BY EMILE DE LAVELEYE.

Going to Vienna to collect books and documents, with the intention of studying the results of Bosnia’s occupation by Austro-Hungary, I take the Rhine route, and stop two days at WÜrzburg to see Ludwig NoirÉ and have a talk on Schopenhauer. The Vater Rhein is now changed beyond recognition: quantum mutatus ab illo. How different all is to when I visited it for the first time, years ago on foot, stopping at the stages mentioned in Victor Hugo’s “Rhin,” which had just appeared. All those grand peeps of Nature to be got on the old river, as it forced its majestic way through barriers of riven rocks and volcanic upheavals, have now almost wholly disappeared. The wine-grower has planted his vineyards even in the most secluded nooks, and built stone terraces where the rocks were too steep for cultivation. All along the banks, these giant staircases climb to the summits of peaks and ravines. The vines have stormed the position, and their aspect is uniform. The Burgs, built on heaps of lava, “the Maus” and “the Katze,” those sombre retreats of the Burgraves of old, now covered with the green leaves of the vine, have lost their former wild aspect. The Lorelei manufactures white wine, and the syren no longer intoxicates sailors with the songs of her harp, but with the juice of the grape. There is nothing here now to inspire Victor Hugo’s “Burgraves,” or Heine’s

Below, engineering skill has dammed in the waters of the river, and the basaltic blocks form a black wall with white lines between the stones. Black and white! Even the old God of the Rhine has adopted the Prussian colors. Embankments have been constructed at the wide points of the river, for the purpose of increasing its depth, and of reconquering meadows, by the slow but natural process of raising the level by mud deposits. Between Mannheim and Cologne, the current has gained ten hours, and the dangers of navigation of legendary celebrity have disappeared. All along the embankments immense white figures inform navigators at what distance from them it is safe to pass. On each bank, too, runs a railway, and on the river itself pass steamers of every shape, form, and description—steamers with three decks, for tourists, as in the United States, little pleasure-boats, iron barges from Rotterdam, steam-tugs worked by paddle or screw, and dredgers of various proportions; all these hundreds of chimneys vomit a continuance of black smoke, which darkens the whole atmosphere. The carriage roads are in admirable order; not a rut is visible, and they are lined with fruit-trees, and with the same black and white basaltic blocks as the river. The Prussian colors again; but the aim is to point out the road for carriages on dark nights. When the way turns either to the right or the left, the trees on each side of it are painted white, so as to be distinctly visible. I have never anywhere seen a great river so thoroughly tamed, subdued, and utilized, so completely bent to man’s necessities. The free Rhine of Arminius and of the Burgraves is as well disciplined as any grenadier of Brandenburg, The economist and the engineer admire, but painters and poets bewail.

Buffon, in a page published in every “Cours de LittÉrature,” sings a hosanna to cultivated Nature, and appears unable to find words strong enough to express his horror of Nature in its savage state, “brute” Nature as he calls it. At the present day, our impression is precisely the reverse of this. We seek on almost inaccessible summits, in the region of eternal snow, and in the very heart of hitherto unexplored continents, a spot where man has not yet penetrated, and where we may behold Nature in her inviolate virginity. We are stifled by civilization, wearied out with books, newspapers, reviews, and periodicals, letters to write and to read; railway travelling, the post, the telegraph, and the telephone, devour time and completely mince up one’s life; any solitude for fruitful reflection is quite out of the question. Shall I find it, at least, among the fir-trees of the Carpathians, or beneath the shade of the old oaks of the Balkans? Industry is spoiling and soiling our planet. Chemical produce poisons the water, the dross from different works and factories covers the country, quarries split up the picturesque slopes of valleys, black coal smoke dulls the verdant foliage and the azure of the sky, the drainage of large cities turns our rivers into sewers, whence emerge the germs of typhus. The useful destroys the beautiful; and this is so general as at times to bring tears to the eyes. Have not the Italians on the lovely Isle of Sta. HelÉna, near to the public gardens in Venice, erected works for the building of engines, and replaced the ruins of a fourth-century church by chimneys, whose opaque smoke, produced by the detestable bituminous coal of the Saar, would soon leave a sooty trace on the pink marble of the Doge’s palace and on the mosaics of St. Mark, just as we see them on St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, so ugly covered with sticky streaks. It is true that the produce of this industrial activity becomes condensed in revenue, which enriches many families, and adds considerably to the list of the bourgeois population inhabiting the capital. Here, on the banks of the Rhine, these revenues are represented by villas and castles, whose pseudo-Greek or Gothic architecture peeps out from among masses of exotic trees and plants in the most sought-after positions, near to Bonn, Godesberg, St. Goar or Bingen. Look! there is an immense feudal castle, beside which Stolzenfels, the Empress Augusta’s favorite residence, would be a mere shooting box. This immense assemblage of turrets, galleries, roofs, and terraces must have cost at least £80,000. Has it sprung from coal or from Bessemer steel? It is situated just below the noble ruin of Drachenfels. Will not the dragon watching over the Niebelungen treasure in Nifelheim’s den, avenge this impertinent challenge of modern plutocracy?

