Minerva Brace Norton

“ All things have an end; and so did this dazzling State pageant, at which all Europe assisted and where all Europe was looking on; but not until Bismarck's carriage had conveyed the Chancellor to his chief, followed by General Von Moltke, who had the good taste to drive up simply, with two horses and an open carriage that interposed not even plate-glass between the great soldier and the loyal multitude. A few moments after their entrance, the Emperor appeared at the palace window, Bismarck on his right and Von Moltke on his left, and the hurrahs of the crowd burst forth anew. ”

“ Hedwig, with its dome in imitation of the Pantheon, its Latin cross and window arches beaming in pale yellow, made a fine background for the only unilluminated building, the palace of the Emperor. From the Opera House, the Arsenal, and the University, crowns and elaborate designs were burning, yet unconsumed. Most elaborately decorated of all Berlin buildings was the Academy of Arts and Sciences, opposite the Imperial Palace, with colossal warriors in bronze keeping guard at its portals, and the Angel of Peace laying a laurel wreath on the altar of Fatherland as its decorative centre-piece. ”

“ Beds bordered with box are bright with pansies. We wander onward, along the great shaded avenue, with level green fields on either side. An opening suddenly sets a study in color before our eyes. The unbroken stretch of sward southward is in most vivid spring green; there is a gleam of blue water beyond the tender purple of a distant forest, overhung by the fleecy cumuli of a perfect but constantly changing sky. It is simple and beautiful beyond description. We approach some wooded hills, well cared for, but lifting themselves upward in the beauty of Nature, not art. ”

“ The color of the cottages and farm-houses harmonizes or contrasts beautifully with the landscape. Roofs of brown weather-beaten thatch or of dull red tiles, in the midst of embowering trees and shrubbery, formed for us pictures of beauty long to be remembered. Frienwalde, to the northeast, has mineral springs in the most attractive part of Brandenburg, and is growing as a place of summer resort. The fine old monastery, and the ruined early Gothic abbey-church of Chorin on the Stettin Railway, the burial-place of the Margraves of Brandenburg, are interesting to all students of architecture. ”

“ One luxury is seldom wanting,—a good writing-desk, with pens and ink ready for use. It is no trouble to a German hostess to increase or diminish the number of beds in a room, the narrow bedsteads being carried with ease through the double doors, from room to room, as convenience requires.
Pictures are on the walls,—not often remarkable as works of art, but most frequently stimulants to love of country,—portraits of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, and battle scenes in which glory is reflected on the Prussian arms. ”

“ Hyde Park, St. James, the Parliament buildings, and Westminster Abbey far finer on a sunny morning; but the third city in Europe has no need to be ashamed of its royal buildings and the scene before them, in the season when the Court is in Berlin, and the slant rays of an early afternoon sun light up the gay throng of soldiers in uniform, State carriages, pedestrians, and vehicles which surge to and fro without crowding the vast spaces.
The Lustgarten is fine; but of the buildings around it, the Old Museum alone meets [182] the eye with architectural satisfaction. ”

“ General Von Moltke, the Grant of Germany, might often be seen, by those who knew when and where to look for him, in plain dress, walking along Unter den Linden, or through the city edge of the Thiergarten, near the building of the General Staff, of which he was long the Chief and where he lives. This most eminent student of the art of war lives a seemingly lonely life since the death of his wife, whose portrait is said to be the chief adornment of his private room. He is fond of music, and an open piano is his close companion in hours of leisure. ”

“ Both are surrounded by excellent accessories in marble and fresco, and it is a place where one gladly lingers long. The great avenue leading from the palace to the mausoleum has ivy-mantled trunks of giant trees for sentinels, and greensward and forest on either hand make a quiet which beseems one of the loveliest of resting-places for the dead. It was here that King William came to pray, beside the tomb of the mother who had suffered so much at the hands of the First Napoleon, on the eve of going out to the war with Napoleon III. ”

“ No student of history—especially no Protestant—can afford to visit Berlin without an excursion to Wittenberg, which may either be compressed into a single day, with a few hours in this old University town which was the cradle of the Reformation, or may be pleasantly prolonged to days full of musing on the manifold phases of that unparalleled movement in the history of religious thought, amid the very scenes with which they were most intimately associated. ”

“ The double-headed eagle, signifying in the heraldry of Germany the Empire of Charlemagne and that of the Cæsars, was everywhere intermingled with the German tri-color of red, white, and black, with the black and white of Prussia, the green of Saxony, the blue of Bavaria, and the orange, purple, and other colors of the various principalities and powers of the German Empire; hardly a house lacking some brilliant flutter of symbolic colors. ”

“ By turning the wheel of an electro-magnet the official produces an electric light at the extremity of a model burner; then, applying the same power to the little railway, propels the coach at a rapid rate by means of the invisible agent. One goes forth into the street, past wax figures of armed and mounted mail-messengers in the Middle Ages, past the model street mail-boxes and carriages which help to make so wonderful the Berlin postal arrangements, in a maze at what may here be seen in a single half-hour of the history of mail-carrying in all lands and ages. ”

“ The ancient town-houses of North Germany most truly express the spirit of the old Hanse League; and the Rath-haus of Berlin, while keeping the spirit, adds the grand proportions and embellishments characteristic of the modern city. The interior apartments, including the Festival Hall, the Town Council-Room, and the Magistrates' Chamber, are elaborately adorned with historical frescos and statues, and the grand staircase has a finely vaulted ceiling and windows of stained glass filled with Prussian heraldry. A visit to this edifice by daylight gives one the fine view from the clock-tower ”

