Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2

LETTER XLIV

BERLIN, August 10.

MY DEAR:—

Here we are in Berlin—a beautiful city. These places that kings build, have of course, more general uniformity and consistency of style than those that grow up by chance. The prevalence of the Greek style of architecture, the regularity and breadth of the streets, the fine trees, especially in the Unter den Linden, on which are our rooms, struck me more than any thing I have seen since Paris. Why Paris charms me so much more than other cities of similar recommendations, I cannot say, any more than a man can tell why he is fascinated by a lady love no fairer to his reason than a thousand others. Perhaps it is the reflected charm of the people I knew there, that makes it seem so sunny.

This afternoon we took a guide, and went first through the royal palace. The new chapel, which is being built by the present prince, is circular in form, with a dome one hundred and thirty feet high. The space between the doors is occupied by three circular recesses, with figures of prophets and apostles in fresco. Over one door is the Nativity,—over the other, the Resurrection,—also in fresco. On the walls around were pictures somewhat miscellaneous, I thought; for example, John Huss, St. Cecilia, Melanchthon, Luther, several women, saints, apostles, and evangelists. These paintings are all by the first German artists. The floor is a splendid mosaic, and the top of the dome is richly adorned with frescoes.

Still, though beautiful, the chapel seemed to me deficient in unity of effect. One admires the details too much to appreciate it as a whole. We passed through the palace rooms. Its paintings are far inferior to those of Windsor. The finest royal paintings have gone to adorn the walls of the Museum. There was one magnificent Vandyke, into which he has introduced a large dog—some relief from his eternal horses. There was David's picture of Bonaparte crossing the Alps, of which Mrs. P. has the engraving, and you can tell her that it is much more impressive than the painting. Opposite to this picture hangs Blucher, looking about as amiable as one might suppose a captain of a regiment of mastiffs. Our guide, pointing to the portrait of Napoleon, with evident pride, said, "Blucher brought that from Paris. He said Napoleon had carried so many pictures from other countries to Paris, that now he should be carried away himself."

There were portraits of Queen Louisa, very beautiful; of Queen Victoria, a present; one of the Empress of Russia; also a statue of the latter. The ball room contained a statue of Victory, by Ranch, a beautiful female figure, the model of which, we were told, is his own daughter. He had the grace to allow her some clothing, which was fatherly, for an artist. The palace rooms were very magnificent. The walls were covered with a damask of silk and gold, into which was inwrought the Prussian eagle. In the crowning room was an immense quantity of plate, in solid gold and silver. The guide seemed not a little proud of our king, princes, and palace. Men will attach themselves to power and splendor as naturally as moss will grow on a rock. There is, perhaps, a foundation for this in human nature— witness the Israelites of old, who could not rest till they obtained a king. The Guide told us there were nine hundred rooms in the palace, but that he should only take us through the best. We were duly sensible of the mercy.

Then we drove to Charlottenburg to see the Mausoleum. I know not when I have been more deeply affected than there; and yet, not so much by the sweet, lifelike statue of the queen as by that of the king, her husband, executed by the same hand. Such an expression of long-desired rest, after suffering and toil, is shed over the face!—so sweet, so heavenly! There, where he has prayed year after year,—hoping, yearning, longing,—there, at last, he rests, life's long anguish over! My heart melted as I looked at these two, so long divided,—he so long a mourner, she so long mourned,—now calmly resting side by side in a sleep so tranquil.

We went through the palace. We saw the present king's writing desk and table in his study, just as he left them. His writing establishment is about as plain as yours. Men who really mean to do any thing do not use fancy tools. His bed room, also, is in a style of severe simplicity. There were several engravings fastened against the wall; and in the anteroom a bust and medallion of the Empress Eugenie—a thing which I should not exactly have expected in a born king's palace; but beauty is sacred, and kings cannot call it parvenu. Then we went into the queen's bed room, finished in green, and then through the rooms of Queen Louisa. Those marks of her presence, which you saw during the old king's lifetime, are now removed: we saw no traces of her dresses, gloves, or books. In one room, draped in white muslin over pink, we were informed the Empress of Russia was born.

In going out to Charlottenburg, we rode through the Thiergarten, the Tuileries of Berlin. In one of the most quiet and sequestered spots is the monument erected by the people of Berlin to their old king. The pedestal is Carrara marble, sculptured with beautiful scenes called garden pleasures—children in all manner of out-door sports, and parents fondly looking on. It is graceful, and peculiarly appropriate to those grounds where parents and children are constantly congregating. The whole is surmounted by a statue of the king, in white marble—the finest representation of him I have ever seen. Thoughtful, yet benign, the old king seems like a good father keeping a grave and affectionate watch over the pleasures of his children in their garden frolics. There was something about these moss-grown gardens that seemed so rural and pastoral, that I at once preferred them to all I had seen in Europe. Choice flowers are planted in knots, here and there, in sheltered nooks, as if they had grown by accident; and an air of sweet, natural wildness is left amid the most careful cultivation. The people seemed to be enjoying themselves less demonstratively and with less vivacity than in France, but with a calm inwardness. Each nation has its own way of being happy, and the style of life in each bears a certain relation of appropriateness to character. The trim, gay, dressy, animated air of the Tuileries suits admirably with the mobile, sprightly vivacity of society there. Both, in their way, are beautiful; but this seems less formal, and more according to nature.