All that I see on my way up the Rhine leads me to reflect on the special characteristics of Prussian administration. The works which have so marvellously “domesticated” the river as to make it a type of what Pascal calls “un chemin qui marche,” have taken between thirty and forty years, and have been carried out continuously, systematically and scientifically. In her public works, as in her military preparations, Prussia has succeeded in uniting two qualities which are only too often lacking—a spirit of consistency, and the love of progress. The desire to be as near as possible to perfection is apparent in the most minute details. Not unfrequently consistency, and a too close following of traditions, leads to routine which rejects innovations. Great strength is attained, and the chances of success are considerably increased if, while one aim is kept always in view, the best means to attain it are selected and applied without delay.

I have remarked, when speaking of parliamentary administration, that a lack of consistency was one reason of the feebleness of democracies. This should be guarded against as soon as it becomes apparent, or inferiority will ensue. A few trifling facts will show that the Prussians are as great lovers of useful novelties and of practical improvement as the Americans. On the Rhine, at the ferries the old ferry-boats have been replaced by little steamers, which are constantly crossing the river from one side to the other. At the railway stations, I notice that the trucks for luggage are made of steel, and are lighter and stronger than any I have seen elsewhere. The system for warming the railway compartments is also more perfected. Heated pipes run under the seats of the carriages, and the passengers can regulate the temperature by turning a needle on a disc from Kalt (cold) to Warm or vice-versÂ. At the summit of the tower of the Town Hall of Berlin the different flagstaffs for the flags hoisted on the fÊte days are ranged in order. Outside the highest gallery iron rings have been fitted all round in which to fix the staffs, each of which has a number corresponding to the same number on the ring it is to fit into. In this manner both rapidity and regularity are insured. Order and foresight are safe means to an end.

I intended going to see at Stuttgart a former member of the Austrian Cabinet, Albert SchÜffle, who now devotes all his time to the study of social questions, and has published some very well-known works—among others, “Capitalismus und Socialismus,” and “Bau und Leben des Socialen KÖrpers” (“Construction and Life of the Social Body”), books which place him at the extreme left of Professorial Socialism. Unfortunately, he is at the baths in the Black Forest. But I stop at WÜrzburg to meet Ludwig NoirÉ, a philosopher and philologist, who has deigned to study political economy. The sight of the socialistic pass to which democratic tendencies are leading modern society, induces many philosophers to turn their attention to social questions. This is the case in France with Jules Simon, Paul Janet, Taine, Renouvier; in England with Herbert Spencer, William Graham, and even with that Æstheticist of pre-Raphaelite art, Ruskin.

I hold that political economy should go hand in hand with philosophy, religion, and especially with morality; but as I cannot myself rise to these elevated spheres of thought, I am only too happy when a philosopher throws me out a bit of cord by which I may pull myself a little higher, above our workaday world. Ludwig NoirÉ has written a book, which is exactly what I needed in this respect, and which I hope to be able to speak of at greater length a little later. It is entitled “Das Werkzeug” (“The Tool”). It shows the truth of Franklin’s saying: Man is a tool-making creature. NoirÉ says that the origin of tools dates from the origin of Reason and Language. At the commencement, as far back as one can conceive, man was forced to act on matter to obtain food. This action on Nature for the purpose of satisfying wants is labor. As men were living together in families and in tribes, labor was carried on in common. A person making a muscular effort very naturally pronounces certain sounds in connection with the effort he is making. These sounds, repeated and heard by the entire group, were after a time understood to signify the action of which they were the spontaneous accompaniment. Thus was language born from natural activity in view of supplying imperious needs, and the verb representing the action preceded all their words. The effort to procure the necessary and useful develops the reasoning powers, and tools soon became necessary. Wherever traces of prehistoric men are found, there is also to be found the flint implement. Thus reason, language, labor, and implements, all manifestations of an intelligence capable of progress, appeared almost simultaneously.

NoirÉ has developed this theory fully in another book, entitled, “Ursprung der Sprache” (“Origin of Speech”). When it was published, Max MÜller stated in the Contemporary Review, that, although he considered this system too exclusive, yet it was far superior to either the onomatopoeia or the interjection theory, and that it was certainly the best and the most probable one brought forward at present. I can but bow before this appreciation.

NoirÉ is a fanatical Kantian, and an enthusiastic admirer of Schopenhauer. He has succeeded in forming a committee for the purpose of erecting a statue in honor of the modern Heraclites. The committee, he says, must be international, for if as a writer Schopenhauer be German, as a philosopher he belongs to the entire world, and he asked me to join it. “I am exceedingly flattered by the proposal,” said I; “but I offer two objections.” In the first place, a humble economist has not the right to place his name side by side with such as are already on the list. Secondly, being an incurable disciple of Platonism, I fear that Schopenhauer did not remain in the Cartesian line of spiritualism. I feel persuaded that two notions, which, it appears, are at the present day very old-fashioned—I speak of a belief in God and in the soul’s immortality—should form the basis of all social science. He who believes in nothing but matter cannot rise to a notion of what ‘ought to be’—i. e., to an ideal of right and justice. This ideal can only be conceived as a divine order of things imposing itself morally on mankind. The ‘Revue Philosophique’ of October, 1882, says, ‘Positive Science, as understood at the present day, considers not what should be, but only what is. It searches merely the formula of facts. All idea of obligation, or of imperative prohibition, is completely foreign to its code. Such a creed is a death-stroke to all notion of duty. I believe that faith in a future life is indispensable for the accomplishment of good works. Materialism weakens the moral sense, and naturally leads to general decay.’

