LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[TO THE EDITOR OF "THE SPECTATOR."]
Berne, August 4, 1870: Siu,—While the war gives to all English journals, and to yours even more than to most others, a monotone of somewhat grim. earnestness and intensity, it may be a relief to you and some of your readers, if you allow me to give you a slight account of a holiday in the Bavarian and Austrian Tyrol and Switzerland, the- latter part of which has been troubled by wars and rumours off wars and a certain amount of anxiety as to our own communica- tions with home. To tell the truth, like a good many other English, we are lingering at Berne in a somewhat feverish state of mind. My husband consults all sorts of strangers, is languages of which he is and is not master, as to the pro- spect of difficulties on the route home, and they all answer with an air of studied resolve against timidity, and refer him to- authorities like Swiss landlords and English agents for tourist- tickets who are hardly without bias on such a matter, that to. me, at least, is not encouraging. I have no mission which demands for me that rather profane "baptism of fire" of which I observe Louis, the heir apparent, has had a somewhat homoeo- pathic dose. Englishmen arriving from Paris to-day assure we that they met at Dole on their way towards the Swiss border at Pontarlier a large body of the Emperor's Algerine troops, looking very dark and fierce and diabolic indeed. I have no fancy for meeting them, or, perhaps, returning with another body of them who have tasted blood, and may be sent back by the Emperor to keep Paris quiet, if he finds Prussia too. strong for him. So, on the whole, I tell Henry, who is, Jam happy to say, a good deal guided by my advice, "My dear, we are safe and comfortable at Berne, in the capital of a neutral State which loves foreigners,—and in a German portion of it moreover, whisk France won't be likely to annex at all, and Prussia not at pre- sent. We have a grand view, first-rate accommodation, good shops, plenty of society, the earliest news of all that goes on,— little Louis's baptism of fire was known here as soon as at Paris,— the quietest gate into France when we dare try it, and the safest of all back-doors into Italy, if we dare not. Let us wait here and keep our eyes open. You shall study the newspapers and queption strangers. I will write some brief recollections of what we have seen and send copies home, that there may be a double chance of preserving what I 'would not willingly let die." And Henry consented, as he usually does, to what is proposed by me. To some. extent I think he was bribed by the prospect of seeing this. great old toy clock of Berne strike twelve to his heart's. content. For even in these sad times, when Europe is in, flames and we hardly know whether we shall ever again gain our- home in peace, my husband's boyishness of nature asserts itself so. strongly that he will run away from the perusal of the Emperor's latest carmagnole and Count Bismarck's freshest confession of his
But to begin my story, if your earnest pages are not too full their guides in a magniloquent way the account of the number of of grimmer matter to accept my slight sketches. We left home, distinct countries around its shores, or eagerly debated the pro- Henry and I, on the 25th June, when war seemed about as likely per price of Paisley shawls, and the quickest mode of " doing " the as earthquake, pestilence, or famine on a great scale, and our only country between Lindau and Dresden. Then there were the usual fears for our discomfiture were connected with the uncertainties of smoke and smells, the usual minute vibration of lake steamers,—a the weather. We had long promised ourselves to see the Ammergau tick-tack from the stomach to the brain, —and the usual necessity for Passion-Play in 1870, and fortunately enough made it our first eating to avoid sinking of the stomach, though producing a sinking of instead of our last object,—for if we had not, we should, as we the heart;— and you can never get anything but Kalbs-cotelettes now know, have found the green mountain-side again bare of its upon a Constance steamer,—in other words, fleshy baby, done great theatre, and many of the actors, including, as I hear poor richly with bread crumbs. Yet there was a grand gleam of the Joseph M.air, who gave us so wonderful a vision of the Saviour snowy Sentis through the mists as we passed the heights of Appen- of mankind, girding themselves with that sword by which Mair zell, which the Scotch and Yankee disputants about the price of warned us in so solemn a voice that they who take it are wont Paisley shawls almost noticed, for I heard one of them say to perish. Nay, if it be true, as we see in the papers, that Saar- casually, 'That's a fine bank? We were glad to empty out briick was garrisoned by" only seven thousand Bavarians" on the almost all our 'bloated tourists' at Lindau, and enter on the day when little Louis received his baptism of fire, it may well be quiet country at Bregenz, where we got our first grand view that the actor who gave us momenta of mixed delight and pain and of the Boden-See. Going in search of the Gebhardsberg, which wonder and awe, such as I never thought to feel in the theatre of no one would have missed but ourselves, we got high into the hills any earthly land, has already passed through a severer baptism of between the Vorarlberg and the Bregenzerwald, and saw the fire than the melodramatic one reserved for little Louis, and dis- grandest of sunsets over the most lovely of scenes. The sky was covered behind the veil the difference between even his own fine barred with orange and golden and violet streaks, which painted dream of the Passion and the Passion which was no dream. You have the richest colours on the lake below ; the Alps of Appenzell stood yourself strikingly observed how strange an irony there seems in out in the yellow sunset, while the Bavarian mountains and the this violent break-up