LEAVING Lucerne, Mont Pilatus and the Rigi behind us, we speed rapidly on through pleasant valleys and fragrant meadows. The country loses its high, mountainous nature, and becomes a level, well-farmed district, extremely pleasant after three weeks of nothing but huge mountains, steep passes and rugged hills. Mountain scenery is all very well in its way, but one can have too much of it. A little is quite sufficient.

Zurich is a beautiful city, lying around the head of the lake of the same name. The old portion dates back to the twelfth century, and contains many interesting relics of that period. But around the old part there has grown up a fine modern city, whose solid substantial buildings, of fine architecture, contrast strangely with the old houses and churches that were built centuries ago.

Its location could not be more beautiful. In front is the clear pale-green lake, from which the limpid Limmat emerges and divides the city into two parts. Its shores are lined with picturesque villas, peeping out from among the orchards and vineyards that clothe the banks, clear to the foot of the snow clad Alps which form a strong background, being so far away that they are soft and subdued in the hazy air that partly obscures them from view.

The pride of Zurich is her schools, indeed all of German Switzerland is proud to recognize this place as its educational center. For centuries it has enjoyed this distinction, and its University, founded in 1832, is maintaining in these years the reputation of the city.

Where German is spoken three things are always found, music, wine and beer. Bacchus, Gambrinus and Orpheus go hand in hand, and they engross the German mind about equally. Zurich has more music to the square foot than any of the Swiss cities, and the other two members of the trinity are by no means neglected.

The Tonhalle is a spacious building finely decorated with rare plants and flowers, and brilliantly lighted with gas jets springing from artificial palm trees. Here the good citizens of Zurich spend an evening of perfect enjoyment. An orchestra of seventy pieces, each performer a trained musician, renders a programme of classical and popular music, in the most perfect manner. The vast audience, composed of ladies and gentlemen of the best standing, sit around the little round tables sipping their light wine or beer, listening to the music and, during the intervals, chatting and laughing and thoroughly enjoying themselves. There is a something about such an evening that is irresistable. The perfect order that prevails, the exquisite music, the brilliancy of the room, all combined to make it a perfect delight. Night after night—the programme is never twice alike—the Tonhalle is crowded with the wealth and fashion of Zurich, people of refinement and culture, who can fully appreciate and enjoy the delightful music.

There is one custom which obtains all over Germany, and especially in Zurich, which is a German city in reality, which custom I would could be transplanted in all its native vigor to America; and that is the carrying of the family relation into amusement as well as business.

A Zuricher doesn’t eat his supper in silence, his mind full of his business, and after, without a word, put on his hat and overcoat, and with some indistinct reference to a lodge or a council meeting, or “the office,” walk off to a club or beer place, and spend the evening convivially, only to return in the middle of the night, and roll into his bed without knowing or caring whether his wife and children have had a pleasant evening or no.

Not he! On the contrary, he consults his wife at lunch as to whether she prefers a dinner at home or at the gardens. The programmes of the various places are consulted, and it is decided, we will say, that the Tonhalle affords the most ponderous inducement; and so the whole family—father, mother, children, and grandchildren and grandparents, if such there be—go together and dine to the soft pleasings of the lute, or, rather, to the music of a magnificent orchestra.

For, be it known, at all these musical resorts there are superb restaurants, where splendid repasts are served at a very low price, so that in the matter of expense it makes no difference whether a family dines at home or at the public gardens.

The whole family sit and chat over their dinner in the jolliest way, listening to, enjoying and discussing the music, and after the dinner there is the long evening over the delightful light wines for the ladies and children, and the heavier beer for the adults; there are cigars for the males, and confections for the women and children, and so on, until the hour comes for home.

These concerts are made up of all kinds of music, from the weightiest classical to the most simple and popular, but the simple and popular is rendered with as much painstaking conscientiousness as the highest. They do “Way down upon the Swanee River” as conscientiously as a selection from Wagner, and as the performance lasts four hours or more there is variety enough to suit every taste.

And then, after it is over, the whole family go home, pleased with their simple enjoyment, and they go home together. The husband does not stop on the way; his enjoyment is with his family, and in his family.