“Yes,” replied NoirÉ, “this is just the problem. How, side by side with the dire necessities of Nature, or with Divine omnipotence, can there be place for human personality and liberty? Nobody, neither Christian nor Naturalist, has yet been able satisfactorily to answer this. Hence has sprung, on the one hand, the predestination of the Calvinists and Luther’s De servo arbitrio, and, on the other, determinism and materialism. Kant is the first mortal who fearlessly studied this problem and studied it satisfactorily. He plunged into the abyss, like the diver of Schiller, and returned, having vanquished the monsters he found there, and holding in his hand the golden cup from which henceforward Humanity may drink the Divine beverage of Truth. As nothing can be of greater interest to us than the solution of this problem, so our gratitude, be it ever so considerable, can never possibly equal the service rendered by this really prodigious effort of the human mind. Kant has provided us with the only arm which can combat materialism. It is full time we should make use of it, for this detestable doctrine is everywhere undermining the foundations of human society. I venerate the memory of Schopenhauer, because he has inspired the truths revealed by Kant with more real life and penetrating vigor. Schopenhauer is not well known in either France or England. Some of his works have been translated, but no one has really understood him thoroughly, because to understand a philosopher it is necessary not only to admire but to be passionately attached to him. ‘The folly of the Cross’ is an admirable expression.

“Schopenhauer maintains that the will is the great source of all; it means both personality and liberty. We are here at once planted at the antipodes of naturalistic determinism. Free intelligence creates matter. Spiritus in nobis qui viget, ille facit. God is the great ideal. He does not make us move, but moves Himself in us. The more we appropriate to ourselves this Ideal, the freer we become; we are the reasonable and conscious authors of our actions, and liberty consists in this. Schopenhauer’s moral law is precisely that of Christianity—a law of abnegation, of resignation and asceticism. What Christians call Charity, he designates as ‘Pity.’ He exhorts his followers to struggle against self-will; not to let their eyes dwell on the passing delusions of the outside world, but to seek their soul’s peace by sacrificing all pursuits and interests which should fix their attentions solely on the changing scenes of this life. Are not these also the Gospel principles? Must they be rejected because Buddha also preached them? ‘The sovereign proof of the truth of my doctrines,’ says Schopenhauer, ‘is the number of Christian persons who have abandoned all their earthly treasure, position and riches, and have embraced voluntary poverty, devoting themselves wholly to the service of the poor and the sick and needy, undaunted in their work of charity by the most frightful wounds, the most revolting complaints. Their happiness consists in self-abnegation, in their indifference to the pleasures of this life, in their living faith, in the immortality of their being, and in a future of endless bliss.’

“The chief aim of Kant’s metaphysics,” proceeds NoirÉ, “is to fix a limit to the circle that can be embraced by man’s reason. ‘We resemble,’ he says, ‘fish in a pond, who can see, just to the edge of the water, the banks that imprison them, but are perfectly ignorant of all that is beyond.’ Schopenhauer goes farther than Kant. ‘True,’ he says, ‘we can only see the world from outside, and as a phenomenon, but there is one little loophole left open to us by which we can get a peep at substantial realities, and this loophole is each individual “Myself,” revealed to us as “Will,” which gives us the key to the “Transcendent.” You say, dear colleague, that you are incurably Platonic; are you not then aware Schopenhauer constantly refers to the ‘divine’ Plato, and to the incomparable, the prodigious, der erstaunliche Kant. His great merit is to have defended idealism against all the wild beasts which Dante met with in the dark forest, nella selva oscura’ into which he had strayed—materialism and sensualism, and their worthy offspring selfishness and bestiality. Nothing can be more false or dangerous than physics without metaphysics, and yet this truth proclaimed at the present day by great men merely provokes a laugh. The notion of duty is based on metaphysics. Nothing in Nature teaches it, and physics are silent on the subject. Nature is pitiless; brute force triumphs there. The better armed destroys and devours his less favored brother. Where then is right and justice? Materialists adopt as their motto the words which Frenchmen falsely accuse our Chancellor of having uttered, ‘Might is Right.’ Schopenhauer’s ‘Pity,’ Christian ‘Charity,’ the philosopher’s and jurist’s ‘Justice,’ are diametrically opposed to instinct and the voice of Nature, which urge us to sacrifice everything to the satisfaction of animal appetites. Read the eloquent conclusion of the book of Lange, ‘Geschichte des Materialismus.’ If materialism be not vanquished while it is yet time, all the law courts, prisons, bayonets and grape-shot in the world will not suffice to prevent the downfall of the social edifice. This pernicious doctrine must be banished from the brains of learned men, where it now reigns supreme. It has started from thence, and has gradually obtained a hold on the public mind. It is the duty of true philosophy to save the world.”