As we were riding home, our guide, who was a full feathered monarchist, told us, with some satisfaction, the number of palaces in Prussia. Suddenly, to my astonishment, "Young America" struck into the conversation in the person of little G.

"We do things more economically in America. Our president don't have sixty palaces; he has to be satisfied with one White House."

The guide entered into an animated defence of king and country. These palaces—did not the king keep them for the people? did he not bear all the expense of caring for them, that they might furnish public pleasure grounds and exhibition rooms? Had we not seen the people walking about in them, and enjoying themselves?

This was all true enough, and we assented. The guide continued, Did not the king take the public money to make beautiful museums for the people, where they could study the fine arts?—and did our government do any such thing?

I thought of our surplus revenue, and laid my hand on my mouth. But yet there is a progress of democratic principle indicated by this very understanding that the king is to hold things for the benefit of the people. Times are altered since Louis XIV. was instructed by his tutor, as he looked out on a crowd of people, "These are all yours;" and since he said, "L'élot, c'est moi"

Our guide seemed to feel bound, however, to exhaust himself in comparison of our defects with their excellences.

"Some Prussians went over to America to live," he said, "and had to come back again; they could not live there."

"Why not?" said I.

"O, they said there was nothing done there but working and going to church!"

"That's a fact," said W., with considerable earnestness.

"Yes," said our guide; "they said we have but one life to live, and we want to have some comfort in it."

It is a curious fact, that just in proportion as a country is free and self-governed it has fewer public amusements. America and Scotland have the fewest of any, and Italy the most. Nevertheless, I am far from thinking that this is either necessary or desirable: the subject of providing innocent public amusements for the masses is one that we ought seriously to consider. In Berlin, and in all other German cities, there are gardens and public grounds in which there are daily concerts of a high order, and various attractions, to which people can gain admittance for a very trifling sum. These refine the feelings, and cultivate the taste; they would be particularly useful in America in counteracting that tendency to a sordid materialism, which is one of our great national dangers.

We went over the Berlin Museum. In general style Greek—but Greek vitalized by the infusion of the German mind. In its general arrangements one of the most gorgeous and impressive combinations of art which I have seen. Here are the great frescoes of Kaulbach, Cornelius, and other German artists, who have so grafted Grecian ideas into the German stock that the growth has the foliage and coloring of a new plant. One set of frescoes, representing the climate and scenery of Greece, had on me a peculiar and magical effect. Alas! there never has been the Greece that we conceive; we see it under the soft, purple veil of distance, like an Alpine valley embraced by cloudy mountains; but there was the same coarse dust and débris of ordinary life there as with us. The true Arcadia lies beyond the grave. The collection of pictures is rich in historic curiosities—valuable as marking the progress of art. One Claude Lorraine here was a matchless specimen—a perfect victory over all the difficulties of green landscape painting.

LETTER XLV

WITTENBERG.

MY DEAR:—

I am here in the station house at Wittenberg. I have been seeing and hearing to-day for you, and now sit down to put on paper the results of my morning. "What make you from Wittenberg?" Wittenberg! name of the dreamy past; dimly associated with Hamlet, Denmark, the moonlight terrace, and the Baltic Sea, by one line of Shakspeare; but made more living by those who have thought, loved, and died here; nay, by those who cannot die, and whose life has been life to all coming ages.

How naturally, on reaching a place long heard of and pondered, do we look round for something uncommon, quaint, and striking! Nothing of the kind was here; only the dead flat of this most level scenery, with its dreary prairie-like sameness. Certainly it was not this scenery that stirred up a soul in Luther, and made him nail up his theses on the Wittenberg church door.

"But, at any rate, let us go to Wittenberg," said I; "get a guide, a carriage, cannot you?" as I walked to one window of the station house and another, and looked out to see something wonderful. Nothing was in sight, however; and after the usual sputter of gutturals which precedes any arrangement in this country, we were mounted in a high, awkward carriage, and rode to the town. Two ancient round tower and a wall first met my eye; then a drawbridge, arched passage, and portcullis. Under this passage we passed, and at our right hand was the church, where once was laid the worn form that had stood so many whirlwinds—where, in short, Luther was buried. But this we did not then know; so we drove by, and went to a hotel. Talked English and got German; talked French with no better success. At last, between W., G., and the dictionary, managed to make it understood that we wanted a guide to the Luther relics. A guide was after a time forthcoming, in the person of a little woman who spoke no English, whom, guide book in hand, we followed.

