CHAPTER XIX
A YEAR OF TRAVEL
During our long residence in Rome I made frequent flying trips to America to see my mother. On one of these visits my friends, Captain and Mrs. George Hamilton Perkins, asked me to take their daughter Isabel back with me to Europe. Of the many conversations I had with the parents of this adored only child, one phrase alone hangs in my memory. The gallant Captain said to me in a voice strangely moved with feeling, “I want my little girl to grow up to be a noble woman.”
My letters for the next year tell the story of our travels. I strove to do for my young charge what my mother had done for me nearly twenty years before; above all, I tried to help her live up to her father’s ideal.
[To my Mother.]
Paris. November 5, 1895. We have been in Paris three weeks, weather good for the season and Paris as ever the gayest, bonniest, neatest lass in the sisterhood of cities. We are shopping, sight-seeing, studying French and going to the theater. Last night to the Théâtre Français. The play was “L’Ami des Femmes” by Dumas. Not very “_jeune fille_” but more so than anything they are likely to give. The acting was exquisite and the hero, Worms, a man of eighty, a fine exemplar of the old school of legitimate drama. Rather trying, though, to see a man of that age in a part for a _jeune premier_. Compared to the Français I remember, with Mounet-Sully, Sarah Bernhardt and Croizette in their prime, playing the “Sphinx”, “Adrienne”, “L’Étrangère” and “Hernani”, it was slow music. The women were mostly old and the whole atmosphere fossilesque. I wonder if the greed for money doesn’t lure away many of the stars, or whether it was chance that made the performance seem so far below those I remember. The opera is only fair, all the best singers having gone to the United States. If they give the “Train de Plaisir” at home be sure and see it. ’Tis very funny and will give you a good laugh. The latest art news is that a fine new statue of Meissonier has just been unveiled. Paris is so Americanized that it’s tiresome. At the circus and the variety shows English is more spoken than French. At the Folies Bergères the French actors who took part acted in pantomime, while all the dialogue and the songs were in English. Isabel is a dear good affectionate child. If she learns one quarter of what I am learning in trying to teach her, it will be well for her.
Yesterday to see your old friend, Mrs. Greene.[3] She was charming, lying in bed dressed in blue satin and white lace, quite lovely to behold. She told me of Willie Greene’s fine boys; the eldest, son of the first wife, lives with her. I can still repeat every poem in W. G.’s two books, “Imogen” and the “Wild Cat Express.” His second marriage to his first love, Sally Austin, was most romantic, and has turned out a very happy one!
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River Nile. On board the _Rameses III_. December 11, 1895. If you are as cold to-day in Boston as I am in Egypt, I am sorry for you. It is bitter, bitter! The journey began with a sandstorm. Egypt is Egypt still; this unseasonable weather will pass soon, and we shall have the usual cloudless skies. There are always the camels, the people, the dahabeahs, donkeys and palm trees, but I am glad I first saw it before it had become quite so much a beaten track for “trotters.” I have a little nig called Abdul for chambermaid. I like him better than anybody on the ship. We can’t talk much, but I teach him “trunk” and he says “skunk”, and I teach him “bottle” and he says “throttle”, which is pleasant.
Also I like M. Angier, a French gentleman, a lieutenant in the army. He is from Lyons, a legitimist, a devoted Catholic and an earnest little person. His amazement at the American Meess is amusing. The sunsets are supreme, the river as beautiful, the people, camels, donkeys, goats and buffaloes as picturesque as when you and I saw them. In Cairo things are changed; here on the Nile all is as in the days of Joseph. I read my Bible a great deal, looking up all references to Moses and all the rest of them.
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Assouan. December 21, 1895. It is all as wonderful as ever. New temples, some of them unearthed by your Egyptian Exploration Fund, some by the French, are on every side. We arrived at Assouan yesterday. There is a small English garrison here and we had some of the pretty officers over to dance with the girls. Isabel is the sweetest-tempered creature alive. It’s nearly three months since we set sail; in all this time she has never been anything but sweet and docile. I think this is remarkable. The beauty of these Nubians is something you will remember. I am in a state of perfect delight all the time at the perfection of their type! The “black Hamburg bloom”, as you called it, makes white people look pale and washed out. I should like to buy one of these Nubians and bring him home as a present to you. Do you remember Constance Rothschild’s Nubian and how faithful he was to her? Oh, the beauty of Elephantine Island! and best of all, Philae lies before us to-morrow. This morning to the bazaars with M. Philipon, an Egyptologist, to pick up some trifles and to the quarries where we saw the half-cut obelisk lying there all unfinished. There are hotels now at Luxor and Assouan. I grow deeply interested in the lore of Egypt. I should like to pass a year here. I begin to understand the theory of hieroglyphics and would undertake to read the simple ones in six months. It’s a fascinating subject, the first step beyond mere picture language. We are living on very familiar terms with Thothmes, Rameses and Queen Hatasu.