of the sacred play at Ammergau, through the great range of the Arlberg to the north and south-east stretched passions of Emperors and Kings who rudely bid the actors of the away in purple shadow. The lake itself from Rheineck and Lindau great tragedy take swords of this world into their hands, and in the foreground, to Constance in the far distance, was a miracle of banish to a more convenient season their visions of the faith that ideal colour,—touching more and richer lands of dream than is not of this world. If you. had heard Male say, with that deep Biideker or Murray ever reckoned that it touches lands of earth. spiritual gaze and that wide calm forehead which gave so strange We seemed to have reached the land of promise which travellers an impression of a soul living in permanent " detachment " from always dream of, and so seldom find. And with delight we earthly interests, "Hereafter I will not talk much with you, for anticipated the next day, when we were to plunge into these the Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me," you purple hills in the pleasantest of all conveyances for earthly would have felt the irony of the event even more keenly than you beings travelling in pairs,—an Einspanner, a one-horse easy car-
did. riage, driven, in our case, by the stolidest young driver, I
Well, I will not attempt to enter in this letter on the Play think, whom the travail of generations ever produced. He gave to itself, for I should like to keep that for a separate one. So I will every beggar who asked of him, but without a trace of sympathy, only just say a word of our journey to Ammergau, and release you and all the three days he drove us I never saw him voluntarily for the present. We came from Paris by way of Vesoul, Belfort, open his mouth, or, except once, change his expression. That was Mulhouse, and Basle, all places except the last, now likely, it is when a great beam of wood lay across the road, whereupon he said, to be trodden by an invading army, if the Prussians should stopped, descended, heaved it into the lake, and smiled grimly. be victorious. We had no more anticipation than anybody else of Henry asked him if he would not stay over the Sunday atAmmergau the advancing shadow, but I shall never forget the utter dreariness and see the performance, but he replied curtly that if he did he in which the East of France seemed to be lying on that scorching should lose two days and be "eating up" all he had earned by the day. The pastures were all burnt brown. Mighty clouds job. " Deutscher Ernst" certainly never assumed a more wooden of dust travelled with the train. When the usual "hat- apathy, yet there was nothing ill-tempered about the youth. He meals" — as they funnily call the hot meals so ingeniously seemed to me a new species produced by the hard conditions of the provided in baskets—were thrust into the carriages at Vesoul, struggle for existence in Austria,—a Stoic labourer who had there was little appetite to consume them. A burning thirst survived laughter and tears. And his horse was like him. All consumed the travellers, who rushed to a flowing spring at one day, and every one of these three days, that indefatigable of the smaller stations, and thrust their heads and hands under creature climbed and descended almost perpendicular moun- the refreshing stream. France, as we noticed at the time, had never tam-sides as if it went by machinery and were incapable of looked to us so dreary, and never were two mortals gladder to enter exhaustion. For three days of more or leas hearty enjoyment—modi- on the land of bubbling waters and mighty rapids and everlasting fled, no doubt, by Salbs-eotelettes, and smells, and dirty table-linen arts as a tempter, to see the little man above the great Berne clock ice than we when we greeted the Rhine as it rushes in all its grandeur waggle his feet as the hand touches the mark, the procession of by the Three Kings ' at Basle, just fresh from its mighty leaps at Bears go solemnly round, the figure of Time shake his scythe, and Laufenburg and Schaffhausen, and not much above a hundred the little cock at the side crow his satisfaction at the expiration of miles from the picturesque spot where the two brawling mountain another hour spent by Europe in all sorts of refined preparation torrents, called the Vorder and Hinter Rhein, even after uniting for human misery. It was really very curious to-day, when their forces, hardly succeed, at least in summer-time, in estab- one knew what each hour was probably doing on the Rhine, fishing any title to be called a river. Even Basle we hardly to see the English and American, and even German enjoyed. The Minster was beautiful, but the grand old cloisters tourists, steadily watching with signs of anxious and almost were " undergoing repair." The horse-chestnut terrace behind it nervous expectation, the operations of the grotesque mechanical looked cool and peaceful enough, as we watched the Rhine take toy on which the simple inhabitants of Berne have so long its last great sweep in the land of its birth, and then hurry along prided themselves. I am not sure that it does not give more to the countries where it is made a geographical plea for war that solid satisfaction to some of us than the vision of the Alps as we nations are not divided by it as they ought to be. It was market-day. see them from our windows here, suddenly unveiling their white and the Swiss peasants brought their dinners up to the terrace of forms in the setting sun like so many giants taking off the cloak of horse-chestnuts to eat, and sat pleasantly chatting and admiring the darkness, and then again shrouding themselves in it, and again Rhine, racing a hundred feet below them, as they sliced their throwing it off as if by caprice, though reallyas the laws of cloud and strong cheese and arranged their baskets for their journey back. vapour, light and shade decide. After all, it is very pleasant that men It was pleasant, too, being ferried over above