“But,” I replied, “Schopenhauer’s philosophy will never be comprehended but by a small minority; for myself, I humbly confess I have never read but fragments translated.”

“It is a pity you have never perused the original,” answered NoirÉ, “the style is exceedingly clear and simple. He is one of our best writers. He has exposed the most abstruse problems in the best possible terms. No one has more thoroughly justified the truth of what our Jean Paul said of Plato, Bacon and Leibnitz, the most learned reflection need not exclude a brilliant setting to show it off in relief, any more than a learned brain excludes a fine forehead and a fine face. Unfortunately, M. de Hartmann, who popularized Schopenhauer, has too frequently rendered his ideas unintelligible by his Hegelian Jargon. Schopenhauer could not endure Hegelianism. Like an Iconoclast, he smashed to shivers its idols with a heavy club. He approved of violent expressions, and indulged in very strong terms. So, for instance, he liked what he calls die gÖttliche Grobheit, ‘divine coarseness.’ At the same time, he praises elegance and good manners, and even, strange to say, has translated a little manual on ‘The Way to Behave in Society,’ ‘El Oraculo Manual,’ published in 1658, by the Jesuit, Baltasar Gracian. ‘There was a time,’ he writes, ‘when Germany’s three great sophists, Fichte, Schelling, and especially Hegel, that seller of senselessness, der freche unsinnige Schmierer, that impertinent scribbler, imagined they would appear learned by becoming obscure. This shameless humbug succeeded in winning the adulations of the multitude. He reigned at the Universities, where his style was imitated. Hegelianism became a religion, and a most intolerant one. Whosoever was not Hegelian was suspected even by the Prussian State. All these good gentlemen were in quest of the Absolute, and pretended that they had found it, and brought it home in their carpet-bags.’

“Kant maintainedthat human reason can only grasp the relative. ‘Error,’ cry in chorus Hegel, Schelling, Jacobi and Schleiermacher, and tutti quanti. ‘The Absolute! Why, I know it intimately; it has no secrets from me,’ and the different universities became the scenes of revolutions of the Absolute which stirred all Germany. If it were proposed to attempt to recall these illustrious maniacs to their right reason, the question was asked, ‘Do you adequately comprehend the Absolute?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then hold your tongue; you are a bad Christian and a dangerous subject. Beware of the stronghold.’ The unfortunate Beneke was so startled by this treatment that he went mad and drowned himself. Finally these great authorities quarrelled between themselves. They informed each other that they knew nothing of the Absolute. A quarrel on this subject was very often deadly. These battles resemble the discussion at Toledo between the Rabbi and the Monk in Heine’s ‘Romancero.’ After they had both lengthily discussed and quarrelled, the king said to the queen: ‘Which of the two do you think is right?’ ‘I think,’ replied the queen, ‘that they both smell equally unpleasantly.’

“This nebulous system of the Hegelian Absolute-seekers, reminding one of Nephclokokkygia, ‘the town in the clouds,’ in Aristophanes’ ‘Birds,’ has become a proverb with our French neighbors, who very rightly are fond of clearness. When anything seems to them unintelligible, they dub it as German metaphysics. Cousin did his best to clarify all this indigestible stuff, and serve it up in a palatable form. But in so doing he lost, not his Latin, but his German and his French. I am sure you never understood that ‘pure Being’ was identical with ‘no Being.’ Do you recollect Grimm’s story, ‘The Emperor’s Robe?’ A tailor condemned to death promised, in order to obtain his pardon, to make the Emperor the finest robe ever seen. He stitched, and stitched, and stitched ceaselessly, and finally announced that the robe was ready, but that it was invisible to all, save to wise people. All the servants, officers, and chamberlains of the court came to examine this work of art with the ministers and high dignitaries, and one and all pronounced it magnificent. On the coronation day the Emperor is supposed to put on the costume, and rides through the town in procession. The streets and windows are crowded; no one will admit that he has less wisdom than his neighbor, and all repeat; ‘How magnificent! Was ever anything seen so lovely?’ At last a little child calls out, ‘But the Emperor is naked,’ and it was then admitted that the robe had never existed, and the tailor was hanged.

“Schopenhauer is the child revealing the misery, or rather the non-existence of Hegelianism, and his writings were consequently unappreciated for upwards of thirty years. The first edition of his most important work found its way to the grocer’s shop and thence to the rubbish heap. It is our duty to-day to make amends for such injustice, and to render him the honor which is his due; his pessimism need not stay you. ‘The world,’ he says, ‘is full of evil, and all suffer here below. Man’s will is by nature perverse.’ Is not this doctrine the very essence of Christianity? Ingemui tomnis creatura. He maintains that our natural will is selfish and bad, but that, by an effort over itself, it may become purified and rise above its natural state to a state of grace, of holiness, of which the Church speaks, de?t???? p????. This is the deliverance, the Redemption, for which pious souls long, and it is to be attained by an indifference to and condemnation of the world and of self. Spernere mundum, spernere se, spernere se sperni.”[54]