I am not sure whether it was upon this visit or a subsequent one, that I saw in the Museum at Cairo the mummied face of the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the time of Joseph. The features and the hair were so well preserved that one gathers just what sort of looking man this Pharaoh must have been. Of all the wonders that Archaeology has revealed nothing has so much impressed me as looking upon the very face that Joseph saw.
Jaffa. January 1, 1896. It’s all just as it was! The house of Simon the Tanner, the queer little hotel kept by the German religious colonists, the big oranges, the delay of the steamer. We are toiling away at the Old and New Testaments. Have much enjoyed talks with young Bliss, son of President Bliss of Beirut College, a learned man bred for the orthodox church and now a sort of Unitarian. He is excavating in and about Jerusalem and is tracing the site of the old walls. We flounder along in Biblical history. We have now got the Jews out of Egypt and pulled Jericho about the ears of the unfortunate inhabitants. We have stopped the sun in the Valley and hanged the Five Kings. Now we are tackling Saul, David and Solomon. How perfectly gorgeous that old heathen’s love songs are!
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The Bible you gave me before I left has proved invaluable. All through Palestine my Bible and my guidebook have hardly left my hands. My knowledge of the oratorios comes in well. I shall enjoy them as never before when I get back to Boston.
“What is the difference between Elisha and Elijah?” I heard an American tourist ask the other day. The words of our great basso, Myron Whitney, rang in my ears; I heard the stirring chorus from the “Elijah”!
I heard the tourist just quoted say to a fellow traveler:
“To-morrow we are going to see the Garden of the Yosemite,” meaning the Garden of Gethsemane. This showed how sadly the study of the Bible is neglected in modern education.
Our stay in Palestine was all too short. We had promised to return to Rome for the end of the season and in February we regretfully left the Holy Land for the Eternal City. During my absence J. had made some necessary alterations to our apartment, adding, among other things, a fireplace to our spare room, where our young guest soon began to feel herself at home.
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Rome. February 23, 1896. Great depression here over the Abyssinian War. The poverty is very sad, and the Adowa defeat casts a gloom. It seems now that the carrying on of the war is a matter of pride and a fear of loss of Italy’s prestige; the pride will cost the nation a cruel tribute of blood, treasure and broken hearts.
We have just returned from a trip around the Sorrentine peninsula. You remember the beauty of that country? The drive is now completed; we drove to Amalfi from Sorrento and on to La Cava, stopped at Ravello and wandered over the villa of Mr. Reed, the English gentleman you remember. It was all just as it was when we saw it in 1878. From La Cava we visited the Benedictine monastery founded in the eleventh century. Saw many interesting manuscripts, among others a marriage contract written on a sheepskin so cut that one sees where the neck and the legs of the animal came. It is dated A.D. 710. The husband endowed the wife with one fourth of his worldly goods; save the Egyptian papyri, I have never seen so curious a document.
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Langen Schwalbach. May 15, 1896. We spent a night at Weisbaden on our way here. There we had the luck to see the German Kaiser at the theater. The town was hung with wreaths, filled with triumphal arches, and quite beside itself on account of the visit of Imperial Bill. He sat in the front of the box surrounded by officers in shining uniform. I don’t like him, because he has treated his mother so outrageously, and because he is so selfish in constantly “dropping in” for a friendly visit to Italy, which costs the Italian Government a pretty penny it can ill afford. The visits are not returned, but he does not take the hint and comes again! He looks like his pictures, only more arrogant. Do you remember how gracious the old Emperor William was, and the Emperor Frederick? He is not like either of them.
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Langen Schwalbach. June 20, 1896. I am aghast as you must be at the Cretan horror; and when the newspapers speak of the United States having helped the Cretans so much in the revolt against their Turkish masters in 1867, I think of Papa and you, who were the moving spirits in that great and generous American aid. I feel so little and helpless, I wish I could have been a giant too! But what was Caesar’s son? After all, I think you and Papa are lucky in that you didn’t have a family of fools, like so many great people.
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Partenkirchen. July 4, 1896. Here we are in the Bavarian Highlands, near the boundary of the Austrian Tyrol. You can hardly fancy even with your poet’s imagination how lovely it is. Our hotel is a clean countrified sort of place built like a Swiss châlet. The men wear the pretty picturesque old costume almost exclusively. The green felt Tyrolese hat with the bunch of feathers at the back is universal with the middle class. The peasants wear black leather breeches embroidered daintily in green, ending above the knees, which are bare like the Highlanders’; below the knee is a gray or green stocking finishing just above the ankle. The white linen shirt is very full, with braces embroidered in green over it. The jacket, sported only when it is cold, is of gray or green cloth with silver or stag horn buttons. The politeness of the people I never saw equaled. Everybody bows to us, and in the more primitive towns the little children come gravely up to us and shake hands as we pass their houses. The piety is very impressive after Italy. There are shrines everywhere, and over many of the house fronts frescoes of sacred subjects; so far however I have not caught sight of a priest or a monk. I like these simple mountain folk much. From nine in the morning till nightfall we are out of doors; we climb, we walk, we drive. From here we shall visit poor King Ludwig’s wonderful castles, which perhaps cost him his crown, his liberty, his life.