There is no more pleasant sight in Europe than a Swiss or German family around one of these tables, enjoying drinking, music, smoking, and conversation, all at once. Happy people! They have the rare art of gratifying all the senses at once, at less cost than an American can any one singly. The whole cost of an evening in the Tonhalle for a man and his entire family is less than many an American of very moderate means spends upon himself alone, and they get ten times as much out of it as we do.

Tibbitts insisted the first night he was with a German family at one of these places, that he should certainly marry a German girl and settle in Switzerland. When you can dine a large family for a dollar, wine, music and cigars included, was his remark, there is some inducement for having a family. He could afford, if the price of land kept up in Wisconsin, to have an indefinite number of children.

And the Young Man who Knows Everything, who felt the influence of the heady wine he had drank, added, with great gravity: “Better a dinner of herbs on a house-top with a brawling woman, than to dwell with a stalled ox in the tents of wickedness.” It was his time for a quotation.

From Zurich through Basle, or Bale, we come to Strasburg, one of the most interesting cities in Europe.

In this old city of Strasburg, founded by the Romans hundreds of years ago, we get a better idea of old architecture than in any city yet visited. Its narrow, crooked streets, with high, many-storied roofs, tell the story of its age in unmistakable language. The unique wood carving that embellishes the faÇades of so many of the old wooden buildings look strange and out of place in this matter-of-fact age, but in years gone by they gave to Strasburg the name of “the most beautiful city.”

Approaching the city we pass a number of strong fortifications, which were in active use during the Franco-Prussian war. Strasburg, two miles from the Rhine, has always been a strategical point, and played a very important part in the struggle of 1870-71, the siege, which lasted from the thirteenth of August till the twenty-seventh of September, being one of the marked episodes of the war.

Once in the city the tourist turns first to the cathedral, which stands nearly in the center of the city. Unfortunately for the general effect, it is located in a neighborhood of narrow streets and ugly high-roofed houses that entirely surround the massive pile, and the first impression is rather disappointing. But this feeling soon wears off. There is a certain majesty about the noble building that compels admiration, while the cloud-cleaving spire, wondrously graceful, is a marvel of strength and grace. It is a fascinating structure. The more one studies its beautiful proportions, and the wonderful decorations which so profusely embellish it, the more he is struck with wonder at the genius of the architect and the skill of the patient builders.

The present cathedral was begun some time during the twelfth century, on the site of one destroyed by fire, said to have been built during the sixth century. Tradition says that the site of the present cathedral has been devoted to worship from the remotest times; that there was a sacred wood in the midst of which the Celts built their Druidical Dolmen. After the Romans conquered Gaul, they founded a fortified town, where Strasburg now stands, and in place of the Dolmen they dedicated a temple to Hercules and Mars. Old chronicles record that in the fourth century St. Armand built a church on the ruins of an old Roman temple, the previous existence of which is authenticated by the finding of several brass statues of Hercules and Mars, during the excavations for the foundations of the first cathedral.

From the beginning of the work on the present cathedral

down to 1870 it has been terribly unfortunate, having been burned, struck by lightning, shaken by earthquakes, and in 1870 it suffered terribly by the cannon balls of the German besiegers. In the first part of the siege of Strasburg, the Germans tried to force the surrender by the bombardment and partial destruction of the inner town. In the night of the 23d of August began for the frightened inhabitants the real time of terror; however, that night the rising conflagrations, for instance in St. Thomas’ Church, were quickly put out. But in the following night the new church, the library of the town, the museum of painting, and many of the finest houses, became a heap of ruins, and under the hail of shells all efforts to extinguish the fire were useless. For the cathedral the night from the 25th to the 26th of August was the worst. Towards midnight the flames broke out from the roof perforated by shells, and increased by the melting copper they rose to a fearful height beside the pyramid of the spire. The sight of this grand volume of flames, rising above the town, was indescribable and tinged the whole sky with its glowing reflection. And the guns went on thundering, and shattering parts of the stone ornaments which adorned the front and sides of the cathedral. The whole roof came down and the fire died out for want of fuel.

The following morning the interior was covered with ruins, and through the holes in the vault of the nave one could see the blue sky. The beautiful organ built by Silbermann was pierced by a shell, and the magnificent painted windows were in great part spoiled. On the 4th of September two shells hit the crown of the cathedral and hurled the stone masses to incredible distance; on the 15th a shot came even into the point below the cross, which was bent on one side, and had its threatened fall only prevented by the iron bars of the lightning conductor which held it.

