set to work to clear the sur
rounding ground, sink wells, and turn the spot

TUNBEIDGE WELLS. 361
into a regular watering-place. The high repute
that Tunbridge Wells had acquired early in the
17th century is evident from all the chronicles
of that time ; but the first really great event in
the history of the place was the visit of Henrietta
Maria, the queen of Charles I., which took place
in the year 1630. During her sojourn of six
weeks, undertaken with the view of re-establish
ing her health after the birth of Prince Charles
(afterward Charles IL), she and her suite dwelt
in tents, pitched on Bishop's Down Common.
Though she sojourned in a tent, she had no lack
of amusement, but was entertained by masques,
pageants, and dancing, — all on a regal scale.
After this royal visit they began to build
houses at Tunbridge Wells, and the famous Tun
bridge Walks were laid out in the year 1638. In
1652, as John Evelyn records in his well-known
Diary, he brought his wife and her mother to
Tunbridge, and stayed with them "in a very
sweet place, private and refreshing." On his
journey to London, — that journey which we make
now by train in a httle more than an hour, —
Evelyn was robbed by two "cut-throats." His
Diary recounts the excursions made from Tun
bridge Wells two centuries ago, and we go over
the same ground to-day, and look at the ghost-
haunted places, — at Clanrickarde House and
Penshurst, and the rest, — and say to ourselves
as we look : —
" Where are the snows of yester year ? "

362 LAZY TOUES.
In the summer of 1664 King Charles IL, with
his queen, Catharine of Braganza, visited Tun
bridge Wells, and in a review of the favorite
watering-places of England at the period between
the restoration and the revolution of 1688, Lord
Macaulay speaks of the great attractions of Tun
bridge. The Count de Grammont wrote in his
" Memoirs " : —
"Tunbridge is at the same distance from
London that Fontainebleau is from Paris. AU
the handsome and gallant of both sexes meet
here, in the season, for drinking the waters. The
company is always numerous and always select,
and as those who seek only to amuse themselves
are always more numerous than those who resort
hither for health, everything breathes pleasure
and joy."
At that time the visitors were lodged in httle
dwelhngs, "clean and convenient,'' and there is
stUl to be seen in the British Museum Library a
warrant dated March 19, 1669, providing for the
erection of tents at Tunbridge Wells for the
entertainment of the Queen. After this period
stately houses began to be built, and with every
year the Wells grew more and more in favor.
Beau Nash, who was born in 1674 and died — a
very old beau of 87 — in 1761, became at about
the year 1735 the first king, or arbiter, of Tun
bridge Wells, — an office which he had previously
held in Bath. Under his regime it was expected
that every visitor should live in public. The lodg-

TUNBEIDGE WELLS. 363
ing-houses were merely to be used for eating and
sleeping. The rest of the time was to be passed on
the walk then caUed " The Pantiles," now " The
Parade," or in the Assembly Eooms, or in pleasure
excursions. This sort of life went on not only
whUe the old Beau was ahve, but long after he
had withdrawn from society into the discreet
seclusion of his grave.
Every person who is familiar with the story of
the 18th century knows that one met at Tun
bridge all the celebrities of the time, and that one
was wont to find them, sooner or later, on " The
PantUes." There walked Mrs. Elizabeth Carter,
the woman who could talk Greek faster than any
one in England ; there was the novehst Eichardson,
Dr. Johnson, CoUey Gibber, Garrick, and all the rest
of the brilliant company who adorned those much-
talked-of days.
Thackeray pictured them, as only Thackeray
could, in " The Virginians." " There was," he says,
"a great variety of characters. My Lord Chesterfield
came by in a pearl-colored suit, with his blue rib
bon and star, and saluted the young men. ' I will
back the old boy for taking his hat off against the
whole kingdom, and France either,' said my Lord
March. ' He has never changed the shape of that
hat of his for twenty years. Look at it ; there it
goes again. Do you see that great big, awkward,
pockmarked, snuff-colored man, who.hardly touches
his clumsy beaver in reply ? His confounded im
pudence ! Do you know who that is ? It 's one

364 LAZY TOUES.
Johnson, a dictionary-maker, about whom my
Lord Chesterfield wrote some most capital papers,
when his dictionary was coming out, to patronize
the fellow. I know they were capital. I 've heard
Harry Walpole say so, and he knows all about
that sort of thing. Confound the impudent school
master ! That fat man he 's walking with is an
other of your writing fellows, a printer, — his
name is Eichardson; he wrote "Clarissa," you
know.' " Eichardson was accustomed to be adored.
Enraptured spinsters flung tea leaves around him,
and beguiled him with the coffee-pot. Matrons
kissed the slippers they had worked for him.
There was a halo of virtue about his nightcap.
All Europe had thrilled, panted, admired, trembled,
wept, over the pages of the immortal little, kind,
honest man with the round paunch.
Tunbridge was a great place for match-making
in those gay old days. A letter, dated AprU 1,
1724, sets forth how a young Kentish yeoman,
who had one thousand pounds a year to his fortune,
ran off from the Wells with a young lady who had
five thousand pounds, and that on the very day he
made her acquaintance. "And," the letter slyly
adds, "they say there are not less than twelve
or fourteen ten-thousand-pound young ladies in
the town who would be glad to go off on the same
terms." From first to last, I should think more royal
personages had frequented Tunbridge Wells than
almost any other watering-place in England.