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Partenkirchen. July 11, 1896. I sent you a line from Oberammergau written on the way to that enchanted fairyland of the poor mad dreamer, Ludwig. We saw his two castles, Linderhof and Hohenschwangau, dreamlike places full of a haunting romance and fantastic luxury. Ludwig used to drive through the forests at night in a huge sledge of silver and blue drawn by six snow-white horses, his way lighted by flashing torches. On his visits to the castles he always arrived exactly at midnight. Hohenschwangau is built close to the old schloss of the Knights of the Swan. There are swans everywhere, a lake full of live ones, and in the Castle a thousand swans, of silver, ivory, porcelain,--every conceivable material. These castles are in the heart of the mountains, far from all other human habitations. The effect of this majestic luxury with the background of snow-capped mountains and foreground of forest and mountain brooks where we saw the deer running wild, surpasses anything I have ever seen.
I wonder if Ludwig II was really mad, or if he was only a born poet and dreamer who had the power to try and realize his dreams in bricks and mortar, as few poets ever had. He drained the treasury of his country to build these palaces, and it was not hard perhaps for his dull and greedy relatives to shut him up so that they might reign in his stead. One of his extravagances was to have the Wagner operas performed at midnight, his favorite hour, with no one present but himself.
We have had many glimpses of the Empress of Austria. She is an imperial looking woman with her splendid figure and her gorgeous hair, still bright brown, wound in close braids round and round her head. The day when we drove from Linderhof to Hohenschwangau, she walked! It took us six hours to drive and it took her ten hours to walk. She was accompanied by one forester and her Greek teacher, a young man of about thirty. She recognized us, for we have met her several times walking in the forest. She bowed and smiled very sweetly to us. Her face is tragically sad in repose. She lives in great retirement since the mysterious death, murder, or suicide, of her only son Rudolph, who was found with his mistress killed in a hunting lodge.
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Baden Baden. August 1. We left Bayreuth day before yesterday. The operas were all that the most enthusiastic Wagnerian ever told you. They are given in the following sequence; the “Rheingold”, the “Walküre”, “Siegfried” and the “Götterdämmerung.” It is all very impressive, more like a religious function than an amusement. We stayed at the house of Carl Boller, _kaufmann_, had pleasant rooms infested with paper flowers and china knickknacks, but clean to a nicety and smelling only of new oil-cloth. The theater is finely situated outside the town on a hill. At four in the afternoon the audience of sixteen hundred and fifty souls assembled. The exterior of the building is ugly and humdrum but the acoustics are perfect. Shortly before the time for the beginning of the opera a band of trumpeters sounded forth a splendid call, different on each occasion and taken from some theme in the act following. At the third trumpet call the doors are shut, and the fellow who is shut out must wait till the act is over before they are opened. The theater is so constructed that it is claimed every seat is equally good, and while one may have one’s preference this is practically true; that there are no bad seats is certain. The floor slopes down like that in a circus but not so steep. The orchestra is out of sight. When the audience is comfortably seated the lights are turned low, the women take off their bonnets and the wonderful overture begins.
It is like a great fairy drama; the romance of it all is beyond telling. You are carried out of the world of mere personal artistic accomplishment into a universe of mysterious, terrible, delightful, primitive experiences. Gods, dragons, and talking birds seem as natural in this fairy realm as electric cars in Boston. You lose the personality of the artists, the wonderful art of the scene painter, the grandeur of the orchestra, all in the sublimated whole. A case in point,--I never cared to ask the names of the artists, and am now writing for a programme. It merely never struck me that these creatures were anything beside what they stood for in the Wagnerian universe.
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The Hague. August 16. We are pleasantly situated here in a comfortable, old-fashioned hotel. Holland is quite unchanged, the cities as quaint and clean as ever and the sense of familiarity, of being at home here, stronger than ever. We did not have a Dutch ancestor for nothing, did we? We have some pleasant acquaintances here, the family of our friend John Loudon, Secretary of the Netherlands Legation in Rome. We took tea with these kind people yesterday at their miraculously lovely house, a sort of miniature museum filled with superb Dutch art objects, among others the finest collection of old Delft I know, also rare silver, tapestries, wood-carving and other things all Hollandish. After the incongruous hodgepodge some collectors make of their houses, the perfect harmony of this interior was refreshing. M. Loudon, _père_, spoke of Germany with a sort of intense dread. I gathered that the Dutch live in terror of being swallowed alive by their increasingly powerful neighbor. Of all the countries I have seen on this rather extended tour, Germany is the most changed in the last eighteen years. Nassau, which we remember so picturesque and not too tidy, has taken on an impress of military spruceness and precision that makes one think of Berlin, which is the same unsympathetic place, only much larger and even uglier than before.
