Henry M. Field

“ And they were just finishing a grand Arcade, with an arched roof of iron and glass, like the Crystal Palace, beneath which are long rows of shops, as well as wide open spaces, where the people may gather in crowds, secure both from heat and cold, protected alike from the rains of summer and the snows of winter. The Emperor of Germany, who is about to pay a visit to Italy, will find in Milan a city not so large indeed, but certainly not less beautiful, than his own northern capital.
One beauty it has which Berlin can never have—its Cathedral. ”

“ There is not a single tear in the thousand leagues of ocean, nor a sigh in the winds that sweep over it, for all the hearts it breaks or the lives it destroys. The sea, therefore, is not a symbol of divine mercy. It is the very emblem of tremendous and remorseless power. Indeed, if Nature had no other face but this, we could hardly believe in God, or at least, with gentle attributes; we could only stand on the shore of existence, and shake with terror at the presence of a being of infinite power, but cold and pitiless as the waves that roll from the Arctic pole. ”

“ On the principle of rhetoric, that a description should end with that which leaves the deepest impression, I end my letter here, with the softened light of that Mausoleum falling on that breathing marble; for in all my memories of Berlin, no one thing—neither palace, nor museum, nor the statue of Frederick the Great, nor the Column of Victory—has left in me so deep a feeling as the silent form of that beautiful Queen. Queen Louise is a marked figure in German history, being invested with touching interest by her beauty and her sorrow, and early death. ”

“ In the Elevation of the Cross our Saviour has been nailed to the fatal tree, which the Roman soldiers are raising to plant it in the earth. The form is that of a living man. The hands and feet are streaming with blood, and the body droops as it hangs with all its weight on the nails. But the look is one of life, and not of death. The countenance has an expression of suffering, yet not of mere physical pain; the agony is more than human; as the eyes are turned upward, there is more than mortal majesty in the look—there is divinity as well as humanity—it is the dying God. ”

“ Such a service is always very grateful to an American 289 far from home. The deck of an American ship is like a part of his country, a floating island, anchored for the moment to a foreign shore: and as he stands there, and sees around him the faces of countrymen, and hears, instead of the language of strangers, his dear old mother tongue, and looks up and sees floating above him the flag he loves so well—that has been through so many battles and storms—he cannot keep down a trembling in his heart, or the tears from his eyes. ”

“ Standing on the bald head of Vesuvius, one cannot help some grave reflections, looking at what is before him only from the point of view of a man of science. The eruption of a volcano is one of the most awful scenes in nature, and makes one shudder to think of the elements of destruction that are imprisoned in the rocky globe. What desolation has been wrought by Vesuvius alone—how it has thrown up mountains, laid waste fields, and buried cities! What a spectacle has it often presented to the terrified inhabitants of Naples, as it has shot up a column not only of smoke, but of fire! ”

“ One cannot bear too much exaltation. After having dwelt awhile among the sublimities of Nature, it is a relief to come down to her more common and familiar aspects; the sunshine is doubly grateful after the gloom of Alpine passes; meadows and groves are more pleasant to the eye than snow-clad peaks; and more sweet to the ear than the roar of mountain torrents, is the murmur of softly-flowing streams. From Lucerne, our way lies over that undulating country which we had surveyed the day before from the summit of the Righi, winding around the Lake of Zug, and ending at the Lake of Zurich. ”

“ Dark forests clothe the slopes of the Apennines. At this season there is a soft, hazy atmosphere, like that of our Indian summer, which gives a kind of purple tint to the Italian landscapes. The skies are fair, but not more fair than that heaven of blue which bends over many a beloved spot in America. Nor is the vegetation richer, nor are the landscapes more lovely, than in our own dear vales of Berkshire. Even the Arno at this season, like most of the other rivers of Italy, is a dried up bed with only a rivulet of muddy water running through it. ”