TUNBEIDGE WELLS. 365
Before Victoria came to the throne, she and her
mother had passed two seasons there, and the
Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lome, in the
summer of 1871, spent a long time at the Calverly
Hotel, and were so charmed with the neighbor
hood that they bought an estate there, which they
have since resold. The Queen herself and the
Prince Consort honored the Calverly Hotel by stay
ing in it, and Queen Marie Am^lie, the widow of
Louis Philippe, lived at the Chancellor House for
several summers before her death.
Since the beginning of the present century
Tunbridge Wells has been growing more and
more into favor as a permanent abode. It has
some thirty thousand all-the-year-round inhabi
tants, and the whole neighborhood is full of pleas
ant residences. For transient guests the " season "
extends from Easter to the late autumn, but is at
its height during August and September. It is
a charming place to go to. There are plenty of
good hotels, and of convenient and reasonable lodg
ings ; and for lovelier scenery or more enchanting
walks and drives no one need wish.

IN YOEKSHIEE.
BY way of contrast to Tunbridge Wells we
thought we would try Yorkshire. — The
"Flying Scotchman" ffies fast on its northern
way. We left King's Cross, London, at ten o'clock
of an August morning, and were at York, one
hundred and eighty-eight miles distant, at a
quarter before two o'clock, — one hundred and
eighty-eight miles in three hours and three-
quarters, including stoppages !
From York we drove ten mUes across country,
to Stillington Hall. This part of Yorkshire is
almost as level as a Western prairie ; but the land
scape is softer and more luxuriant than anything
I know in America. The trees, in love with the
earth they sprang from, grow so low that their
boughs almost touch the ground. Instead of
wooden fences or stone walls, aU the fields are
separated from the highway and from each other
by hedges, whose lush green is a rest to the eye.
Stillington Hall is a haven to rejoice in. One
must carry a heavy heart indeed, not to be happy
there. It has belonged for centuries to the Croft
family, and it has all the charm bestowed by
antiquity on a stately place where generations of
men have lived and died. The house is fuU of old

IN YOEKSHIEE. 367
pictures, old books, and old furniture. The park —
two thousand acres in extent — is the home of
trees so venerable that one can fancy them shak
ing their boughs in derision at us, poor weakhngs
of a short-hved race, who come and go whUe they
live on.
One especial interest the place had for me was
that for years of his life the author of " Tristram
Shandy" was the rector of Stilhngton and the
adjoining parish of Sutton. Laurence Sterne in
the pulpit i I suppose no one has ever accused
him of being a rehgious man ; but preaching was
his profession, and he followed it according to
his hghts. For his sermons, no less than for his
fiction, he sought suggestions from actual life ; and
his keen eyes overlooked the doings of his parish
ioners, and found in them the basis for his dis
course. Whatever a man did during the week
was very likely to confront him on the next Sun
day. Did " doughty deeds " the rector please, due
credit was given to the doer of them ; for the
Eeverend Laurence was a fighting parson, and
despised cowardice. On one occasion a well-
known pugilist came to Stillington, and, vaunting
himself on his prowess, sounded the trumpet of his
own fame and challenged all the parish to fight
with him. For three days Parson Sterne waited,
in hope that some one of his stout parishioners
would arise to maintain the honor of Stillington.
On the fourth day, seeing that the prize-fighter
waxed proud in his unchallenged might, Sterne

368 LAZY TOUES.
himself went forth and fought with him. I am
thankful to say that the fighting pastor won the
victory and the pugUist limped off well beaten.
The next Sunday Sterne announced as his text.
Judges, fifteenth chapter and eighth verse : " And
he smote them hip and thigh with a great
slaughter." He crowned his own achievement
with the laurels that were its due, and the
strong men of Stilluigton were put to shame.
To one going from the noise and confusion of
London the stillness of Yorkshire seemed almost
solemn. Sometimes a bird sang, and sometimes,
if you listened with attentive ears, you caught the
sough of winds conferring among the trees ; but
other noise there was none. There was no sound
of wheels grinding the pavements, or of hawkers
crying their wares in the street, — nothing to sug
gest the toil and turmoil of the far-off town. But
even Adam and Eve had to leave their paradise,
and it was for a breath of sea air that we had
come to Yorkshire.
All English artists conspire to praise the beauty
of the Yorkshire coast. In discussing places of
summer resort with English friends, ninety-nine
out of a hundred suggested this region; but all
the artists said, " Go to Whitby," while all the
fashionable people said, " Go to Scarborough."
We consulted maps and guide-books, and found
that Scarborough and Whitby were within less
than two hours' drive of each other, and decided to
see them both.