After the entrance of the Germans into the reconquered town, the difficult and dangerous work of restoration of the point of the spire was begun at once and happily ended a few months after. They have now obliterated all traces of the ruin and devastation of that dreadful time.

This is war, and what was this war all about? Why, Louis Napoleon, who stole France and kept the French enslaved by amusing one-half of them that he might rob the other half, had to appeal to French patriotism and plunge France into a war to cover his Imperial thefts. On the other hand, the Kaiser William, and the iron-handed Bismarck, who had been grinding the people of Germany for years to prepare for war, were not slow to accept the challenge. What they wanted was to have more territory to plunder. There was no bad blood between the French and German people; it was the self-constituted rulers of the two peoples, who, for their own glory, set them to butchering each other. And so at it they went.

These kings and emperors respect neither God nor man, and so they sent their bombs hurtling through this wonderful temple dedicated to God.

Nothing to the gunners inspired by royalty was the delicate tracery, the genius-inspired proportions, the almost breathing statues, the wonderfully beautiful spire, that crystallized dream; nothing to them the magnificent organ, attuned to the sweetest worship of the Most High, nothing the recollections of the centuries that clustered about it, nothing the art treasures it held. It was Strasburg, and Strasburg must fall.

And they counted God’s images in the doomed city even less than they did God’s temple. And so they sent shells crashing through the homes of Strasburg, and men were killed in its streets, women in the houses, and children in their cradles. It made no difference to the white-bearded William, the iron-handed Bismarck, or the sensual Napoleon. It was their fight, but they bore none of the suffering. The Kaiser actually had the impudence to order a thanksgiving for the slaughter of ten thousand Frenchmen, and Louis Napoleon would have done the same had he been in condition.

I have expressed my opinion of kings before. The more one sees of them and their work the less love he has for them. Soldiers and thin soup for the people in Germany, soldiers and starvation in Ireland. That’s what royalty and nobility mean everywhere—brute force and suffering.

The faÇade of the great cathedral is by Erwin, of Steinbach, the most famous architect of the middle ages, and is a marvel of beauty, its massive proportions being toned down and improved by the innumerable figures, statues, and a fine rose window, forty-two feet in diameter, that adorn it.

Entering the cathedral, one is greatly impressed with the harmonious effect produced by the massive yet graceful columns from which spring the light arches that form the ceiling. The proportions are admirable, the height being ninety-nine feet, the width forty-five yards, and the length one hundred and twenty-one yards.

The pulpit, a fine specimen of stone carving, dates back to 1485, and affords a good idea of the style of art that flourished in Germany at that time.

Next to the cathedral itself, which demands a great deal of study, the great astronomical clock attracts the most attention. It was constructed during the years 1838-42, by a Strasburg clockmaker named Schwilgue, and is a wonderful piece of mechanism. The exterior, handsomely decorated with exquisite carvings and paintings, shows a perpetual calendar, with the feasts that vary, according to their connection with Easter or Advent Sunday. The dial, which is thirty feet in circumference, is subject to a revolution in three hundred and sixty-five or three hundred and sixty-six days, and indicates the suppression of the circular bi-sextile days. There is also a complete planetarium, representing the mean tropical revolutions of each of the planets visible to the naked eye, the phases of the moon, and the eclipses of the sun and moon calculated forever.

Then with the same mechanism a number of figures are made to go through certain motions at stated intervals. At noon the twelve apostles appear before the Savior, who raises his hands to bless them, during which time a cock flaps his wings, and crows three times. A figure of Death stands in the midst of figures representing the four ages, childhood striking the first quarter of the hour, youth the second, manhood the third, and old age the last. Just before each quarter is struck, one of the two genii seated above this perpetual calendar strikes a note of warning. When the hour is struck by Death, the second of these genii turns over the hour glass he holds in his hand. It is a wonderful piece of mechanism.

As with everything else of public interest around this section, where in olden times imagination ran riot, this clock has its legend. It is said that, long ages ago, a mechanic of Strasburg labored and studied for years for the accomplishment of some purpose that he kept secret from all his neighbors. Even his only child, a lovely girl who was sought in marriage by a prospective mayor of the city, and by a handsome young clockmaker, was not allowed to enter the room where this mysterious work was being carried on.