“ Austria is to-day one of the most prosperous countries in Europe. There is fresh blood at her heart, and fresh life coursing through her aged limbs. And though no man or kingdom can be said to be master of the future, it has as fair a chance of long existence as any other power on the continent. The form of government may be changed; there may be internal revolutions; Bohemia may obtain a separate government like Hungary; but whatever may come, there will always be a great and powerful State in Eastern Europe, on the waters of the Danube. ”

“ There is lightning in the beautiful cloud, and sometimes the thunder breaks fearfully over this devoted city. I do not refer to great public calamities, such as war and siege, bringing "battle, and murder, and sudden death," but to those daily tragedies, which are enacted in a great city, which the world never hears of, where men and women drop out of existence, as one
"Sinks into the waves with bubbling groan,"
and disappear from view, and the ocean rolls over them, burying the story of their unhappy lives and their wretched end. ”

“ In the recesses of the hills are many sheltered spots, protected from the northern winds, and open to the southern sun, which are the favorite resorts of invalids for the winter, as here sun and sea combine to give a softened air like that of a perpetual spring. When winter rages over the north of Europe, when snow covers the open country, and even drifts in the streets of great capitals, then it seems as if sunshine and summer retreated to the shores of the Mediterranean, and here lingered among the orange gardens that look out from the terraced slopes upon the silver sea. ”

“ There is no city in Europe about which there is so much of romance as Venice, and of real romance (if that be not a contradiction) , that is, of romance founded on reality, for indeed the reality is stranger than fiction. Its very aspect dazzles the eye, as the traveller approaches from the east, and sees the morning sun reflected from its domes and towers. And how like an apparition it seems, when he reflects that all that glittering splendor rests on the unsubstantial sea. ”

“ What can be expected of human beings, crowded in such miserable habitations, living in filth and squalor, and often pinched with hunger? Not only is refinement impossible, but comfort, or even decency. What manly courage would not give way, sapped by the deadly poison of such an air? Who wonders that so many rush to the gin-shop to snatch a moment of excitement or forgetfulness? What feminine delicacy could stand the foul and loathsome contact of such brutal degradation? Yet this is the way in which tens, and 45 perhaps hundreds of thousands of the population of London live. ”

“ Is it an idle fancy that soaring above us there is a multitude of the heavenly host singing now, as once over the plains of Bethlehem, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will towards men!" Here is the soul bowed down in the presence of its Maker. It feels "lowly as a worm." What thoughts of death arise amid so many memorials of the dead! What sober views of the true end of a life so swiftly passing away! How many better thoughts are inspired by the meditations of this holy place! ”

“ Venice rising from the sea is not more beautiful than Constantinople, when the morning sun strikes on its domes and minarets, rising out of the groves of dark green cypresses, which mark the places where the Turks bury their dead. And when we entered the Bosphorus, and rounding Seraglio Point, anchored at the mouth of the Golden Horn, we seemed to be indeed in the heart of the Orient, where the gorgeous East dazzles the traveller from the West with its glittering splendors. ”

“ Rome especially is not thought to be safe till late in the autumn. But Dr. Bellows told me that, so far from waiting for cold weather, he thought Italy could be seen in its full beauty only in an earlier month, when the country was still clothed with vegetation. Certainly it is better to see 235 it in its summer bloom, or in the ripeness of autumn, than when the land is stripped, when the mountains are bleak and bare, when there is not a leaf on the vine or the fig-tree, and only naked branches shiver in the wintry wind. We have come at a season when the earth has still its glory on. ”

“ The road zigzags in every direction, winding here and there to get a foothold—now hugging the side of the mountain, creeping along the edge of a precipice, where it makes one dizzy to look down; now rounding a point which seems to hang over some awful depth, or seeking a safer path by a tunnel through the rocks. Up and down, hither and thither we go, but still everywhere encompassed with mountains, till at last one long climb—a hard pull for the horses—brings us to a height from which we descry in the distance the roofs and spires of a town, and begin to descend. ”