IN YOEKSHIEE. 369
After leaving York, the character of the land
scape changed. We were no longer in the midst
of gently rolling fields. High hills rose abruptly
everywhere, and we were constantly reminded of
our own White Mountain landscape.
Arrived at Whitby, we drove to the Eoyal
Hotel, a stately house, high on a cliff, overlook
ing the German Ocean. As we wound up this
cliff, we took in something of the varied and pictur
esque charm of the town.
We saw the quaint houses with their red-tiled
roofs, the bathing-machines, the donkeys " all sad
dled and bridled and fit for the fight," as the
old rhyme hath it.
I thought at first that I wanted to ride on one
of these little beasts ; but they were so little — so
much smaller than myself — that I resolved to
refrain from such cruelty to animals. I was con
soled a moment after by a sight of the funniest
tiny open carriages, driven — if one may call such
an arrangement driving — by the gayest-looking
postUions, seated magnfficently on the backs of
their horses.
When we reached the hotel and were shown to
our room overlooking the sea, the almost magical
loveliness of the place began to dawn on us. Op
posite the great cliff whereon our hotel stood,
another headland jutted out into the sea, on which
are the ruins of Whitby Abbey; and to the Abbey
we made our way next morning.
Down into the town we went, across a bridge
24

C

370 LAZY TOUES.
and up one hundred and ninety-eight steps, till
we stood on the east cliff of Whitby and before
the ruins of the Abbey, — ruins as noble as those
of Melrose or Dryburgh. The Abbey was founded
by St. Hilda in the seventh century, but the old
est portion of what one now sees was erected
not earher than the latter part of the eleventh
century. According to Sir Walter Scott, the sea-fowl fly
ing over Whitby used to bow themselves, and
do homage to the saint.
The monastery at Whitby, hke many others of
that date, was meant as a home for monks as weU
as for nuns, the two sexes hving in separate por
tions of the convent, and meeting only at the hours
of prayer. The most noted of the monks was Caed-
mon, who is called the father of Saxon poetry,
and is said to have received the gift of song by
direct inspiration.
This story has been beautifully rendered by the
English poet, Phihp Bourke Marston. We are
told how Caedmon was dumb with shame when
others sang, and how once, in his humiliation, he
retired to the lonely place where the oxen were
kept, and laid himself down to sleep among them.
So sleeping, he dreamed a dream, in which a
celestial presence appeared to him and commanded
him to sing, bestowing, with the high decree, the
power to fulfil it, touching his lips with flame
and filling his soul with the ecstasy of song.
Among the ruins of this old Abbey one seemed

IN YOEKSjIIEE. 371
to go back to another world, where life was sim
pler and grander — where men were contented to
pray and praise and build temples and pass away
and be forgotten.
That afternoon we drove to Eobin Hood's Bay.
I cast longing eyes at the gay postilions with
their little open traps ; but I followed my friend's
lead into a more substantial vehicle. We drove
through mUes of beautiful country, the fields
" dressed in living green," as the old hymn says,
which contrasted vividly with the rich dark haw
thorn hedges.
At last we paused on the brow of a hUl so
steep that the driver seemed reluctant to drive
down it.
Pointing far below with his finger, he said,
"Yen's the vUlage."
We saw no village, and said so ; but he in
formed us that we should see it soon, if we went
on; and sure enough we were presently in the
midst of the strangest village it has ever been my
fortune to behold.
The houses are perched one above another, so
that the roof of one might easily be the doorstep
of its neighbor. Some of the houses on the upper
tiers are accessible only by steep, narrow flights of
stone steps, running up between the lower houses.
Down through the midst of this quaint village
we plunged. We knew it stood upon the sea, but
we saw only the narrow street and the odd little
stone houses with their red-tiled roofs.

372 LAZY TOUES.
There was but one shop, about as large as a
Saratoga trunk. One half of its one window was
filled with httle stone ink-bottles, and the other
with neck-ties. The place swarmed with children,
and we asked one of them where was the sea.
"Eound yon corner," he answered; and we
turned the corner, and, sure enough, there was
Eobin Hood's Bay ; but it would require another
art than that of the pen to make you see the superb
red-chalk headlands shutting in this tranquil shin
ing German Ocean, which can be so deadly and so
treacherous, though it smUed very tranquilly in
the August sunshine.
The next morning I realized my ambition at
last, and had a drive after a postihon. A very
gorgeous fellow he was, to be sure, — the most
splendid, I am proud to say, of the whole band.
We passed the afternoon in climbing up and
down the steep, narrow streets of Whitby. The
chief business of the place seemed to be in jet.
" Real Whithy Jet " is a familiar label in every
jeweller's in Boston or New York ; and here we
were, in the very midst of it. Nearly every
other shop was a jet shop, and we visited them
all. I think that by night we knew the resources
of every establishment in the place. When I see
your sleeve-buttons, or your necklace, or the ear
rings in your dainty ears, I shall know whether
they came from Bryan's, or Chapman's, or WUson's.
I know but few things well in this world, but
Whitby jet is one of them.