In the course of time the elder suitor was made mayor, and then proposed for the hand of the beautiful girl, who, loving the young man, refused him. Soon after this, the old mechanic showed to the astonished citizens of Strasburg, who up to this time had ridiculed him as an insane person, the wonderful clock he had constructed. He at once became very popular, much to the disgust of the mayor who had been rejected by his daughter.

The clockmaker’s fame spread all over the country, and the citizens of Basel, a neighboring city, attempted to buy the wonderful piece of mechanism. But the corporation of Strasburg would not part with it, and caused a chapel to be built in the cathedral for its reception. Then the citizens of Basel offered a large sum of money if the master would construct them a similar clock, and he accepted their offer.

This would never do. The wonderful clock was the principal glory of Strasburg, and people were coming from all parts of the then civilized world to see it. If Basel should have a clock like it or superior to it, it would divide the trade as well as the glory, and Strasburg, instead of standing alone as the possessor of such a piece of mechanism, would have a rival. Should Basel get a clock, the citizen thereof would cock his hat upon one side of his head and say, to a Strasburger, “You needn’t put on airs about your old clock, with its twelve apostles, and all that. We see your twelve apostles and go you a Judas Iscariot better. You have a rooster it is true, we admit that, but we have one with all the latest improvements. He flaps his wings better than yours, and his crow is three times as loud. Come over to Basel and see a really good clock.”

To prevent this the City Council of Strasburg, at the suggestion of the mayor who had never got over being rejected by the clock-maker’s daughter, determined to put out the old gentleman’s eyes, which they rightly judged would prevent him from making any more clocks, and Strasburg would still have the glory of owning the most wonderful one in the world. This was assented to and the poor man was asked if there was anything he wanted before the sentence was executed. He asked to have the terrible operation performed in front of his noble work. When taken before it, he gazed at it fondly, and secretly slipped out of place two or three important springs. Just as the torture was completed the works in the clock began to whirr, it struck thirteen times and then ceased to work. The glory of Strasburg was destroyed. The artisan lost his sight, the city its clock, the mayor his love—in short, it was a dead loss all around, as it always is when fair dealing is departed from.

Years after the young clockmaker married his old blind friend’s daughter, and after many years of hard, steady work, succeeded in repairing and improving the clock, which was the predecessor of the one now in the cathedral.

This is the legend of the clock.

In the Protestant church of St. Thomas is one of the finest monuments in Europe. It was erected by Louis XV. in honor of Marshal Saxe.

In front of a high tablet, upon which there is a long inscription, is a figure of the Marshal, heroic size, dressed in military uniform. He is descending a short flight of steps leading to a coffin, the lid of which Death holds open for his reception. A female figure, representing France, attempts to detain the Marshal and ward off Death. On the left, Hercules in a mournful attitude leans upon his club. Commemorating the Marshal’s victories in the Flemish war are the Austrian eagle, the Dutch lion and the English lion.

The whole work is exquisitely done, the figures of France and Death being wonderful specimens of carving in marble. The artist, Pigalle, was occupied twenty years in the execution of this masterpiece.

There are several other things of interest in the old church of St. Thomas, besides the memorial of the great marshal, though they are of the ghastly order, and more curious than pleasing.

A great many years ago there lived in Strasburg a lunatic whose very soul was bound up in this old church. His soul being devoted to it, he determined to throw in his body, and so he starved himself to death that he might leave the corporation more money. He left all his fortune to the church, and the least it could do was to give him a tomb, which it did, and then carved upon it his emaciated form, taking him after death, that nothing should be lacking in ghastliness. When religion or vanity, or a compound of both, is freakish, it is very freakish.

The most repulsive sight in all Europe is within these venerable walls. The Duke of Nassau wanted immortality, and so his remains—he was killed in battle—are carefully preserved in a glass case, hermetically sealed, clad in the very garments he wore when death struck him. And after he was killed his little daughter, aged thirteen, died, and the family had her poor remains, clad in the silks and tinsel of the period, disposed of in the same way.

