Laura G. Case Collins

“ Only one’s own eyes can do it even the faintest justice. I hope you have seen it, or, if not, will some day soon, before you grow an old man. Have had a long, lazy, inconsequential, just-going-anywhere-I-pleased stroll this perfect afternoon. The sky is without a fleck; the air crystal clear; the sunshine just that happy mingling of warmth and bracing quality that makes mere animal existence an ecstasy. ”

“ HEIDELBERG. N Heidelberg. Think of it! What an energetic idler I am grown! The Neckar lies a pistol-shot from my windows; high hills rise on the thither side, looking so home-like—Maysville home, like Mr. W.’s, where you came once upon a time. When my glance darts out the windows and rests upon them, suddenly I catch my breath, and I am not sure whether it is pain or pleasure I feel. Half way up they are cultivated, but the tops are wooded. Just over my head the old castle looms up among the trees. ”

“ The coast stretched around in a vast semi-circle of silver till it lost itself in the misty horizon. Little villages lay at our feet, ran up the hill-sides with their terraces of orange-groves, or clung to the cliffs far overhead like martins’ nests in winter. A long range of snow-capped mountains reared themselves above Salerno, and sent us an icy blast now and then. There had been quite a snow the day before. We rattled up to our “albergo” at eleven. This was at the foot of the hill; our destination was an old monastery of the Capucins, now a hotel, of which this was the porter’s lodge. ”

“ Then Genoa for two nights and a day, a “field day” of sight-seeing—four palaces, four churches, a drive and shopping! Pisa for another night and day; saw its incomparable group—Duomo, Campanile, Baptistery and Campo Santo. How little I had conceived of their magnificence and beauty! From Pisa to Siena. Such a wonderful old place as this is! We leave to-morrow for Naples, via Rome, for a day, to “do it,” and return to Rome for Holy Week and Easter. I set aside three months for Italy, but Rome and Florence are a world in themselves for me. It snowed here yesterday; so it is very cold to-day. ”

“ From Constance to Lindau we had an enchanting sail over an emerald sea, with many a pretty village gleaming along its shore, “like a white swan on her reedy nest;” and then green hills, that soon turned into denser clouds, as it were, and directly, almost in a flash, the snow-covered Alps!
Railway from Lindau here; and such a succession of pictures! Long, green valleys, dotted with picturesque villages; chains of wooded knolls; ranges of dark, pine-covered mountains, overtopped in places with a vast jumble of cones; snow-covered Alps again, that shone in the sunlight like molten silver! ”

“ Paris does not overwhelm me as London did, because, I suppose, I did not see it first; nor does it charm me as Munich did, perhaps because I have so much Dutch blood in my veins against not one drop of French. The parts I have seen do not give it a distinctive character; it is rather cosmopolitan, like our great cities, than foreign. I had a lovely half-day—nothing seems to be done here till after the 12 o’clock breakfast—at Napoleon’s monument, the grandest I have seen; the Hotel des Invalides, with its church and armory and picturesquely dilapidated ruins of human beings ”

“ From La Cava, a pretty town in an extensive vale shut in with the most picturesque chains of mountains, we took an open carriage for the three hours’ drive. It soon struck the seacoast and wound all the rest of the way around its headlands, doubling its promontories, retreating into its bays and inlets and dropping almost to the water’s edge, and presently mounting upward into almost Alpine heights. The headlands and cliffs were frequently broken into every imaginable form of rock sculpture—columns, cones, pyramids, grottoes and castellated walls of defense and fantastic ruins. ”

“ There were cone-shaped, beautiful, castle-capped mountains, the long winding valley with the river showing in many a lovely curve and shoot; village after village, in the mellowest tints of Indian red, brown, and drab, gathered around its church or chapel, almost every one with an amazing tall spire; ranges of wooded hills that came together in one direction, or retreated from each other in another, disclosing wonderful vistas;—and the weather! One moment a burst of sunlight; the next a veil of fleecy white clouds that changed into the mistiest blue ”

“ Isn’t a Munich day a rather fascinating span of life? I match the above day by day. Do you know what a large city it is—230,000 population? And how grand and clean and comfortable? I am wishing I could transport it to the United States for myself and my elect ones to dwell in! For oh! such bread and butter and coffee as abound! There! the weakness for creature comfort will not be thrust aside!
Don’t you want to know what neighbors I have? A banker at the end of this etage, a widower with a cherub of a child, and in the next suite of apartments to mine—a baron! Such a splendid-looking man! ”

“ I got out of the carriage and gathered her hands full of daisies and anemones. She sat in the shadow and quiet of the trees watching me. One avenue was specially interesting. On the left were pretty bits of water, scarcely lakes, low hills with tumbling cascades, stretches of thick-set trees and flowery hedges. On the right, vanishing distances of the greenest sward, edged with scattered clumps of trees, blotched with alternate sunshine and shadow. Away off rose the hills that encircle Paris—a misty greenish-black rampart against the sky. Sometimes we talked; sometimes were silent. ”

“ It was a five and one-half hours’ mule-ride to Kandersteg at the foot on the other side. We got to our hotel at 9 p. m., and slept the sleep of the elect. Open carriage next morning to Thun; the sunshine so glorious I didn’t believe it could ever “do it again,” and every roll of the wheels bearing onward to fresh charms of earth, air and sky. From Thun to Interlaken for a week; Staubbach, drives and walks in honor of the Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger. You know that part of the story well. All the world does it. ”

“ Such enthusiasm is bound to tell—so there are scenes from Capri that do not seem to belong to canvass at all—that strip of beach is there to stroll on; those cliffs you will climb sooner or later; the chickens aroost in the little boat drawn up in the shadow of a corner of that quaint old house, will have to fly for it by and by, when you will want it for a sail; in a few moments you are going up the steps to follow that tall, stately-looking peasant woman just disappearing in that old house, for you are eager to explore it. ”

“ There is nothing to save you from your enchanted fate. The blue sky above; the crystal waves beneath; the beautiful, stately old palaces on either side, time-stained, unlike anything you ever saw, a fascination to sight and dreams, that will haunt you the rest of your life; the other gondolas sliding by; now and then a pleasure-boat, with its crowded deck and gay awning, and though moving by steam as noiseless as ours—no smoke; presently another bridge shows its span ahead, and then you slip under it and on ”

“ You rouse, lean forward, give a curious gaze, then drop back into your drift and dreams, powerless to keep from it! Ah!—that is the Rialto. You rouse again, and give another intense look, and then it is left behind. You shoot another bridge and—you give it up. This can not be earth. You know it is not heaven. Where are you? Surely you are at last on the direct way to it. Heaven—the Heaven of not your reading the Sunday-school and catechisms taught, but of your dearest dreams and purest moods—that is awaiting you there in
Lord Byron’s Palace, Venice. ”

“ The weather is like our last of April. The grass is thick and green, and from three to five inches high. The flower-beds in the squares are full of flowers. As one walks or drives, whiffs of sweet violets are constantly blown to you. At least one great flower-shop greets the delighted eye every half-square. The sunshine is a dazzle most of the time. I must stop, but will write more at an early date.
L. G. C.
Paris, February 4, 1883. ”

“ I sat on my balcony and saw the moon rise among its crumbling towers, sail slowly across and above them, and mount to the highest heavens; while below me a fine band played such music as was in perfect harmony with that enchanting spectacle and my own mood. Next forenoon I drove the length of the Via Mala, and on my return left the carriage and climbed to that seductive height all alone, my companion begging off. No, not quite alone. ”

“ In one corner is a beautiful pedestal, on which is a bronze copy of that famous head of Homer in the Naples Museum. Between it and a door leading into the examining office is a Venetian mirror surrounded by small, rare paintings. There is a woman’s head that would haunt you for many a day could you see it. There are two handsome glass cases with tier upon tier of the bony structure of the ear mounted beautifully for inspection. In the examination-room, dark, crimson hangings, its ceiling an oval fresco of a blue, summer sky, flecked with fleecy films of clouds ”

“ Having seen the Nibelungenlied suite of rooms in the king’s palace, I wished to read the story in the original. I had read it in English “ever so long ago”—long enough for the mists of memory to have made a blur over some of the details. I sat up till midnight reading it—couldn’t stop, though knowing I should. It cannot need other evidence of its fascination. The frescoes at the palace no doubt added to the interest. They are hauntingly wonderful and beautiful. Even the extraordinary chanting of the story of each by the stolid guide could not spoil the impression. ”

“ Thusis is situated at the entrance of the Via Mala, the famous gorge through which that impetuous stripling, the young Rhine, rushes with such headlong recklessness. A wide and long-extended valley, surrounded by every kind of mountain and height, from knolls to snow peaks; two rivers tearing in at one end, uniting and hurrying onward as the Rhine right through the center, and twenty towns dotting the distances, with castles and churches perched in every romantic spot. Why, it seemed to me the earth was growing more beautiful and wonderful every moment. ”

“ We can go whenever we wish; so can the humblest subject in their kingdom. I saw on last Saturday one, thin and old, and poorly clad, standing before a picture in one of the royal corridors leading from the Cologne suite to the state apartments. She seemed to be enjoying it quite as much as I was. She had her market basket on her arm and was on her way home: it was full. All she had to do was to make choice of her church, or her king’s palace, or she may have gone to both; each was alike open to her. How much the graciousness of such custom is to be commended!
L. G. C.
Munich, January 2, 1883. ”

“ In the ancient and long-disused, but well-preserved, nave we saw that inexplicable caprice or trick of architecture, one of the great Norman columns that scanned from one place shows the upper half much smaller than the lower; from another, the reverse effect, and from yet another, a pillar of perfect proportion. The ruins of the old palace and part of the abbey are very touching and beautiful. It too has “a den,” as every deep wooded and rocky glen with a stream running through its dark length is called. ”

“ Have you not known people with that gift with whom it was a felicity to be thrown? Felicity may not be—is not—such an ultimatum as beatitude, which is found only in the highest heights and deepest depths; but think of the light, warmth, sparkle, enjoyment, of the middle realms of air? Is that an excuse for my busy idleness? Perhaps. Yet the deeper plunge of my wings comes oftener than you suspect, maybe. The wider knowledge of and the more intimate contact with the works of nature, and no less those of my fellow-men—these have been the gains I have most counted on. ”