IN YORKSHIRE. 373
The next day was our last in Whitby, and we
improved it. We had learned that within a
reasonable drive were moors, — real moors, such
moors as the author of "Jane Eyre" and her
gifted sisters used to wander over, — and we de
termined to see them.
We were not disappointed. They were all we
had dreamed. For thirty miles or more they
stretched away, all purple with heather and gorse,
— a sight never to be forgotten.
They looked pathless to us ; but our driver
assured us that there were dalesmen in those
parts who could traverse them, for all their mUes
of length, with never a misstep, guided by land
marks quite imperceptible to the unpractised eye.
In the afternoon we drove to Eunswick Bay;
and here, it seems to me, the glory and beauty
of the Yorkshire coast reaches its climax. Again,
as at Eobin Hood's Bay, we were sent plunging
down a steep declivity in search of a village where
literally the roofs of one row of houses form
the footpath of those above them.
All the way down through this village we could
see the ocean, and coming up again, we turned
midway for one last glimpse of the semi-circular
bay, shut in by its noble cliffs, whose headlands
jut far out into the sea ; and suddenly we beheld,
glorffied by a burst of sunlight, such a sight as I
never expect to see again.
At the extreme end of the red-chalk headland
on the right appeared a gigantic face upturned to

374 LAZY TOURS.
the sky. It looked like a child's face, and a bit
of cap-frill could be seen above the forehead.
The features were clearly defined, the lips seemed
actually to smile as the sunhght kissed them.
So clearly was it cut that we thought it must
have been fashioned by human hands to enhance
the attraction of the scene. A peasant was com
ing down the path we were chmbing.
" You see that face ? " I asked.
He nodded ; Yorkshire men do not waste words.
" Did any one about here make it ? " I inquired.
He looked at me in half-reproachful surprise
before he answered : —
" It 's God's makkin, yon ; nobbuddy else ever
put a hand to it."
We were told afterwards that the face is fre
quently quite invisible ; we had chanced upon the
moment of vision.
The next morning we left the Eoyal Hotel, —
which the Whitby guide informed us, in guide
book English, was "replete with accommodation
for visitors," — and betook ourselves to Scarbor
ough, the place which bears the proud title of
" The queen of English watering-places."
It is indeed a town quite beautiful enough to
justify its fashionable prestige. We settled our
selves at the Prince of Wales's Hotel, situated,
like the Eoyal Hotel at Whitby, on a chff over
looking the sea. Directly beneath it are the
grounds of the Spa, and there is an almost perpen
dicular raUway which takes you down to them

IN YOEKSHIEE. 375
and up again. It is absolutely frightful to stand
at the foot of this railway and watch the passen
ger-car almost at the top of it. You can't help
expecting to see it tumble down; but I think
no accident has ever taken place. The cars are
moved, I believe, by water-power.
Scarborough boasts its ancient castle, a pictur
esque ruin enough, but not half so beautiful as
the Abbey at Whitby. We reached the place on
mid-day on a Saturday. We lunched, and then we
went out to look about us, and found Tony Wel-
ler, the veritable Tony Weller of the " Pickwick
Papers." He had a vehicle which seemed as if it had
shared the sorrows of several generations; but
we preferred it to all the smart carriages in Scar
borough for the sake of its driver's honest and
good-natured face.
We spent much of our time inside that dis
reputable-looking vehicle. We drove about the
town, — to the Castle, to Ohver's Mountain and
the Park, — also we drove out of town to make
excursions along the coast ; and at every step we
said to each other, " If we had not seen Whitby,
how beautiful we should think Scarborough ! "
But Scarborough, unhke Whitby, is gay; it
moves to music. Down there in the midst of
the Spa there is a pavihon, and there the band
plays from eleven in the morning until one P. M.,
and from seven to nine at night.
At night the scene is wonderfully brilhant, — ¦

376 LAZY TOUES.
more hke a bit of open-air Paris than anything
belonging to sober England. There are hghts
everywhere among the soft fohage; there is a
little temple, open on all sides, where perpetual
ices and sherbets are eaten; and the throng of
pleasure-seekers walk and talk, or lounge under
the trees and listen to the music; and the sea
comes up softly, with a low murmur, and looks
on, and retreats again.
All the features of the Enghsh watering-place
are in full force at Scarborough : bathing-machines,
donkeys, bath-chairs for invahds, salt-water bath
ing establishments for those who shrink from the
actual embrace of the sea, — all are there. By
Monday night we felt that we knew it by heart,
and determined to spend the last night of our
happy week in York, and give the next morning to
the cathedral.
I knew, of old, this cathedral, with its wonder
ful beauty of architecture and its superb stained
glass ; but this time it seemed more beautiful than
ever. It was a glorious day, and the windows
shone in its light like mighty jewels.
We went to morning service and heard the lit
tle white-robed boys chant their morning anthem ;
then we wandered away among the ruins of St.
Mary's Abbey, and there only the birds sang in
the sweet summer day, while a gentle wind waved
the tree-boughs in and out the great crumbhng
arches of gray stone.
By the way, everything is of stone in Yorkshire.