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38 Clarges Street, London. August 23. We are delightfully established in London lodgings, very comforting after the long months in hotels. To-day we went to church at St. Giles, Cripplegate, where we heard a good sermon. Yesterday we drove to Windsor and back by coach, a sixty-mile jaunt. The horses were changed eight times.
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Braemar, Scotland. September 8. We stopped at Leeds on our way to Scotland and spent two days with the Henry Appletons. He is the leading solicitor of Leeds, a man with a comfortable fortune made by hard work, a delightful home, and an interesting family. The young people were full of friendliness and sparkle. The whole family in type strongly resemble our Boston Appletons and the New York branch. There is nothing more fascinating than this study of types. When I saw the famous Gainsborough portrait of Lord Heathfield, the defender of Gibraltar, I realized how strong the Elliott type is. Mr. Elliott, at the Norman farm, might have sat for that portrait, and yet he has no tradition of his descent. How curiously indifferent our people are to these matters!
Our next visit was to Sir James and Lady Bell; he is Lord Provost of Glasgow and owner of the yacht _Thistle_, which he brought to America some years ago. These are brilliant people. The last official act of Lord Rosebery’s administration was to write the Queen, asking her to make Mr. James Bell a baronet. They are simply and frankly delighted with this well-deserved honor. They are both Scotch and have a superb shooting property where we stayed for two days. The house was full of gay young people. Our last visit was to the dear Fergusons. Mrs. F. is lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and daughter of the Earl of Bridport. Their gorgeous country house with its enormous preserves is let to rich Manchester Jews for the shooting season, and the Fergusons are living in a little cottage on the estate. They took us over the great house and showed us the treasures of generations of Fergusons of Pitfour. At luncheon a piper in full regalia wearing the Ferguson tartan marched thrice round the table, playing on the pipes.
We are now at Braemar, eight miles from Balmoral, where we have found “the finest air in the world”, much to our liking. Yesterday I saw Queen Victoria twice. I was sitting writing when I heard the clatter of hoofs, sprang to the window and cried out to the others, “The Queen, the Queen!” Two outriders in plain black liveries rode before on iron-gray horses, then came the black landau drawn by four fine dappled grays tearing along at a great pace. The Queen wore a black mushroom hat and a black woolen dress. There were two ladies-in-waiting with her. The resemblance to you is still strong. She is much better looking than her photographs.
Scotland was sublime, I can’t remember if you ever saw it. We had only a hurried glimpse, but that included the heather in its fullest purple glory, the admirable city of Edinburgh, the Castle of Balmoral, the Queen, and Ben Marone. I spent an afternoon alone on the mountainside and watched with David Balfour for the red coats creeping through the bracken, and communed with R. L. S. among the hills he loved.
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Paris. September 17, 1896. Last night to see Jane Hading in “L’Aventurière”; she is fine, but oh! the formality of the French drama! The Italian school of acting is so much finer that I am rather spoilt for the French; it seems to me stilted and academic after the art of Salvini, Ristori, Novelli, the Duse, and scores of others whose names I do not even know. You can see better acting in the average Italian theater than anywhere else in the world. I have Zola’s “Rome” for you. I don’t find it very interesting, though you might. The method he followed in writing it is illuminating. His wife and secretary came to Rome in advance and put in three months in getting the material together for the book. They interviewed scores of people, accumulated folios of notes and newspaper clippings. When all was ready Zola swooped down upon Rome, interviewed the most important people and put through the whole novel in a few weeks. I know so much of the sources from which he drew his anecdotes and characters that the book leaves me cold.
This is positively my last appearance on paper for the season. We came to Paris two days ago and have been hard at work shopping. Of the fitting of dresses there is no end. This will be a hectic visit, the days filled with dresses, bonnets and slippers, and partings with various beaux. We see some friends old and new. People are tonics, narcotics and irritants, also food and drink. David Hall once said I was like bread; now I fear I am more like a very hot ham sandwich!
This is probably the last letter you will receive from me; we sail in less than a fortnight. This almost makes me feel the frozen peaches of your cheek against mine when you come in from your morning trot on a cold day.
In October I returned my precious charge to her father and mother, safe and sound. She was the nearest thing to a daughter I ever had. In that year we were together I learned to understand something of the joys and anxieties parents feel; the delight of sharing whatever knowledge life has brought with a young and ardent spirit, and of forgetting one’s own affairs in the vivid interests of youth.