Before leaving WÜrzburg I visit the Palace, formerly the residence of the Prince-Bishops, and also several churches. The Palace, die Residenz, is immense, and seems the more so when one reflects that it was destined to ornament the chief town of a small bishopric. Built between the years 1720 and 1744, after the plan of the palace of Versailles, it is very nearly as large. There is not such another staircase to be found anywhere. This, and the hall which precedes it, occupy the entire width of the building and a third of its length, and the effect is really of imperial magnificence. The trains of crowds of cassocked prelates and fine ladies could sweep here with ease. The cut stone balustrades are ornamented with statues. There is a suite of 350 reception-rooms—all for show, none for use. A certain number of these were decorated at the time of the French Empire. How mean the paintings on the ceilings, the pseudo-classic walls, and the mahogany furniture with brass ornaments, appear when compared to the apartments completed at the beginning of the eighteenth century, where the “chicorÉe” ornamentation exhibits all its seductions. I have never seen, all over Europe, anything in this style so perfect or better preserved. The curtains are in material of the period, and the chairs, sofas, and arm-chairs are covered to match. Each room is of a dominant color. There is a green one with metallic shades, like the wings of a Brazilian beetle. The brochÉ silk on the furniture is to correspond. The effect is magical. In another, splendid Gobelin tapestry, after Lebrun, represents the triumph and the clemency of Alexander. Another, again, is all mirrors, even to the door-panels, but groups of flowers in oil-painting on the glass temper the excessive brilliancy. The stoves are really marvels of inventive genius and good taste, all in white and gold Saxony china. The blacksmith’s art never produced anything finer than the immense wrought-iron gates which enclose the pleasure-grounds, with their terraces, lawns, grass-plots, fountains, and rustic retreats. This princely residence, which has been almost invariably vacant since the suppression of episcopal sovereignty, has remained perfectly intact. It has been deteriorated neither by popular insurrections nor by changes in taste. What finished models of the style of the Regency architects and furniture makers could find here to copy from!

The contemplation of all these grandeurs suggests two questions to my mind. Where did these Sovereigns of tiny States find the money to furnish themselves with splendors and luxuries which Louis XIV. might have envied? My colleague, George Schanz, Professor of Political Economy at the University of WÜrzburg, informs me that these bishops had scarcely any troops to maintain. “Make,” he says, “builders, joiners, upholsterers, and carpenters of all our soldiers all over the land at the present day, and Germany might soon be covered with such palaces.”

Second question: How could these bishops, disciples of Him “who had not where to lay His head,” spend the money raised by taxation of the poor, on pomps and luxury worthy of a Darius or a Heliogabalus? Had they not read the Gospel condemnation of Dives, and the commentaries of the Church’s Fathers? Was the Christian doctrine of humility and of charity, even to voluntary property, only understood in monasteries and convents? Those grandees of the Church must have been completely blinded by the mistaken sophism which leads to the belief that extravagance and waste benefits the working man, the real producer. This unfortunate error is only too harmful at the present day.

During the eighteenth century the majority of the churches of WÜrzburg were completely spoilt by being ornamented in that Louis XV. style, suited only to the interior of palaces. As Boileau says, “ce ne sont que festons, ce ne sont qu’astragales,” gothic arches disappear beneath garlands of flowers, clouds with angel’s draperies in relief and interlacings of “chicorÉe,” the whole in plaster and covered with gilding. The altars are frequently entirely gilt. It is a perfect profusion of make-believe riches. In the towns the faÇades of some houses here and there are finished examples of this florid architecture. Doubtless the radiance of Versailles magnificence urged Germany to decorate her monuments and dwellings “À la FranÇaise,” even after the Sun there had set.

From my windows, which look out on to the square before the palace, I see a battalion of troops march past to exercise. Even the guards at Berlin could not march more automatically. The legs and the left arm move exactly together, while the guns are held precisely at the same angle by each soldier. Their steel barrels form a perfectly straight line as they glisten in the sunshine. The ranks of soldiers are absolutely rectilinear. The whole move in a body as if they were fastened on to a rail. It is perfection. What care and pains must have been bestowed before such a result could be attained! The Bavarians have naturally done their very best to equal and even to surpass the Prussians. They do not choose to be esteemed any longer as mere beer-drinkers, heavy, and somewhat dense. I wonder if this exceedingly severe drill, so effective on parade, is of use on a battle-field of the present day, where it is usual to disperse to attack. I am not competent to answer this question, but it is certain that rigid discipline accustoms the soldier to order and obedience; two very necessary virtues, especially in a democratic age. Obedience is still more wanted when the iron hand of despotism gives place to the authority of magistrates and laws. The mission of schools and military service is to teach this lesson to the citizens of Republics. The more the chief power loosens its hold, the more should free man bend at once to the exigencies necessary for the maintenance of order in the State. If this be not so, anarchy will result, and a return to despotism is then inevitable, for anarchy cannot be tolerated.