IN YOEKSHIEE. 377
Such a thing as a wooden house I did not see in
the whole of this journey. The smallest little
shepherd's hut would be of gray stone, with red-
tiled roof. Flowers and stone are universal. I
scarcely saw one house in the neighborhood of
Whitby that did not have its yard and its windows
aglow with brilhant blossoms.
I suppose they are blooming still. Shall I
ever see them again ? Who knows ?

THE END.

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.

Lazy Tours

In Spain and Elsewhere.
By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,
Atfthor of " In the Garden of Th-eams," "SwaUow Flights,"
"Random T{ambles," etc.
12mo. Clotti. Price, $1.50.
*****
EXTRACTS FROM EHGUSH OPIHIOHS OF "LAZT TOURS."
Mrs. Chandler Moulton's chapters of travel on the European conti
nent are charmingly chatty. There is a literary flavour about them which
reveals the accomplished woman of letters under all the guise of a lazy
tourist. Acute and discriminating art criticisms, apt personal allusions,
and literary illustrations come in upon every page. Geneva is the more
interesting to Mrs. Moulton because near there is the Maison Diodati,
where Byron and Shelley lived for a time, and where Mrs. Shelley wrote
" Frankenstein " ; a visit to Florence naturally calls forth loving references
to the Brownings ; a sojourn on the Yorkshire moors suggests " Jane
Eyre" and Charlotte Bronte. These "Lazy Tours" are of value not
only as a record of travel in pursuit of pleasure and health, but also as
reflecting something of the writer's very charming personality. It is
delightful to attend to the impressions of so cultured an observer. — From
the Daily Mail, London.
The author gives us her impressions with much brightness and vivacity.
She seeks less to inform than to interest ; and in interesting she thoroughly
succeeds. These "Lazy Tours," in fact, are eminently the work of a
clever and cultivated woman. — Daily Globe, London.
Vivid and imaginative sketches of places and people render Mrs. Moul
ton's " Lazy Tours" a pleasant book into which to dip at random. The
book reveals mind, as well as mood ; for Mrs. Moulton has ideas and the
courage of them, and they leap to light in artistic criticism, and sometimes
in subtle appreciation of much more than the mere pageants of life. . . .
These Lazy Tours are recorded with a picturesque and cultured pen, and
a fresh audacity of social judgment. — The Speaker, London.
The author of "Lazy Tours" is a well-known American writer; and
these essays are brightly written and entertaining accounts of tours in
Spain, Italy, and Germany. — The Times, London.
Many are the women-writers who crowd our shelves with unquickened
pages, but Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton is not of these. Her "Lazy

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.
Tours " is at one restful and enlivening. It has the quaint charm of poetic
vagrancy and happy-go-lucky poetry, and yet enough of insight, style,
and distinction to keep one's literary, rather than one's Bohemian, facul
ties on the alert. Mrs. Moulton, as many readers know, is a cultured
singer from the Old World, but the record of these " lazy tours " in Spain,
Italy, Germany, and England shows that the New World has opened to
her some of its engaging secrets of natural magic and personality. — The
Sun, London.
We can take up Mrs. Moulton's " Lazy Tours," and in five minutes
be to all intents and purposes wandering among the Courts of the Alham
bra, plucking roses in the Sultan's Garden at Cordova, or looking down on
the Bay of Naples from the heights of San Martino. The writer has the
inestimable power of taking her readers along with her, conjuring up
pictures, scents, and sounds, so that the hard-worked city-dweller can close
his eyes to fog and gloom, and fancy himself where the sky is blue and
the sun shines. — The Manchester Guardian, England.
She sees with the eye of a poet, and presents to us, again and again,
charming places, in delightful aspects. — Glasgow Herald.
In "Lazy Tours" Mrs. Moulton has an eye upon the art treasures
of the lands and cities she visits, and has her own opinion about pictures
and painters, as well as more prosaic matters. The book is a pleasant
bundle of impressions, gathered by a quick-witted and cultured traveller.
— The Scotsman.
She seems to have visited every place that is worth seeing, not only in
Spain, but also in Italy and Switzerland, to say nothing of the ground she
covered in France and England. She is a delightful travelling companion,
could give points to Baedeker in the information she picked up, and
possesses a critical faculty of which she made the best use throughout her
travels. She looked with a poet's eye upon nature's loveliness in the
sunny lands "where not a mountain rears its head unsung," and entered
with a poet's spirit into the historic associations of memorials that speak
to the present of the past. — Daily Chronicle, London.
The tender poet of "Swallow Flights" and other pensive verse, the
children's favorite by reason of those "Bedtime Stories" of hers, has
given me more proof of her versatility and cosmopolitan feeling in a
record of various "lazy tours," undertaken of late years in search of
health or pleasure, through Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Savoy, and several
German and English watering-places. There is none of the cocksure
spirit, the irritating restlessness, and the obtrusive knowledge of the average
Yankee ; none, again, of his mingled scorn and worship of things " Euro
pean," but a restful and poetic appreciation of beauty and antiquity, to
gether with an unique gift of graceful expression. . . . Talk of poetry in
prose I we certainly obtain that rarity here.
No less grateful than the delicacy of style is the geniality of Mrs.
Moulton's writing. Chatting as she does in gossipy fashion of all the
famous people connected with the many places she visited, she is bound
often to pass judgement on well-known events and persons. Her criti
cisms in those cases are always singularly fair and kindly. — The Echo,
London.

