Wrocław

“ Hamburg has always been an important city and one where great volume of business has been transacted. In the Middle Ages it was a member of the Hanseatic League; in after days it was a Free City and, even at this time, its citizens view its absorption within the German Empire not altogether with satisfaction. It bears the marks of great antiquity. Quaint and picturesque are the lofty mediaeval buildings which lean over its canals, where men and women push, with long poles, blunt-ended canal boats and clumsy-looking, but storm-proof, sloops and luggers, among perpetual cries and clamors ”

“ Hungary is still in the flush of youth, high-spirited, brilliant, enthusiastic, and a little out of perspective in its national consciousness. But who would ever do anything if he saw his true place in the cosmos? The rapid rise of Budapest—unprecedented save in the gold countries—into a capital of European importance, has shed a buoyant optimism, refreshing enough in this jaded century, over the inhabitants of that beautiful city. "We are the Vienna of the future," cried my cicerone, "and already Vienna is feeling our rivalry. ”

“ Many narrow streets cross these canals on high-built bridges, bearing a continuous and deliberately-moving traffic.
Hamburg also possesses noble boulevards, long and straight and wide, and well-shaded with umbrageous lindens, where, set back behind high walls and strong-barred gates, are miles of sumptuous mansions, in which her merchant princes maintain their households in unostentatious luxury. The wealth of the merchants of Hamburg is said to exceed that of the aristocratic office-holding classes of Berlin. ”

“ Entering Unter den Linden from the Schloss-Brücke, the imposing array of splendid public buildings on either hand of the expanding vista suggests the middle of the street as the only adequate viewpoint—and the majority take it, in the evening. The visitor is bound speedily to conclude that, unless it be Vienna, no European city can boast a more beautiful or impressive double line of structures. They have dignity and solidity in appearance, richness and taste in decoration, and spaces to stand in of princely proportions. ”

“ Austria and Hungary strike the casual visitor as very like any other European country, and so long as he remains on the beaten path he finds no reason to revise his judgment. Vienna, Budapesth, Prague, are very like Milan or Berlin. There is plenty of ready money, and every indication of a somewhat too advanced civilisation. In fact, decadence is suggested rather than under-cultivation. The ease with which the city people have adopted every new invention, and the facility with which they adapt themselves to modern appliances and conveniences, quite deceives the stranger. ”

“ Every capital town in the continent of Europe has, within the last 20 or 30 years, been beautified with spacious streets Vienna.and fine houses after the fashion of Paris, but the improvements made in Vienna are perhaps unique even in Europe. New streets and squares and gardens have been laid out, and palatial buildings constructed with a rapidity which is marvellous. Fine rows of houses,—palaces to all appearance,—line the spacious streets in every direction, and the visitor is bewildered in the midst of this forest of fine architecture, which is modern Vienna! ”

“ When I reached this spot and saw the busy beehive called Broadway, with thousands of telegraph-wires stretching across it like a cobweb between huge buildings, I was overawed, and wondered what it meant. Neither Budapest, nor Prague, nor Hamburg had looked anything like it. My puzzled and panicky expression and the red fez on my head must have attracted considerable attention, because suddenly I saw myself surrounded by a small crowd of boys of all sizes, jeering and laughing and pointing at my fez. They were newsboys and bootblacks, who appeared to be anxious to have some fun at my expense. ”

“ If the increase and changes of London and Paris have made my early recollections of those cities emphatically those of a former age, the changes at Vienna, though of course smaller in absolute extent, have yet more entirely metamorphosed the character of the place. The abolition of the wall, which used to shut in the exclusive little city, and placed between it and the suburbs not only a material barrier, but a gulf such as that which divided Dives from Lazarus, has changed the social habitudes and even the moral characteristics of the inhabitants. ”

“ He quitted Halle in the spring of 1703, and guided both by his instincts and by a preference of his master Zachau [33] he betook himself to Hamburg, the city of German Opera.
Hamburg was the Venice of Germany. A free town far from the noise of wars, a refuge of artists, and people of large fortunes, the centre of the commerce of Northern Europe, a cosmopolitan city where they spoke all languages and especially the French tongue, it was in continual relationship with both England and Italy, and particularly with Venice, which constituted for it a model for emulatation. ”

“ But Berlin is a small place compared to London, or even Paris, which has also its cockneys, although they are known by another name there. There are hundreds of thousands in London who have never seen anything but London. In such great cities conceptions are formed which permeate the whole community, and harden into the most inveterate prejudices. Such narrow and silly ideas arise in every great centre of population where the people have no experience, and often not the faintest notion of how things look elsewhere. ”

“ An ancient race has quickened with new life.”
From the Magyar The immediate approach to Budapest by river is distinctly and remarkably impressive. Ahead on the right are seen the heights of the Gellert Hill and of the nearer one on which the royal palace stands, while as we pass under the Margaret Bridge we get a striking view of what is surely one of the most beautiful groups of Parliament buildings in the world. Coming down-stream to Vienna it is only after we have got a certain degree of intimacy with it that we begin to do justice to its fascination. Budapest captures from the outset. ”

“ She is now reaching out for the adjoining town of Floridsdorf across the Danube, together with four other communes, having a population of 50,000; and this step increases the area of Vienna to about eighty-two square miles, nearly thrice the size of Berlin. Naturally such a large territory for a population smaller than a third that of London would comprise much open ground, especially as there is great overcrowding in the industrial districts. ”

“ Yet Munich is not all imitation. Its finest street, the Maximilian, built by the late king of that name, is of a novel and wholly modern style of architecture, not an imitation, though it may remind some of the new portions of Paris. It runs for three quarters of a mile, beginning with the postoffice and its colonnades, with frescoes on one side, and the Hof Theater, with its pediment frescoes, the largest opera-house in Germany, I believe; with stately buildings adorned with statues, and elegant shops, down to the swift-flowing Isar, which is spanned by a handsome bridge ”

“ I travelled about fifty miles daily, after leaving Prague, and with facility, as the roads are good. I set out usually about seven, and reached my gîte long before dark. Vienna, I fancy, cannot be a healthy residence; the houses are so high, the streets so narrow, and the population so disproportioned to the size of the town. One can walk round the walls in an hour; yet it contains 53,000 inhabitants. The best shops are far inferior to those even in the obscure parts of the city in London. ”

“ The mountains of the Vienna Forest bound the view, with here and there a stately castle on their woody summits. I was reminded of London as seen from Regent's Park, and truly this part of Vienna can well compare with it. On penetrating into the suburbs, the resemblance is at an end. Many of the public thoroughfares are still unpaved, and in dry weather one is almost choked by the clouds of fine dust. A furious wind blows from the mountains, sweeping the streets almost constantly and filling the eyes and ears with it, making the city an unhealthy residence for strangers. ”

“ It is but a short and pleasant walk from Hamburg to Altona, under the shade of several rows of trees, and this walk is the more agreeable after quitting the rough pavement of either place.
Hamburg is an ill, close-built town, swarming with inhabitants, and, from what I could learn, like all the other free towns, governed in a manner which bears hard on the poor, whilst narrowing the minds of the rich; the character of the man is lost in the Hamburger. ”

“ Vienna, 1814.
for many long years, are known to all who take an interest in the inner and domestic history of Austria during the period of its then ruler's omnipotence. Thirty years of age when he first took his place in the society of the capital, he was a handsome man, slender and well built, attractive in manner, refined and elegant, with an open countenance which united liveliness with good nature, full of chivalrous courtesy of bearing. Even in advanced years he retained something very winning, which gave expression both to his consistent high breeding, and to his kindness of heart. ”

“ Here the narrow zigzag streets, the rural lanes, the riverside, the little beer gardens, were as thronged as the city, while opposite, in the Englischergarten, there were glimpses of another crowd which completed the impression that every house in Munich must be deserted.
Few villages in the high Alps are more picturesque than Schwabing, which still has its old mill, and the tower of whose white church, perched high, swells into one of those graceful spheres that form links in an invisible chain through the blue of Bavaria, Austria, and Hungary to the land of the Turk. ”

“ There are three cities which I should be glad to describe in detail—Hamburg, Dresden, and Prague. Hamburg, to which we came from Amsterdam, perhaps appears more beautiful from the contrast, and remains in our memory as the fairest city of the North. Dresden, the capital of Saxony, is also a beautiful city, and attracts a great number of English and American residents by its excellent opportunities of education, and from its treasures of art, in which it is richer than any other city in Germany. ”

“ Here in Halle, where we have no public garden and no Tivoli, no London Exchange, no Paris Chamber of Deputies, no Berlin nor Vienna Theatres, no Strassburg Minster, nor Salzburg Alps,--no Grecian ruins nor fantastic Catholicism, in fine, nothing, which after one's daily task is finished, can divert and refresh him, without his knowing or caring how,--I consider the sight of a proof-sheet quite as delightful as a walk in the Prater of Vienna. ”

“ Vienna, the Hungarian capital delights some visitors far more—though in regard to animation, if we go along the Francis Joseph Quay during the promenade hour, or along the Andrassy Street in the evening, when the cafés are at their busiest, then Budapest may compare in that regard, too, with the Austrian capital. The visitor perhaps feels more at home among the Hungarians than in the social cosmopolis, and that even though some travellers have declared that in Budapest we first touch the Orient. ”

“ Vienna is a large splendid city on the Danube; it contains upwards of one million one hundred thousand inhabitants, and is considered one of the finest capitals of Europe.
On Oct. 20th, we left and went to Pesth (called also Buda-Pesth) the capital of Hungary, 172 miles from Vienna, where, on Sunday the 22nd, Mr. Müller preached at the German Reformed Church in the morning, and at the Baptist Chapel in the evening. ”

“ In Hamburg they were selected from among the most respectable and wealthy men in the city, some of them far advanced in age. They were conveyed to the old castle of Haarburg on the left bank of the Elbe, and these men, who had been accustomed to all the comforts of life, were deprived even of necessaries, and had only straw to lie on. ”

“ The Berlin work-girl knows more about viciousness, and looks more like a suet dumpling than any one else. But, though her figure may not be perfect, the London work-girl takes the palm by winsomeness and grace. At seven o'clock every evening you may meet her in thousands in Oxford Street, Villiers Street, Tottenham Court Road, or London Bridge, where the pavements lisp in reply to the chatter of her little light feet. The factory girl of twenty years ago has, I am glad to say, entirely disappeared. ”

“ The first impressions which London makes on the stranger’s mind are similar to his first impressions of the sea. They are not overwhelming. “A town, after all, is but a town”; that’s what my Viennese friend would say. “There are as fine houses in Vienna and Berlin, and some are more imposing. Brewer’s drays, foot-passengers, cabs, omnibuses, and policemen—we have them all. A town, after all, is but a town. A few miles, more or less, make no difference. ”

“ In the evening I strolled around Vienna—the city makes a much quieter impression than Berlin. One feels that Vienna is more a quiet home town than a modern city.
July 11, 1916
To avoid the dreary railroad journey from Vienna to Budapest, I am [Pg 154] taking the steamer, and will catch the Balkan train at Budapest. In that way I will see and enjoy the scenery much more. Even if the trip cannot compare with one on the Rhine, it is still very beautiful. To Pressburg the country is hilly; then it is flat country, with trees, and often forests, on the banks. ”