“ What lessons on the greatness and littleness of man have been read under the shadow of these giant columns. Hither came Augustus, in whose reign Christ was born, to visit ruins that were ancient even in his day. Here, where a Cæsar stood two thousand years ago, the traveller from another continent (though not from New Zealand) stands to-day, to muse—at Pæstum, as at Pompeii—on the fate which overtakes all human things, and at last whelms man and his works in one undistinguishable ruin. ”

“ Let these beautiful creatures—the emblems of peace and the messengers of victory—be wrought as an armorial bearing on the flag of the new Italy—white doves on a blue ground, as if flying over the sea—their outspread wings the fit emblems of those sails of commerce, which, we trust, are again to go forth from Venice and from Genoa, not only to all parts of the Mediterranean, but to the most distant shores! ”

“ Our favorite drive is along the Boulevards just at evening, when the lamps are lighted, and all Paris seems to be sitting out of doors. The work of the day is over, and the people have nothing to do but to enjoy themselves. By hundreds and thousands they are sitting on the wide pavements, sipping their coffee, and talking with indescribable animation. Then we extend our ride to the Champs Elysées, where the broad avenue is one blaze of light, and places of amusement are open on every side, from which comes the sound of music. ”

“ How they glow in the last rays of the sunset, and how brilliant the lights along the shore at evening. Sometimes we sail across to visit the villas, or to look among the hotels for friendly American names. But more commonly we sail up and down, only for the pleasure of the motion, now creeping along by the shore, under the shadow of the mountains, and now "launching out into the deep," and rest, like one becalmed, in the middle of the lake. We do not want to go anywhere, but only to float and dream. ”

“ As we drove through the streets at ten o'clock at night we passed a large public garden, brilliantly lighted up, and thronged with people, from which came the sound of music, and were told that it was one of the most fashionable resorts of the capital; and so the next evening—after a day at Potsdam, where we were wearied with sight-seeing—we took our rest here. Imagine a vast enclosure lighted up with hundreds of gas-jets, and thronged with thousands of people, with three bands of music to relieve each other. ”

“ There is something very fitting in such a young king and queen being at the head of a kingdom which is itself young, that so rulers and people may grow in years and in happiness together.
I know I express the feelings of every American, when I wish all good to this royal house. May this king and queen long live to present to their people the beautiful spectacle of the purest domestic love and happiness! May they live to see Greece greatly increased in population and in wealth—the home of a brave, free, intelligent and happy people! ”

“ But in spite of all that, in these old tumble-down houses, under these red-tiled roofs, there dwells a brave, honest, free people; a people that are slaves to no master; that fear God, and know no other fear; and that have earned their right to a place in this world by hard blows on the field of battle, and on every field of human industry—on land and on sea—and that are to-day one of the freest and happiest people on the round earth. ”

“ This is the highest pass in Europe, and on this day it seemed as if we were scaling heaven itself. Having a party of five, we procured a diligence to ourselves. We set out from Mals at six o'clock in the morning, and crossing the rushing, foaming Adige, began the ascent. Soon the mountains close in upon us, the Pass grows narrower and steeper; the horses have to pull harder; we get out and walk, partly to relieve the hard-breathing animals, but more to see at every turn the savage wildness of the scenery. ”

“ In the Descent from the Cross the struggle is over: there is Death in every feature, in the face, pale and bloodless, in the limbs that hang motionless, in the whole body as it sinks into the arms of the faithful attendants. If Rubens had never painted but these two pictures, he would deserve to be ranked as one of the world's great masters. I am content to look on these, and let more enthusiastic worshippers admire the rest.
Leaving the tall spire of Antwerp in the distance, the swift fire-horse skims like a swallow over the plains of Belgium, and soon we are in Holland. ”

“ We passed through apartment after apartment, each more splendid than the last. The eye almost wearies with the succession of great halls with columns of richest marble, supporting lofty ceilings which are finished with beautiful arabesques, and an elaborateness of detail unknown in any other kind of architecture. Articles of furniture are wrought of the most precious woods, inlaid with costly stones, or with ivory and pearl. What must have been the cost of such a fairy palace, no one knows—not even the Sultan himself—but it must have been millions upon millions. ”