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.

MORE EHGUSH OPIHIOHS.
Mrs. Moulton's comments on the magnificent pictures she saw in Spain
are worthy of a professional art critic. These " Lazy Tours " must be
read. The happy knack of writing a book of this description with such
vivacity, insight, and discretion as to make it acceptable to the general
reading public is given only to a few. Mrs. Moulton is one of the few. —
Liverpool Daily Post.
The writer of " Lazy Tours " has the inestimable power of taking her
readers along with her so that the hard-worked city-dweller, who must do
his travelling by proxy, can close his eyes to fog and gloom, and find him
self where the sun shines — in Rome, at Aix-les-Bains, at the health resorts
of Germany, or Savoy, but best of all in the Italy Mrs. Moulton loves so
well, and paints so happily. — Manchester Guardian.
Above all, the author of these "Lazy Tours" has a heart that will
never grow old, and an appreciation of natural beauty that in her is a
passion of the mind. Add to this that she is a woman of culture, well up
in architecture, painting, and sculpture, and we have all the material for
an agreeable companion with whom to stroll through the antique cities
of Spain, the art galleries of Italy, or among the lakes and valleys of
Switzerland. — London Daily Telegraph,
These "Lazy Tours" are eminently the work of a clever and culti
vated woman. — London Globe.
Few books can claim to be so gracefully and chattily written as this
record of travels through Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Savoy, and
some German and English watering-places. It is no easy task to give
others the benefit of one's travelling experiences in a fascinatingly fresh
style, which holds our interest from commencement to close. But having
met this gifted American's versatile and charming qualities in her " Bed
time-Stories," and "Swallow-Flights," we are not surprised at her last
effort. — London Stock Exchange.
A thoroughly charming book, in its way, is Louise Chandler Moulton's
" Lazy Tours," and its way is a very light, unpretentious, and withal spark
ling one. The tours take us to almost all the great European centres
of artistic or natural beauty ; the ground covered, as the advertisements of
the personally conducted trips would have it, includes Spain, Italy, Switzer
land, etc. To travel vicariously is, unfortunately, impossible, even in these
trouble-saving days 1 But to read the " Lazy Tours " is to come as near
that desired result as may be, and to do it, moreover, with that phcenix
of humanity, a really delightful travelling companion. The descriptions
are vivid, picturesque, and full of delicate perception. There is a sense of
humour, too, pervading everything, — that first essential of your really
desirable travelling companion; and there is genuine poetic feeling.—
London World.

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.
A FEW AMERICAH REVIEWS.
So Mrs. Moulton's book will entertain the reader who wants to wander
with her through the ways she travels. It will give pleasure to those who
have been over the same ground to note^the varying impressions that these
spots have made upon her and himself, and it will be full of suggestiveness
to those who plan to take these trips in time to come ; while to the stay-at-
home, it gives an atmosphere to the places of which she has written. —
Boston Times.
The pleasantest portion of the book, however, — and this, when one
considers, is in the nature of a triumph, — is the portion given over to
" cures," or health resorts. If the writer were superlatively pleased vrith
Marienbad, she is only less pleased with Carlsbad, and even the mud baths
gain attractiveness from her good-humored description. — N. Y. Times.
The book is one to enchain the reader in his " lazy " hours, or to beguile
a journey with its charm and color of foreign scenes. — Lilian Whiting.
As told in her bright, vivacious, and spirited manner, these revisited
scenes and retold experiences acquire an added joy. — Boston Courier.
A welcome and familiar work by Louise Chandler Moulton. The
elsewhere refers to Southern Italy, Rome, Florence, Paris, and Switzerland,
and there are delightful papers on French, German, and English cures.
Mrs. Moulton's cheery style has attracted a multitude of readers on both
sides of the Atlantic, and this large body will discover much that is amus
ing and instructive in the articles embodied in this comely volume. —
Philadelphia Bulletin.
As for the chapters on the French and German water cures, from Aix-
les-Bains to Wiesbaden, the invalid will read them with eager attention for
the many practical hints which they contain, and the general reader for
their humorous and winning descriptions of life and manners. A glimpse
at Tunbridge Wells, and an excursion into Yorkshire, bring to a close a
series of tours full of instruction and entertainment for those fortunate
enough to make them in Mrs. Moulton's gracious company. — The Beacon.
The laziness referred to begins and ends in the title ; it does not exist
in the mind or pen of the "lazy tourist." . . . The style is at all times
vivid, refined, and full of charming imagery. — Public Opinion.
One takes up Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton's books with the assur
ance of being both entertained and profited. — The Congregationalist.
Mrs. Moulton offers the reader a book of travel out of the usual run,
and written with such painstaking as to make the time given to it well
spent. — The Advance.
There is none of the flavor of the guide-book in these pages, — it is a
fresh, lively, original narration from a very clever woman's experience in
some of the European resorts. — Buffalo Commercial.
Her richly stored mind and remarkable descriptive powers give a
wonderful charm to legend, story, or adventure associated with the an
cient European landmarks. — Boston Home Journal.
Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed,
postpaid, on receipt of price, by
ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.

LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON'S WRITINGS.

SWALLOW FLIGHTS. A new edition of "Poems," with ten
additional Poems. i6mo. $1.25.
The appearance of the new editions of Mrs. Moulton*s volumes is something
for the lover of poetry to be glad over; for Mrs Moulton is one of the few real
woman poets of the present day. Her work has an exquisite quality, and there is
no lover of poetry but should make speedy acquaintance with her verse. — Review
of Revieius, London.
SOME WOMEN'S HEARTS. i6mo. (Paper, 50 cents.) I1.25.
These stories are written in charming style, and with a naturalness that shows
the earnest woman, writing o£ what she has seen and felt, without affectation ot
strain. — Post, San Francisco.
RANDOM RAMBLES. i8mo. $1.25.
£ngHsh thought is touched with a delicate and graphic hand. French live
liness and Italian weather, Rome, Florence, and Venice, the Passion Play and
Munich, a French watering-place, Westminster Abbey, London literary life, the
streets and shops of Paris, — these are the things about which Mrs. Moulton
writes, and which she tells of in that delightful and sparkling manner that one
cannot grow tired of. — Thomas S. Collier.
IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS. Lyrics and Sonnets. i6mo.
Illustrated. $1.50.
It is a hook which none but a true poet could have written : and of which
any poet might well be proud. — John G. Whittier.
OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS: Short Chats on Social
Topics. i6mo. (Paper, 50 cents.) $1.00.
It is wholesome counsel for young and old on topics pertaining to love, en'
gagements, marriage, married life, social relations, etc. — Springfield Union.
MISS EYRE FROM BOSTON, AND OTHERS. i6mo. 1^1.25;
paper, 50 cents.
Her style is piquant, and her satire almost unconscious in its felicity — The
Beacon BED-TIME STORIES. With Illustrations by Addie Ledyard.
Square i6mo. $1.25.
Her pretty book of " Bed-Time Stories," is spotless as an open calla ; and
so rich in beautiful lessons attractively conveyed that every mother should pre
sent her children with it, as a text-book on children's manners towards parents,
servants, and companions. — Chicago Times.
MORE BED-TIME STORIES, With Illustrations by Addie Led
yard. Square i6mo. $1.25.
NEW BED-TIME STORIES. With Illustrations by Addie Led
yard. Square i6mo. $1.25.
FIRELIGHT STORIES. With Illustrations. Square i6mo.
$1.25.
STORIES TOLD AT TWILIGHT. With Illustratiofls by H. Win-
THROP Peirce. i6nio. iSi.25.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers,
BOSTON, MASS

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.
Miss Eyre from Boston.
AND OTHERS.
By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,
Author of '¦^ Some Womet^s Hearts," " Random RamiUs^ ^^ In tHe
Garden of Dreams^' " Bed-Time Stories," etc.
One Vol., l6nno, cloth. Price, $1.26. Paper covers, 60 cts.