And there they are to this day, as beautiful a commentary on human hopes and human ambitions as one would wish to see.

The Duke of Nassau was a mighty man in his day, and he hoped to be remembered of men for all time. What is he now? The flesh has melted from his bones, the very bones are crumbling into dust, the garments in which he was clad are disappearing, and all there is of him is a grinning, ghastly skeleton, and the daughter is the same in the same way; the flesh has disappeared from her bones, the little finger, once so plump and taper, is now a bone which time has eaten away to almost nothing; the ring of gold which she wore in life is still there, but it hangs on a time-wasted bone, the flesh having melted from under it.

It is a ghastly commentary. The duke undertook a fight with Time with a certainty of Time’s winning. The philosopher draws a moral from his poor remains, the loose-minded make jokes over them. Could he hear the comments on his once august body he would get up and walk out of that church, and go and bury himself somewhere in some cemetery, that he might, as he should, be forgotten once for all. The duke should have realized the fact before he had himself put in this glass case, that so far as earth goes, everything ends with death, and that efforts that men have made to perpetuate their memory have been invariably failures. The kings who built the pyramids, solid as they are, are scarcely remembered.

It was in a famous beer house in Strasburg that we met an American who was not of the regulation kind, and who, consequently, was a sweet boon.

He came into the place with a slouching gait, though his manner was by no means deprecatory or humble. There was nothing in him to distinguish him from the regular tramp, except that his rum-illuminated face carried on its surface more intelligence and less brutality than the usual tramp shows, and he evidently had some idea of not bidding eternal good-bye to his respectability. Instead of the greasy wrap about the throat of the regular tramp, he had a paper collar, which he had unquestionably picked up somewhere and turned, and his coat was buttoned up carefully to conceal the painfully evident absence of a shirt, a deceit the confirmed tramp would scorn to practice. And then he wore a tall hat, and had made attempts to brush it, and his carriage, when he knew he was observed, was bold and defiant, and not cringing or slouching.

He sat down at the table with us, and commenced conversation with some remarks about the weather, some original remarks concerning the state of trade, and from that he glided with a grace that was to be commended into a disquisition as to the effect upon the commerce of the world of the building of a ship-canal across the Isthmus, and likewise the effect it would have upon the climate of the United States, ending his conversation with the request of the loan of a dollar.

“How happens it,” I asked, “that a man informed as you are, with your evident education and your general information should be borrowing dollars in this way?”

“Excuse me, sir,” said he; “I have not borrowed dollars, as yet, though I hope to. You have, as yet, made no response to my modest appeal. But why am I thus? Can you tell? Can I tell? Who is responsible for what happens to him? Who can control tastes? Who can analyze that subtle and unknown thing we call mind?”

“But who are you, anyhow?”

“I am a graduate of Harvard, sir, and a son of one of the once wealthiest men in Boston.”

“Why this condition of things, then?”

“My dear sir, I was born fortunately—you would say unfortunately—I say fortunately. I had tastes, appetites, and a philosophical mind. While a student I indulged those tastes to the top of my bent. I was the best billiard player, the most constant and steady drinker, the hardest rider, and, in fact, the most confirmed pleasure seeker in the college. I utterly refused to do anything that did not please me. I learned much, for the pursuit of knowledge afforded me a delight, but I would learn nothing the getting of which did not afford me pleasure.

“At the close of my college career, the world was before me. The question was, what should I do? What should be the plan of my life? Should I go into business, and make a great fortune? Should I go into literature, and make myself an imperishable name? Should I go into politics, and control the destinies of nations?

“Fortunately philosophy came to my aid. What earthly good would all this do me? What good of piling up money? What good of making a name, and what earthly use was there in controlling the destiny of nations? I could do something for myself, and what I did for myself I got the good of, but why worry about making a name, or why labor to make money which I could not take with me?

“I could see no good in any of it, and so I followed the impulses of my nature, feeling that if nature was no guide then was I lost, indeed.

“I sang, I drank, I yachted, I did everything till my money was gone, and here I am.”

“Would it not have been better for you had you followed a more reputable career?”