the bridge, and should be able to remain children even in the midst of war and sitting on the bridge as we returned, to watch the girls going terror. The Alps are little relief to a mind strained by the story home after their shoppings, sometimes with the quaint black of human crime and enterprise. The great toy-clock is, and there Baden horns on their head, sometimes in Swiss costume, was something very touching about the pleased smile which passed oftenest of all in the neat cosmopolitan dress of the French grisette. like a ray of sunshine over so many wondering children,—grown- But we were very glad to get away from Basle, and to see the up, and otherwise,—as the doll-population of the Berne clock Rhine dwindling to a mighty rapid, as we skirted it all the way to woke into action and went through its momentary routine. I Schaffhausen, and finally saw it flow out of the Boden-See at Con- heard a German tourist who had been steadily sceptical to the last stance. The lake itself was dim and cold, and the steamer voyage moment, heave a great sigh of relief, and look as if a burden were upon it, never one of the pleasantest of Continental experiences,
lifted from his soul. unusually dreary, as American and Scotch tourists read aloud from
But to begin my story, if your earnest pages are not too full their guides in a magniloquent way the account of the number of of grimmer matter to accept my slight sketches. We left home, distinct countries around its shores, or eagerly debated the pro- Henry and I, on the 25th June, when war seemed about as likely per price of Paisley shawls, and the quickest mode of " doing " the as earthquake, pestilence, or famine on a great scale, and our only country between Lindau and Dresden. Then there were the usual fears for our discomfiture were connected with the uncertainties of smoke and smells, the usual minute vibration of lake steamers,—a the weather. We had long promised ourselves to see the Ammergau tick-tack from the stomach to the brain, —and the usual necessity for Passion-Play in 1870, and fortunately enough made it our first eating to avoid sinking of the stomach, though producing a sinking of instead of our last object,—for if we had not, we should, as we the heart;— and you can never get anything but Kalbs-cotelettes now know, have found the green mountain-side again bare of its upon a Constance steamer,—in other words, fleshy baby, done great theatre, and many of the actors, including, as I hear poor richly with bread crumbs. Yet there was a grand gleam of the Joseph M.air, who gave us so wonderful a vision of the Saviour snowy Sentis through the mists as we passed the heights of Appen- of mankind, girding themselves with that sword by which Mair zell, which the Scotch and Yankee disputants about the price of warned us in so solemn a voice that they who take it are wont Paisley shawls almost noticed, for I heard one of them say to perish. Nay, if it be true, as we see in the papers, that Saar- casually, 'That's a fine bank? We were glad to empty out briick was garrisoned by" only seven thousand Bavarians" on the almost all our 'bloated tourists' at Lindau, and enter on the day when little Louis received his baptism of fire, it may well be quiet country at Bregenz, where we got our first grand view that the actor who gave us momenta of mixed delight and pain and of the Boden-See. Going in search of the Gebhardsberg, which wonder and awe, such as I never thought to feel in the theatre of no one would have missed but ourselves, we got high into the hills any earthly land, has already passed through a severer baptism of between the Vorarlberg and the Bregenzerwald, and saw the fire than the melodramatic one reserved for little Louis, and dis- grandest of sunsets over the most lovely of scenes. The sky was covered behind the veil the difference between even his own fine barred with orange and golden and violet streaks, which painted dream of the Passion and the Passion which was no dream. You have the richest colours on the lake below ; the Alps of Appenzell stood yourself strikingly observed how strange an irony there seems in out in the yellow sunset, while the Bavarian mountains and the this violent break-up of the sacred play at Ammergau, through the great range of the Arlberg to the north and south-east stretched passions of Emperors and Kings who rudely bid the actors of the away in purple shadow. The lake itself from Rheineck and Lindau great tragedy take swords of this world into their hands, and in the foreground, to Constance in the far distance, was a miracle of banish to a more convenient season their visions of the faith that ideal colour,—touching more and richer lands of dream than is not of this world. If you. had heard Male say, with that deep Biideker or Murray ever reckoned that it touches lands of earth. spiritual gaze and that wide calm forehead which gave so strange We seemed to have reached the land of promise which travellers an impression of a soul living in permanent " detachment " from always dream of, and so seldom find. And with delight we earthly interests, "Hereafter I will not talk much with you, for anticipated the next day, when we were to plunge into these the Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me," you purple hills in the pleasantest of all conveyances for earthly would have felt the irony of the event even more keenly than you beings travelling in pairs,—an Einspanner, a one-horse easy car-
now and then—we drove through these purple mountains, now skirting green tarns, now winding along lovely lakes like the Plan- See, now driving for hours together through a pine forest, till on Friday, the 1st July, we reached the "friendly little room" at Ammergau which Herr Lehrer Gutsjell had prepared for our reception, and sat down to ask ourselves if we were not, after all, a little afraid of the pleasure which we had come sofas' to enjoy.—I am, Sir, &c., AN ENGLISHWOMAN IN DIFFICULTIES.
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