The church is ancient, and, externally, impressive enough; inside it is wide, cold, whitewashed, prosaic; whoever gets up feeling does it against wind and tide, so far as appearances are concerned. We advance to the spot in the floor where our guide raises a trap door, and shows us underneath the plate inscribed with the name of Luther, and by it the plate recording the resting-place of his well-beloved Philip Melanchthon; then to the grave of the Elector of Saxony, and John the Steadfast; on one side a full length of Luther, by Lucas Cranach; on the other, one of Melanchthon, by the same hand. Well, we have seen; this is all; "He is not here, he is risen." "Is this all?" "All," says our guide, and we go out. I look curiously at the old door where Luther nailed up his theses; but even this is not the identical door; that was destroyed by the French. Still, under that arched doorway he stood, hammer and nails in hand; he held up his paper, he fitted it straight; rap, rap,—there, one nail—another—it is up, and he stands looking at it. These very stones were over that head that are now over mine, this very ground beneath his feet. As I turned away I gave an earnest look at the old church. Grass is growing on its buttresses; it has a desolate look, though strong and well kept. The party pass on, and I make haste to overtake them.

Down we go, doing penance over the round paving stones; and our next halt is momentary. In the market-place, before the town house, (a huge, three-gabled building, like a beast of three horns,) stands Luther's bronze monument; apple women and pear women, onion and beet women, are thickly congregated around, selling as best they may. There stands Luther, looking benignantly, holding and pointing to the open Bible; the women, meanwhile, thinking we want fruit, hold up their wares and talk German. But our conductress has a regular guide's trot, inexorable as fate; so on we go.

Wittenberg is now a mean little town; all looks poor and low; yet it seems like a place that has seen better days. Houses, now used as paltry shops, have, some of them, carved oaken doors, with antic freaks of architecture, which seem to signify that their former owners were able to make a figure in the world. In fact, the houses seem a sort of phantasmagoria of decayed gentlefolk, in the faded, tarnished, old-fashioned finery of the past. Our guide halts her trot suddenly before a house, which she announces as that of Louis Cranach; then on she goes. Louis is dead, and Magdalen, his wife, also; so there is no one there to welcome us; on we go also. Once Louis was a man of more consequence.

Now we come to Luther's house—a part of the old convent. Wide yawns the stone doorway of the court; a grinning masque grotesquely looks down from its centre, and odd carvings from the sides. A colony of swallows have established their nests among the queer old carvings and gnome-like faces, and are twittering in and out, superintending their domestic arrangements. We enter a court surrounded with buildings; then ascend, through a strange doorway, a winding staircase, passing small, lozenge-shaped window. Up these stairs he oft trod, in all the moods of that manifold and wonderful nature—gay, joyous, jocose, fervent, defiant, imploring; and up these stairs have trod wondering visitors, thronging from all parts of the world, to see the man of the age. Up these stairs come Philip Melanchthon, Lucas Cranach, and their wives, to see how fares Luther after some short journey, or some new movement. Now, all past, all solitary; the stairs dirty, the windows dim.

And this is Luther's room. It was a fine one in its day, that is plain. The arched recesses of the windows; the roof, divided in squares, and, like the walls and cornice, painted in fresco; the windows, with their quaint, round panes,—all, though now so soiled and dim, speak plainly of a time when life was here, and all things wore a rich and joyous glow. In this room that great heart rejoiced in the blessedness of domestic life, and poured forth some of those exulting strains, glorifying the family state, which yet remain. Here his little Magdalen, his little Jacky, and the rest made joyous uproar.

There stands his writing table, a heavy mass of wood; clumsy as the time and its absurdities, rougher now than ever, in its squalid old age, and partly chipped away by relic seekers. Here he sat; here lay his paper; over this table was bent that head whose brain power was the earthquake of Europe. Here he wrote books which he says were rained, hailed, and snowed from the press in every language and tongue. Kings and emperors could not bind the influence from this writing table; and yet here, doubtless, he wrestled, struggled, prayed, and such tears as only he could shed fell upon it. Nothing of all this says the table. It only stands a poor, ungainly relic of the past; the inspiring angel is gone upward.