In the evening the sound of bugles is heard. It is the retreat sounding for the garrison troops. It is a melancholy farewell to the day passing away, and, religious, like a call to rest, from the night, which is fast falling. Alas! how sad it is to think that these trumpets thus harmoniously sounding the curfew will one day give the signal for battle and bloodshed! Men are still as savage as wild beasts, and with less motive, for they no longer devour their slaughtered enemy. I am a member of at least four societies whose object is to preach peace and recommend arbitration. No one listens to us. Even free nations prefer to fight. I admit perfectly that when the security or the existence of a country is at stake, it is impossible to have recourse to arbitration, although its decisions would be at least as just as those of violence and chance; but there are cases which I call “Jenkins’s ears,” since reading Carlyle’s “Frederic the Great.”[55] In such as these, where the question is one of amour propre, of obstinacy, and frequently, I may say, also, of stupidity, arbitration might often prevent conflicts.

But if man is still hard on his fellow, he has become more tender towards animals. He has forbidden their being uselessly tortured. I take note of a touching example of this. I walk up to the Citadel, whence there is a splendid view over all Franconia. I cross the bridge over the Maine. In a street where the quaint pinions of the houses and gaudy sign-posts over the doors would delight the eye of a painter, I see a sort of sentry-box, on which is written in large characters, Theirschutz-Verein (“Society for the Protection of Animals”). A horse is standing there. Why? To be at the disposal of waggoners with a heavy load who are going up the slope to the bridge, and thus to prevent them ill-treating their horses. This seems to me far more ingenious and efficacious than the infliction of a fine.

WÜrzburg is not an industrial town. There appears to be no special reason why the population and the wealth of the city should increase rapidly, and yet the old town is surrounded with fine new quarters, fashionable squares, pretty walks and fine wide streets, handsome houses and villas. Here, as elsewhere, that singular phenomenon of our age, the immense increase in the number of well-to-do families, is distinctly apparent. If this continue in the same proportions, the “masses” of the future will not be composed of those who live on wages and salaries, but of those living on profit, interest, or revenue. Revolutions will become impossible, for the established order of things would have more protectors than assailants. These countless comfortable residences, these edifices of all kinds which spring up in every direction, with their luxurious and opulent appointments, all this wealth and well-being, is the result of the employment of machinery. Machinery increases production and economizes labor, and as the wages of labor have not diminished, the number of those who could live without working has increased.

WÜrzburg possesses an ancient University. It is a very old sixteenth-century building, situated in the centre of the town. As they recently did me the honor to confer on me the degree of Doctor honoris causa, I wished to see the Rector to offer him my thanks, but I had not the good fortune to meet him. On the Boulevard, special institutes have been constructed for each separate science, for chemistry, physics, and physiology. Immense sums have been spent in Germany to add a number of those separate institutes to the different Universities. The eminent professor of chemistry at Bonn, M. KekulÉ, recently took me over the building constructed for his branch of science. With its Greek columns, and its palatial faÇade, it is considerably more extensive than the whole of the old University. The subsoil devoted to experimental and metallurgical chemistry resembles immense works or foundries. The professor’s apartments are far more sumptuous than those of the first authorities. Neither the Governor, the Bishop, nor even the General himself, can boast of anything to be compared with them. In the drawing-rooms and dancing saloons the whole town might be assembled. This Institute has cost more than a million francs. In Germany it is very rightly considered that a professor who has experiments to make ought to live in the same building where are the laboratories and lecture-rooms. It is only thus that he is able to follow analyses which need his supervision, at times even at night. Comparative anatomy and physiology have also each their palace. Several professors of natural sciences complain that it is really an excess. They say they are crushed by the extent and complications of their appurtenances, and especially by the cares and responsibilities they involve; nevertheless, if exaggeration there be, it is on the right side. Bacon’s motto, “Knowledge is Power,” becomes truer every day. The proper application of science is the chief source of wealth, and, consequently, of power. Nations, do you wish to be powerful and rich? Then encourage to the utmost your learned men.

I stop a day en route to revisit Nuremberg, the Pompeii of the Middle Ages. I will not speak of its many interesting churches, houses, towers, of the Woolding Chamber, nor of the terrible Iron Virgin, covered inside with spikes, like Regulus’ barrel, which, in closing, pierced its victim through and through, and opened to drop the corpse into the torrent roaring a hundred feet below. Nothing gives a more vivid idea of the refined cruelty of these dark ages. But I have no wish to encroach upon Baedeker’s prerogative. A word only as to what I see before the cathedral. I observe there a small Gothic monument, which reminds me of the Roman column of Igel, on the Mosel, near TrÈves. It has a niche on each of the four sides, under glass. In the first niche is a thermometer, in the second an hygrometer, in the third a barometer, and in the fourth the day’s telegrams from the observatory, and the meteorological maps. These instruments are enormous, from four to five feet in height at least, so that the figures may be large enough to be clearly legible. I have seen similar monuments in several German towns, and in Switzerland, at Geneva, in the gardens near the Rhone, at Vevey, close to the landing-stage, and at Neuchatel, on the promenade near the lake. It would be excellent if all towns would adopt them. I take every opportunity of urging this. Their cost is but trifling. A perfectly plain one can be made for £40, something more elegant might cost £80 or £100; they are a source of amusement and a means of instructing the people, and a daily lesson in physics for all classes. The laboring man learns there far better than he would do at school the practical use of these instruments, which are most useful for agricultural purposes and for sanitary precautions.