“ As the artist rests his eyes by the spot of neutral gray which he keeps for the purpose on wall or palette, so brain and eye were prepared for sleep at the close of this long day, by sitting in our carriages, safe sheltered from the soft-falling rain, outside the great gate which divided the splendor from the darkness, for three quarters of an hour, in an inextricable tangle of carriages, until the perturbed coachmen and the sorely vexed police could evolve order from the temporary confusion, and set the hindered procession again on its homeward way. ”

“ Our coachman fortunately drove through Old Berlin and Köln, as a preliminary to the evening's sight-seeing. Long arcades filled with Jews' shops were worthy the pen of Dickens. This festal day made this most ancient portion of the city also one of the most picturesque. Houses with quaint dormer windows roofed by "eyelids," of an architecture dating back two or three hundred years, gleamed with candles in every window. Almost no house or shop was so poor as to dispense with its share of the universal illumination. ”

“ Berlin is the increasingly important capital of the German Empire,—growing rapidly, but still the royal impersonation of Prussia and [10] the Hohenzollerns; seated in something of mediæval costume and quiet beside the river Spree; as content to cast a satisfied glance backward to Frederick the Great and the Electors of Brandenburg as to look forward to imperial supremacy among the Great Powers, and the championship of continental Protestant Europe. ”

“ The finest religious music in Berlin is rendered on Friday evenings at sunset, in the great Jewish synagogue in the Oranienburger Strasse, built at a cost of six million marks, and said to be the best in Europe. The spacious interior seats nearly five thousand, with pews on the main floor for men only, and galleries for the women. Three thousand burning gas-jets above and behind the rich stained glass of the dome and side windows give an effect remarkable both for beauty and weirdness. ”

“ One enters through an inner court; and parties who wish to see the interior are taken every half-hour, by an official in charge, for a tour of the palace. The waxed floors of inlaid wood are very handsome; and, as in other parts of Central Europe, they are protected from the tramp of visitors by immense felt slippers, into which all are required to thrust their shoes, and in which one goes gliding noiselessly over the polished surfaces in a way to save the floors, but not always to conserve the dignity or gravity of those unaccustomed to the process. ”

“ As no woman can enter the Berlin University as a student, neither is it practicable for [59] a lady, either as student or visitor, to find access to the Gymnasia, which, in the German sense of this term, are somewhat in the line of our American colleges. My windows looked into those of a fine new building across the street, devoted to the instruction of German youth. In through its doors there filed, every week-day morning, long lines of German boys and young men for the various grades of instruction; and a natural desire arose in the mind of an old teacher to "visit the school." ”

“ The owners of sabres often seem to take it for granted that the right of way belongs first of all to them and their weapons, and if any one is thus inconvenienced that is the business of the unlucky party. The streets and sidewalks are much wider and less crowded than those in Boston; but a collision on a Boston sidewalk is rare, while a half-dozen rude ones in an hour is a daily expectation in Berlin. A Berlin pedestrian "to the manner born," in blind momentum and disregard of all obstacles, has no equal in our experience. ”

“ We were seated on the sofa and shown some of the many art treasures in the way of fine engravings which the home contained, the fancy-work of our hostess—a German lady seems never to be without it—lying neglected as the conversation rose in interest. Supper was served between eight and nine o'clock, at a round table accommodating the hostess and her three guests. Delicious tea, made from a burnished brass teakettle over an alcohol lamp on a stand beside the hostess, with white and black bread, five kinds of sausage, cold meat, and pickled fish, composed the first course. ”

“ Of the Princess William, now Empress Augusta Victoria, there was but one opinion. "None will ever know the blessing which the Princess William has been to our family," once said her father-in-law, the Crown Prince Frederick. From the throne to the hut, blessings followed her, a Christian lady, in faithfulness as wife, mother, friend, and princess, worthy of her exalted place. At a lawn-party given for the benefit of the Young Men's Christian Association, in the magnificent old park of the War Department in the heart of Berlin, Prince and Princess William were present. ”

“ Nearly all the German ladies take their knitting or fancy-work. The large and fine hall is filled on these occasions with chairs clustered around small tables accommodating from two to six. Here families and friends gather, chat in the intervals, and listen to the music, quietly sipping their beer or chocolate, and supper is served in the intermission to those who order it. Smoking is forbidden, but seldom is the hour after supper free from fumes of smokers who quietly venture to light their cigars unrebuked unless the room gets too blue. ”

“ We sat one morning, with many others, on the steps to the chancel in the Garrison Church, as the house was crowded in every part. The spacious galleries were filled with soldiers in Prussian uniform, and many also were in the pews below. The soldiers were not there merely in obedience to orders. They listened intently, for Court-preacher Frommel has a message to the minds and hearts of men. His oratory is eloquent, scintillating; from first to last it holds captive the crowded audience. ”

“ We thus reached a settled conviction that however well the continental breakfast may serve the needs of Germans, with their slow ways of working, and their heavy suppers of sausage, black bread, and beer, late at night, an American home for Americans temporarily in Berlin is a consummation much to be wished.
It is almost with a feeling of despair that many a woman first unpacks her trunk in the Berlin apartment which, according to general custom, is to serve her for sleeping-room, breakfast-room, study, and reception-room. ”