Catharine's nicely-carved cabinet, with its huge bunches of oaken flowers hanging down between its glass panels, shows Luther's drinking cup. There is also his embroidered portrait, on which, doubtless, she expended much thought, as she evidently has much gold thread. I seem to see her conceiving the bold design—she will work the doctor's likeness. She asks Magdalen Cranach's opinion, and Magdalen asks Lucas's, and there is a deal of discussion, and Lucas makes wise suggestions. In the course of many fireside chats, the thing grows. Philip and his Kate, dropping in, are shown it. Little Jacky and Magdalen, looking shyly over their mother's shoulder, are wonderfully impressed with the likeness, and think their mother a great woman. Luther takes it in hand, and passes some jests upon it, which make them laugh all round, and so at last it grows to be a veritable likeness. Poor, faded, tarnished thing! it looks like a ghost now.

In one corner is a work of art by Luther—no less than a stove planned after his own pattern. It is a high, black, iron pyramid, panelled, each panel presenting in relief some Scripture subject. Considering the remote times, this stove is quite an affair; the figures are, some of them, spirited and well conceived, though now its lustre, like all else here, is obscured by dust and dirt. Why do the Germans leave this place so dirty? The rooms of Shakspeare are kept clean and in repair; the Catholics enshrine in gold and silver the relics of their saints, but this Protestant Mecca is left literally to the moles and the bats.

I slipped aside a panel in the curious old windows, and looked down into the court surrounded by the university buildings. I fancied the old times when students, with their scholastic caps and books, were momently passing and repassing. I thought of the stir there was here when the pope's bull against Luther came out, and of the pattering of feet and commotion there were in this court, when Luther sallied out to burn the pope's bull under the oak, just beyond the city wall near by. The students thought it good fun; students are always progressive; they admired the old boy for his spirit; they threw up caps and shouted, and went out to see the ceremony with a will. Philip Melanchthon wondered if brother Martin was not going a little too fast, but hoped it would be overruled, and that all would be for the best! So, coming out, I looked longingly beyond the city gate, and wanted to go to the place of the oak tree, where the ceremony was performed, but the party had gone on.

Coming back, I made a pause opposite the house on which is seen the inscription, "Here Melanchthon lived, labored, and died." A very good house it was, too, in its day; in architecture it was not unlike this. I went across the street to take a good look at it; then I came over, and as the great arched door stood open, I took the liberty of walking in. Like other continental houses, this had an arched passage running through to a back court and a side door. A stone stairway led up from this into the house, and a small square window, with little round panes, looked through into the passage. A young child was toddling about there, and I spoke to it; a man came out, and looked as if he rather wondered what I might be about; so I retreated. Then I threaded my way past queer peaked-roofed buildings to a paved court, where stood the old church—something like that in Halle, a great Gothic structure, with two high towers connected by a gallery. I entered. Like the other church it has been whitewashed, and has few architectural attractions. It is very large, with two galleries, one over the other, and might hold, I should think, five thousand people.

Here Luther preached. These walls, now so silent, rung to the rare melody of that voice, to which the Roman Catholic writers attributed some unearthly enchantment, so did it sway all who listened. Here, clustering round these pillars, standing on these flags, were myriads of human beings; and what heart-beatings, what surgings of thought, what tempests of feeling, what aspirations, what strivings, what conflicts shook that multitude, and possessed them as he spoke! "I preach," he said, "not for professor this or that, nor for the elector or prince, but for poor Jack behind the door;" and so, striking only on the chords common to all hearts, he bowed all, for he who can inspire the illiterate and poor, callous with ignorance and toil, can move also the better informed. Here, also, that voice of his, which rose above the choir and organ, sang the alto in those chorals which he gave to the world. Monmouth, sung in this great church by five thousand voices, must needs have a magnificent sound.

The altar-piece is a Lord's Supper, by Louis Cranach, who appears in the foreground as a servant. On each side are the pictures of the Sacraments. In baptism, Melanchthon stands by a laver, holding a dripping baby, whom he has just immersed, one of Luther's children, I suppose, for he is standing by; a venerable personage in a long beard holds the towel to receive the little neophyte. From all I know of babies, I should think this form of baptism liable to inconvenient accessories and consequences. On the other side, Luther is preaching, and opposite, foremost of his audience are, Catharine and her little son. Every thing shows how strictly intimate were Luther, Melanchthon, and Cranach; good sociable times they had together. A slab elaborately carved, in the side of the church, marks the last rest of Lucas and Magdalen Cranach.

I passed out of the church, and walked slowly down to the hotel, purchasing by the way, at a mean little shop, some tolerable engravings of Luther's room, the church, &c. To show how immutable every thing has been in Wittenberg since Luther died, let me mention that on coming back through the market-place, we found spread out for sale upon a cloth about a dozen pairs of shoes of the precise pattern of those belonging to Luther, which we had seen in Frankfort—clumsy, rude, and heelless. I have heard that Swedenborg said, that in his visit to the invisible world, he encountered a class of spirits who had been there fifty years, and had not yet found out that they were dead. These Wittenbergers, I think, must be of the same conservative turn of mind.