“I don’t see it. I could have done anything that I wanted to, but to what purpose? Sir, the world is coming to an end, shortly. The approach of various planets to the earth, the frequency of comets, the changes so common now that have been totally unknown, all conspire to a very sudden ending of the planet on which we live and move. Within my life-time, doubtless, there will be a collapse. We shall either get away from the sun or get into it, or some erratic planet will come bouncing into us, and the entire universe will go to eternal smash. The earth will either melt or freeze solid, or it will be dispersed into infinitesimal fragments.

“Now, sir, let me ask you what encouragement there is for a man to worry himself about making a fortune with this terrible condition of things staring him in the face? What good would the ownership of the New York Central Railroad be when there is a certainty that the entire structure, road-bed, depots, rolling stock and everything will be utterly destroyed within my life-time? Under such circumstances who would care to own a city, or to possess in fee simple the cattle on a thousand hills? What is beef going to be worth then?

“And then reputation. When the earth melts and the sky is rolled up like a scroll, where is your Shakespeare? Where is Milton, Byron, Burns, and the long list of men who have written that their names may be everlasting? The dust of Shakespeare will be mingled with that of the organ grinder across the street, and the pyramids will be of no more account than the dirt-heap on the other side, which the Street Commissioner never moves away. The libraries will all be destroyed, and in the general annihilation, clergymen, scholars, capitalists, life insurance agents, presidents, emperors, book agents and tramps will all stand upon a common level. One fragment of me may assume the character of an aerolite and astonish the natives of another planet, and another fragment may go to feed the sun and thus furnish heat for the shivering tramp on Mars, and mingled with me may be the iron that is now in the system of Vanderbilt.

“Therefore I have no desire for a name or money. Things are not sufficiently permanent to be desirable for an ambitious man.

“But speaking of the great cataclysm that is imminent, I did not hear any response to my application for a loan of a dollar to relieve my hunger. That is permanent, and will be till the universal smash-up.”

I gave the man a franc.

“It is little but it will do, it will assuage the pangs of hunger. A philosopher needs but little. Thank you. Farewell forever. In the smash that is to come, let us hope that our fragments may come together, and that we may sail through space in company.”

And he departed. He did not go to a restaurant, but he went, as straight as the bird flies, to the nearest brandy shop from which he emerged in a minute with his face illuminated. He did not live by bread alone.

Strasburg is rich in antiquity, rich in the quaintest old houses on the continent, houses that commence inland from the sidewalk, each story projecting above the one under it, the fronts filled full of carving of the quaintest and most curious description. These houses, some of them, count the years of their being by the hundreds, and Strasburg, sleepy old town that it is, either keeps them because she is too lazy to pull them down, or because she really treasures them because of their age.

An American looking at them feels that time has gone backward with him, and that he has awakened in the fourteenth century.

Here you see the genuine Alsatian costume. The women are, as a rule, fine-looking, some of them pretty, and the style of dress fits their peculiar style of beauty. They wear immense bows of wide black ribbon, which stands up at the back of the head, and flares out at the sides like the wings of a wind-mill. This admits of no hat or any other head-gear, and its effect, though odd at first sight, is rather pleasing. However, anything looks well on a pretty woman, and the women of Alsace are all comely. They wear their gowns short, that the effect of shapely ankles and trim feet may not be lost, and altogether they are good specimens of femininity.

The peculiarity of the old houses in Strasburg, already spoken of, is greatly intensified by the huge storks’ nests that crown the large awkward chimneys of many of the houses. All Summer long, the great white storks live in Strasburg, until the cold weather drives them further south. Their nests are built on the tops of chimneys, of rough sticks and straw, and are very clumsy-looking affairs. But when there is a white stork standing in them, solemn and grave, on one leg, the other drawn closely under him, the effect is extremely ludicrous.

The stork is a peculiarly Strasburgian institution. It is considered a bad omen if a stork leaves a house, in the chimney of which he has once built his nest, and misfortune is certain, so they believe, to follow any one who mistreats or offends a stork.

There are thousands of legends about them, in brief the stork figures in everything Strasburgian. It is said that about a week before their departure in the Autumn, all the storks meet in a meadow outside of the city and hold solemn council, the oldest acting as chairman, and all talking and discussing things the same as men do, in their own language. It is not said that they come to blows in their debates, as American Congressmen do, but that is doubtless because they know only French and German usages. The stork is a well behaved bird.