Towards midnight I go on foot to the railway station, to take the express to Vienna. The old castle throws a black shadow over the town, the roofs of which seem to whiten in the silvery moonlight. This, I say to myself, is the birthplace of the Hohenzollern family. What a change has taken place in its destiny since its name first appeared in history, in 1170, when Conrad of Hohenzollern was made Burgraaf of Nuremberg! One of his descendants, Frederick, first Elector, left this town in 1412 to take possession of Brandenburg, which the spendthrift Emperor Sigismund had sold him for 400,000 florins of Hungarian gold. He had already borrowed half this sum from Frederick, who was as economical as the ant, and had even mortgaged the electorate as security. Being unable to repay his debt, and in want of more money to defray the costs of an expedition to Spain, he very willingly yielded up this inhospitable northern “Mark,” the sands of the “Marquis of Brandenburg,” which Voltaire so turned into ridicule. The Emperor could not suppose that from this petty Burgrave would spring a future wearer of the imperial crown. Economy is a small virtue made up of small privations, but which makes much of little—Molti pochi fanno un assai—“Mony a pickle maks a mickle,” as the Scotch say. Though far too often forgotten or ignored by rulers, it is nevertheless even more necessary for nations than for individuals.

A short June night is soon passed in a sleeping car. I wake up and find myself in Austria. I perceive it at once from the delicious coffee and cream which is served me in a glass, by a fair young girl in a pink print dress and with bare arms. It very nearly equals in quality that of the Posthof at Carlsbad. We are very soon in view of the Danube, but the railway does not keep alongside it. Whatever the well-known waltz, “The Blue Danube,” may say to the contrary, the river is not blue at all. Its waters are yellow-green, like the Rhine, but how infinitely more picturesque is the “Donau!” No vineyards, no factories, and very few steamers. I saw but one, making its way with difficulty against the rapid current. The hills on either side are covered with forests and green meadows, and the branches of the willow trees sweep the water. The farm-houses, very far apart, have a rustic and mountain-like appearance. There is very little movement, very little trade; the peasant is still the chief producer of riches. On this lovely summer morning the sweet repose of this peaceful existence seduces and penetrates me. How delightful it would be to live quietly here, near these pine forests, and these beautiful meadows, where the cattle are at pasture! But on the other side of the river where there is no railway! There are several reasons for this great contrast between the Rhine and the Danube. The Rhine flows towards Holland and England, two markets that have been well established for upwards of three hundred years, and ready to pay a high price for all the river brings them. The Danube flows towards the Black Sea, where the population is exceedingly poor, and can scarcely afford to purchase what we should call here the necessaries of life. The produce of Hungary, even live cattle, is taken westward by rail to London. The transport by water is too long. Secondly, coal, the indispensable fuel of all modern industry, is cheaper on the Rhine than anywhere else. And thirdly, the Rhine, ever since the Roman conquest and at the earliest period of the Middle Ages, has been a centre of civilization, whereas that portion of the Danube the most valuable for traffic was, until yesterday, in the hands of the Turks.

At the Amstett Station I purchased the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, which is, I think, with the Pester Lloyd, the best edited and the pleasantest paper to read in the German language. The KÖlnische Zeitung is exceedingly well-informed, and the Allgemeine Zeitung is also as complete and interesting as possible; but it is a terrible pell-mell of subjects, a dreadful muddle, where, for instance, many little paragraphs from France or Paris are disseminated haphazard in the six sheets. I would rather read three Times’ than one KÖlnische, in spite of the respect with which that paper inspires me. I have scarcely unfolded my Neue Freie Presse than I find myself in the very heart of the struggle of nationalities, just as I was sixteen years previously, only that the strife is no longer, as it then was, between Magyars and Germans. The Deak dual compromise created a modus vivendi, which is still in force. The dispute is now between Tchecks and Germans on the one hand, and between Magyars and Croatians on the other. The Minister Taaffe has decided to dissolve the Bohemian Parliament and there will be fresh elections. The national and feudal Tchecks banding together will overthrow the Germans, who will no longer possess more than a third of the votes in the Diet. The Freie Presse is perfectly disconsolate at this, and foresees the most terrible disasters in consequence: if not the end of the world, at least the upset of the monarchy. On account of these warnings, the numbers are seized by Government order three or four times a month, even although it be the organ of the Austrian “bourgeoisie.” It is Liberal, but very moderate, like the DÉbats and the Temps in France. After two or three months have elapsed, the numbers seized are returned to the editor, only fit for the waste-paper basket. These confiscations (for they are, in fact, nothing more nor less, although effected through the Administration) are absolutely contrary to the law, as is proved by the reiterated acquittals. Their constant recurrence reminds one of the worst periods of the French Empire. Applied to a newspaper that defends Austrian interests with so much skill as the Freie Presse, they are more than surprising. If my friend, EugÈne Pelletan, were aware of this he would no longer claim for France “liberty as in Austria,” for which saying he suffered at the time three months’ imprisonment. It is said that the influence of the Tchecks dictates these confiscations, and this alone is sufficient to show the violence of the enmity between the races. The Viennese with whom I travel declare that this enmity is far less bitter than it was fifteen years ago. At that period, I tell them, I travelled across the country without meeting a single Austrian. I met with Magyars, Croatians, Saxons, Tchecks, Tyrolians, Poles, Ruthenians, Dalmatians, but never with Austrians. The common country was ignored, the race was all in all. At the present day, my fellow-travellers tell me this is very much subdued. You will find plenty of excellent Austrians, they say, to-day amongst the Magyars, and to-morrow amongst the Tchecks.

The reader will permit a short digression here touching this nationality question. You meet with it everywhere in the dual Empire. It is the great preoccupation of the present, and it will be in fact the chief agent in determining the future of the population of the banks of the Danube and the Balkan peninsula. You Englishmen cannot well understand the full force of this feeling which is so strong in Eastern countries. England is for you your country, for which you live and for which, if needs, you die. This love of country is a religion which survives even when all other faith or religion has ceased to exist. It is the same in France. M. Thiers who, as a rule, so thoroughly grasped situations, never realized the immense force of these aspirations of races, which completely rearranged, before his eyes, the map of Europe on the nationality footing. Cavour and Bismarck were, however, well aware of this, and knew how to take advantage of this sentiment, in creating the unity of Italy and of Germany.

One evening, Jules Simon took me to call on M. Thiers, in rue St. HonorÉ, who asked me to explain the Flemish movement in Belgium. I did so, and he seemed to consider the question as most unimportant, quite childish in fact, and very much behind the age. He was at once both right and wrong. He was right because true union is one of minds, not of blood. Christ’s saying is here admirably applicable: “Whosoever shall do the will of God the same is my brother and sister and mother” (St. Mark iii. 35).

I grant that mixed nationalities which, without consideration of diversity of language and race, rest, as in Switzerland, on an identity of historical reminiscences, of civilization and liberty, are of a superior order; they are types and forerunners of the final fusion when all mankind will be but one great family, or rather a federation. But M. Thiers, being idealistic, like a true son of the French Revolution, was wrong in not taking into account things as they actually are, and the exigencies of the transitory situation.

This awakening of nationalities is the inevitable outcome of the development of democracy, of the press, and of literary culture. An autocrat may govern twenty different peoples without in the least troubling himself as to their language or race; but if once assemblies be introduced, everything is changed. Speech governs. Then what language is to be spoken? That of the people of course. Will you educate the young? It must be done in their mother tongue. Is justice to be administered? You cannot judge a man in a foreign language. You wish to represent him in Parliament and ask for his votes; the least he can claim in return is that he may understand what you say. And thus by degrees the language of the multitude gains ground and is adopted in Parliament, law-courts, and schools of every degree. In Finland, for instance, the struggle is between the Swedes, who form the well-to-do classes and live in the towns on the coast, and the rural population who are Finns. When visiting the country with the son of the eminent linguist, CastrÉn, who died while in Asia seeking out the origin of the Finn language, I found that the latter was more spoken than Swedish, even in the suburbs of large towns such as AbÖ and Helsingfors. All official inscriptions are in the two languages. The instruction in the communal schools is almost entirely in the Finn tongue. There are Finn gymnasiums, and even at the University, lectures in this language. There is also a national theatre, where I heard “Martha” sung in Finn. In Gallicia, Polish has completely replaced German; but the Ruthenians have also put in a claim for their idiom. In Bohemia the Tcheck dialect triumphs so completely that German is in danger of being wholly cast aside. At the opening of the Bohemian Diet, the Governor made a speech in Tcheck and one in German. At Prague a Tcheck University has recently been opened next to the German one. The clergy, the feudals, and the population are strongly in favor of this national movement. The Archbishop of Prague, the Prince of Schwarzenberg, although himself a German, appoints none but Tcheck priests, even in the North of Bohemia where Germans dominate.

It is certain that in countries where two races are thus intermingled, this growing feeling must occasion endless dissensions, and almost insurmountable difficulties. It is a disadvantage to speak the idiom of a small number, for it is a cause of isolation. It would certainly be far better if but three or four languages were spoken in Europe, and better still if but one were generally adopted; but, until this acme of unity be attained, every free people called upon to establish self-government, will claim rights for its mother tongue, and will try to unite itself with those who speak it, unless the nation be already fully satisfied with its mixed but historical nationality like Switzerland and Belgium. Austria and the Balkan peninsula are now agitated with these claims for the use of the national tongue, and with aspirations for the formation of States based on the ethnic groups.

As we near Vienna the train runs through the most lovely country. A succession of small valleys, with little streamlets rippling through them, and on either side green lawns between the hills covered with woods, chiefly firs and oaks. One might imagine oneself in Styria or in Upper Bavaria. Soon, however, houses make their appearance, often charming chÂlets buried in creeping plants, “Gloire de Dijon” roses, or jessamine and clematis. These become more and more frequent, and, near the suburban stations, there are quite little hamlets of villas. I know of no capital with such beautiful suburbs, save perhaps Stockholm. Nothing could be more delightful than Baden, MÖoling, BrÜhl, SchÖnbrun, and all those little rustic nooks south of Vienna, on the road to the SÖmering.—Contemporary Review.