These stories are marked with an exquisite touch throughout, and while
they belong to the region of sentiment, they escape happily the bogs of sen
timentality. There are several which touch upon the supernatural, and it is
pleasing to see with what taste and cleverness Mrs. Moulton has handled
these difficult themes. They have just the right touch to hold them be
tween the credible and the impossible, and they are all in some way
suggestive of unexplored regions lying almost palpably behind them. The
book is one to have at hand for hours when one wishes to be soothed and
cheered, and to be inspired with new life, for it is full of good inspirations.
It is a book one would be glad to see young girls read, and one, too, which
there is no doubt that young gurls will be glad to read. — Sunday Courier.
Those who are fond of Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton's writings will
find this delightful collection of fourteen short stories no less enjoyable
than that charming companion volume of last year, entitled " Ourselves and
Our Neighbors," or the still more exquisite collection of novelettes,
" Some Women's Hearts." There is in this latest volume a very strong
flavor of the finest and most attractive features of New England city and
country life, but there are also bits of foreign experiences and even two
ghost, or " spirits," stories which give a spice of variety to the contents.
Mrs. Moulton's sympathies are only with that which is lovable and uplift
ing in human nature, and she has the rare faculty of discovering fine
qualities even in the commonest souls. She has a rare msight into the
depths of human passion and emotion, and in her stories we never find other
than noble and beautiful ideals of love. The same sympathetic instincts,
delicacy of perception, refinement of thought, and beauty of expression,
which characterized so distinctively the works of the gifted H. H., are found
also in Mrs. Moulton's stories, and upon her has fallen the mantle of a
story-teller, which her late sister wore so exquisitely. This little book of
stories, which is dedicated to five talented girls of Boston, is good not only
for summer reading, but for all the year round. — Public Opinion.

Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the Pub'
Ushers.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publtcaiion*.
SOME WOMEN'S HEARTS
By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON,
i6mo. Cloth, 5^1.25; Paper, 50 cents.

"The title of the book which Mrs. Moulton now sends forth is iio(
descriptiTe of a single story filling the whole volume, but is the ribboa
which binds together in one volume eight stories of various length Th«
title proves to be something more than an external ligature It is the hini
of a connection that is far deeper, and that groups these stories into each
other's company for the very good reason that they are really of ki&
They tell the heart-history of women who hav« had to accept in this lift
Bome large portion of temptation, adversity, and sorrow, and have been
fiiithful and true, and have gained the victory. . . . Mrs- Moulton has the
incommunicable tact of the story-teller. She sees with the certainty of
instinct what belongs to a story and wh^* does not ; has the resolution to
¦acrifice whatever is incongruous ; adjusts the narrative in a sequence thai
arouses expectation from the start and holds it to the end. We find, also,
in these novelettes, a quality whicli characterizes all her writings in thii
kind, — not merely artistic perfection in form, but artistic unity in substance.
Each story of hers is complete, and each is single. A severe logical Ian
controls each, — a law which makes these stories seem a growth, and not
a manufacture. Each is as perfect in this unity as a Greek tragedy or a
lonnet of Petrarch's. There is no * moral' appended to any; yet the
moral of every one is so interwoven with its texture, and so inevitable a
part of it, as to make its impressiveness at times overwhelming." — Ckru-
tmn Union.
" The groundwork of these stories betrays a rare insight into the myfr
teries of human emotion." — The N. V, Tribunt'
** Taken as a whole, there is hardly a better collection of short stories
try ao American writer in print.' ' — The Literary World.
"A bouquet of as graceful and fragrant stories as were ever boand cp
nogethef''* — The Golden Age.
Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed^ postpaid^ by tkt
pMblishers,
ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston-

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.
QURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS:
SHORT CHATS ON SOCIAL TOPICS.
By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
i6mo, cloth, price, $i.oo ; paper, 30 cents.

A book of social studies, ranging over such topics as " Rosebuds in Society,''
" Young Beaux and Old Bachelors," " Engagements," " After Marriage," and
other similar vital experiences, which are discussed with exquisite refinement,
good sense, and unfailing charm. . . . Mrs. Moulton never loses sight of ideals
of conduct which are noble and beautiful, and which are worthy to hang as fixed
stars over our lives, — to quote the words of a great German philosopher. She
brings to bear, also, that wide range of experience in the most brilliant and culti
vated social circles that holds all standards amenable to outward realization, and
her gentle counsel thus becomes as suggestive as it is ideally fine. — Boston
Traveller. If we had our way, this delightful little manual of social ethics should have a
place among the text-books of all our school-girls' senior year. Mrs. Moulton's
philosophy of the pleasure and the mental and spiritual profit of social intercourse
is based on the sure foundation of the education of the heart. From right feeling
right action proceeds, as the rays from the flame. There is sound sense, wit,
geniality, tenderness, and the delicate fragrance of exquisite refinement pervading
all ; but not a cynical nor a sarcastic line in the book. There is that wholesome
reality about it possible only where the author lives what she writes. — Boston
Pilot. Here is a book of courtesy, of rightful living, and of persuasive wisdom, which
will find its audience. It is a poet's work, gracefully humorous and serious, and
on its own topics quite oracular. Its purpose is to emphasize the ideals of
guiet home living, and of our inter-relationships outside of home, as acquaint
ances, friends, and lovers. Pervading every chapter, through the medium of a
mellow and very beautiful style, is, too, the unconscious personal influence, which,
being on the side first of kindness, and, after, of the noble meanings of etiquette
and propriety, must make itself felt ; a spirit unaided, tolerant, and sanguine of all
best things. — iVew York Home Journal.

Sold by all booksellers. Mailed^ post-paid^ on receipt of
price., by the publishers,
ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston-