Berlin wool

“ How many thousands of girls in those old days have declared, “Berlin wool’s a bother!” And so, indeed, it was. To be able to do what was then called “fancy work” was almost sufficient accomplishment for the young women of the middle classes of those days. Cushions, chair furniture, slippers, and even pictures were produced in this despotic cross-stitch, varied occasionally by a finer and more difficult variety called tent-stitch ”

“ Industry, Trade and Commerce.—It is in respect of its manufacture and trade that Berlin has attained its present high pitch of economic prosperity. More than 50% of its working population are engaged in industry, which embraces almost all branches, of which new ones have lately sprung into existence, whilst most of the older have taken a new lease of life. The old wool industry, for example, has become much extended, and now embraces products such as shawls, carpets, hosiery, &c. ”

“ What a contrast, when I figure to myself our petted, pale-faced Berlin boys, at six years old, with a large bag, and all the parade of grown-up persons, nay even with laced coats; and here, on the contrary see nothing but fine, ruddy, slim, active boys, with their bosoms open, and their hair cut on their forehead, whilst behind it flows naturally in ringlets. It is something uncommon here to meet a young man, and more especially a boy, with a pale or sallow face, with deformed features, or disproportioned limbs. ”

“ The tailor threw away his needle and grasped the sword, the shoemaker exchanged his awl for a dagger, and all these quiet, humble citizens had been transformed by hatred and fear, anger and terror, into most belligerent heroes.
"Give us arms!" was the reiterated cry.
An heroic tailor climbed up on the shoulders of a hunchback shoemaker, and sawing the air violently with his arms, cried out: "The people of Berlin demand their rights; they will fight for their liberty. Give the people of Berlin their due. Give them arms—arms!" ”

“ The Kreutzberg stands about a mile and a half from the city gates, and rears its grey height like a mountain amid the general level, commanding a prospect of thirty miles around. Berlin, half garden, half palace, lies at your feet, rising majestically from the sandy plain, and irregularly divided by the winding Spree. The surrounding country, by its luxuriance, gives evidence of the energy of an industrious race struggling against a naturally barren soil. Turning our eyes upwards upon the military monument which graces the summit of the hill, we cannot repress our gratification at its beauty. ”

“ The Linden overflows, the lesser streets are swollen streams, and every open square is a ruffled lake of leisurely humanity. A strong tide of loiterers sets through the most popular of Berlin’s breathing-places—the stately Tiergarten—and ripples there about the bases of statues and monuments, the marble settles of the Sieges-Allée, and the sculptured benches of the Anlagen of the Brandenburg Gate. ”

“ Berlin obtained a knowledge of porcelain by the purchase of one of the copies of the indiscreet Ringler’s notes, and the industry was founded in 1750. Let us bear in mind how Frederick carried off workmen, artists, tools, and material from Meissen, and it is not difficult to understand the rise of Berlin. The works were taken by the Crown in 1763,{342} and were very soon yielding a handsome income. Berlin has been compared with Dresden in its best days, and its works are certainly of a high order. The Berlin rose-color is peculiar to the royal factory. ”

“ At least this is the way the town impressed me a year or two ago, as compared with the easy-going city I first entered as a coal-passer, with honorable discharge papers in my pocket, and very little else. But far be it from me to dwell on this subject, for if there is any city in the world to which I ought to be grateful, it is Berlin. If it pleases the Berliners to shout their World City distinction from the housetops, as if fearful that it might otherwise escape notice, well and good; the noise sounds funny, that is all—particularly after London and New York. ”

“ Away to the north-eastward, in a cloudless pool of gathering light and with all its nocturnal illuminations still blazing, was Berlin. The left finger of the steersman verified roads and open spaces below upon the mica-covered square of map that was fastened by his wheel. There in a series of lake-like expansions was the Havel away to the right; over by those forests must be Spandau; there the river split about the Potsdam island; and right ahead was Charlottenburg cleft by a great thoroughfare that fell like an indicating beam of light straight to the imperial headquarters. ”

“ Even the rows of gray houses and private palaces of Berlin are in the French taste, which is the only taste there is in Berlin. The suggestion of Paris is constant, but it is of Paris in exile, and without the chic which the city wears in its native air. The crowd lacks this as much as the architecture and the sculpture; there is no distinction among the men except for now and then a military figure, and among the women no style such as relieves the commonplace rash of the New York streets. The Berliners are plain and ill dressed, both men and women, and even the little children are plain. ”

“ There is no streaming movement in broad vistas; the dull looking population moves sluggishly; there is no show of fine equipages. The prevailing tone of the city and the sky is gray; but under the cloudy heaven there is no responsive Gothic solemnity in the architecture. There are hints of the older German cities in some of the remote and observe streets, but otherwise all is as new as Boston, which in fact the actual Berlin hardly antedates.
There are easily more statues in Berlin than in any other city in the world, but they only unite in failing to give Berlin an artistic air. ”

“ The whole looks at its worst now; all the churches are in mourning, so are the coaches: no theatre is open, and no music heard, except now and then a melancholy German organ droning its dull round of tunes under one’s window, without even the London accompaniment of a hoarse voice crying Woolfleet oysters. Come! Berlin can boast an arsenal capable of containing arms for two hundred and fifty thousand men. The contempt of decoration for a place destined to real use seemed respectable in itself, and characteristic of its founder. ”

“ During the collapse of Meissen, Russia became a large customer for Berlin; and its finished and elegant dinner-services went into her palaces and mansions. The best work of Berlin equals the best work of Dresden; its paste is more creamy, and some of its painters were not excelled. A favorite decoration at Berlin was the small Watteau figure-pieces, painted in medallions or reserves. ”

“ For the furious tempo of Berlin’s development has swept everything before it. Three out of every four buildings, all over town, are garishly modern. Indeed, it is all so utterly of the present moment that it is hard to believe that even a group of fishermen’s huts could have stood here beside the Spree so long as seven hundred years ago. Were one to see no more of Germany than its capital he might very easily imagine a Chicago or two somewhere in the empire, but certainly not a Nuremberg. ”

“ The wars of Frederick the Great, brought to a triumphal issue, made Berlin more and more a centre of trade and industry. To all who could look beyond the clouds of political controversy and prejudice it was evident that Berlin was destined to become the leading city of North Germany and the worthy rival of Vienna. Even the humiliation of Jena and the subsequent occupation by Napoleon were only transitory. Berlin, not being a fortified city, was spared at least the misery of a siege. After the downfall of Napoleon, Prussia and its capital resumed their mission of absorption and expansion. ”

“ Old men and war-cripples as porters at the station, dirty streets encumbered by hawkers and their wares, strings of pitiful beggars shaking their hands and exposing mortified limbs—can this be Berlin, Berlin the prim, the orderly, the clean? Something has happened here in seven years, some sort of psychological change has been wrought in the mind of a people. Here, as in some Slav countries, there are laws and they are not kept, regulations and they are not observed. Unshaven men and ill-washed women on the streets, and dowdy, hatless girls with dirty hair crowding into cheap cinema theatres! ”

“ An example in black and white may be seen at Berlin, the bright spaces being engraved. The breastplate is adorned with an engraved figure of Christ on the cross, and the gorget bears the legend: SOLVS SPES MEA CHRISTVS. A rondelle protects the right armpit. The left pauldron is a restoration. The suit dates about 1570.
There is a remarkable harness at Berlin, dating from about the middle of the sixteenth century. The cuirass, taces, and tassets are banded with an ornamentation of chevrons, which are bright and black alternately. ”

“ One finds here the most varied products of industrial art, such as bronze, brasswork, glass, porcelain, etchings, lithographs, and carbon prints, side by side with the most costly productions of modern art. If one only had the time, they would have but to walk in some of the large salons, where in rapid succession appear the works of both native and foreign artists, where they can be enjoyed at one’s ease. “Unter den Linden,” with its double rows of lime trees forming a fine avenue, is the finest Street in Berlin. ”

“ Many branches of industry were transplanted to Brandenburg, and twenty thousand Frenchmen carried the most refined arts of civilization to the coarse population thinly scattered among the sands and firs of that sombre region. French refugees paid for the hospitality of the Elector Frederick by laying the foundation of the high destinies of Berlin, which on their arrival was still but a small city of twelve or fifteen thousand souls, and which, thenceforth, took a start which nothing was to arrest. ”

“ In spite of all the wealth of words that has been expended upon German art, he found something new to say on this most fertile subject:—
The amount of art lavished on the whole region of Potsdam is marvellous; some of the tops of the palaces were like forests of statues, and they were all over the gardens, set on pedestals In fact, the two principles of Berlin architecture appear to me to be these. On the house-tops, wherever there is a convenient place, put up the figure of a man; he is best placed standing on one leg. ”

“ He cannot see too many uniforms about him, and he literally inundates Berlin with martial pageants. One might suppose that the effect of this would be to satiate the Berliners, but they maintain a most vigorous and unabated interest in seeing the troops march by, and throng the sidewalks every time as if the spectacle had all the excitement of novelty.
In almost every other country the personal tastes or whims of the sovereign, if he be at all a man of the world, leave a certain mark upon the every-day dress of the people about him. ”

“ Franz Hals’ planes of black have never been equalled, but Vermeer’s planes of white seem to me quite as unapproachable. The whole picture has radiance and light and delicacy: painters20 gasp before it. It has more too: it is steeped in a kind of white magic as the “View of Delft” is steeped in the very radiance of the evening sun. Berlin is to me a rude and materialistic city with officials who have made inattention a fine art, and food that sends one to the “Continental Bradshaw” for trains to Paris; but this picture is leaven enough. It lifts Berlin above serious criticism. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The Unter den Linden is the charm of Berlin, so bright, shaded, and retired, as it were, in the very midst of outer noise and bustle. At nearly all hours of the day the long lines of benches are crowded by laughing, flaxen-haired children, attended by gayly dressed nurses, the groups they form contrasting with the rude struggle of business life going on so close at hand. A regiment of soldiers is passing as we gaze upon the scene, accompanied by a full band, their helmets and bright arms glittering in the sunlight; the vehicles rattle past on both sides of the mall ”

“ They began to build the King's castle, and its architect, Schluter, ornamented it with so many garlands, that its walls could not be seen beneath them.
Berlin had then the beginnings of a great city; it wanted only life and people. A theatre, library, and museum were hurriedly built, and filled as they could with what they could. In the meantime they did not spend their gold in manufacturing porcelain; they purchased soldiers instead, paying their weight in gold for them. ”

“ A great desire for a change has come over them, and they all make for the larger towns, chiefly for Berlin. Here, in Frederick St., and unter den Linden, may now be seen daily the most outlandish-looking individuals from the remotest parts of the country. Many of them arrive with wives and families, and with the scantiest means. But they nevertheless clamour for food and drink, clothing, boots, and what not of the best and dearest. They had been told, they say, that everybody in Berlin lived on the fat of the land. ”

“ The various uniforms—sometimes simply neat, but often very showy—exhibited in Unter den Linden during the evening promenade, form one of the chief attractions of that most beautiful of Berlin streets. Such, at least, is the verdict of visitors—especially Americans with whom army accoutrements are happily things of the past.
It must be confessed that the most peaceful-minded person may catch the military fever here. The people of Berlin, like all other Germans, protest to you that they hate war and desire peace above all things. ”