ON TWO CONTINENTS BAYARD TAYLOR 1877 On Two Continents Memories of Half a Century BY MARIE HANSEN TAYLOR With the Co-operation of LILIAN BAYARD TAYLOR KILIANI Illuitrtttd from Contemporary Portrait* and Paintimgt ty "Bayard Taylor New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1905 Copyright, 1905, by Doubleday, Page Sf Company Published, October, 1905 All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign language*, including the Standinavian MOTTO " SDfe alten Ztittn legten 0icJ mit toatm an l^erj, und alte Eiebe, feejuisfucfit tmd Zubrrsicfjt ntiilltcn mtcg 00, ba00 Ute gan^ ttrtirrKt feat." VARNHAGEN VON ENSK 255137 CONTENTS PACK CHAPTER I ON THE SEEBERG The Gotha Observatory Peter Andreas Hansen and His Wife Hansen s Scientific Accomplish ments His Knowledge of Languages and Music Life at the Observatory Development of Liter ary Taste To School in the City . . . 3 CHAPTER II FROM THE SEEBERG TO TOWN The Hansen Family Moves to Gotha The Educa tion of a German Girl in the Early Nineteenth Century Excellence of the Theatre New Scientific Triumphs of Herr Hansen Professor Newcomb s Opinion of Them Mrs. Emil Braun Her Acquaint ance with Famous English Men and Women Frau Hansen s Brother-in-law Meets Bayard Taylor in Egypt Taylor s First Visit to Gotha . . .16 CHAPTER III IN ROME Visit to the Brauns at Rome First Impression of the Eternal City Mrs. Browning s Description of Emil Braun Theodore de Witt Intellectual Growth in Rome Antique Sculpture Meeting with Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (Emperor Frederick) A Summer in the Apennines Second Winter in Rome 26 CHAPTER IV RETURN TO GOTHA Removal of the Observatory to the City Hansen and Gauss Taylor s Second Visit to Gotha in 1856 vii viii CONTENTS Continued PAGE His Appearance Trip to England Taylor s Growing Fame Engagement of Marie Hansen and Bayard Taylor Comic German Verses by Taylor The Wedding Leaving the Old Home Again in London Meeting with Thackeray On the Way to Greece Taylor s Travels in Greece His Letters Birth of a Daughter . . 39 CHAPTER V OUTRE MER Arrival in New York Dana, Putnam, Mr. and Mrs. R. H. Stoddard Trip to Taylor ? s Home, Kennett Square Meeting with the Quaker Family Taylor s Ancestors Acquiring Land Prepara tions to Lecture George William Curtis Removal to Brooklyn Common Life of the Taylors and Stoddards Letters from Taylor on His Lecturing Tour In the Ohio Forest At St. Paul Return to the Farm at Kennett Square Building the House Lecturing Again To San Francisco Ex periences in California Once More in New York Its Literary Circles Boker, Aldrich and Stedman The Warner and Carey Sisters Horace Greeley Bryant Taylor Still Lectures Notes from the Lecture Field . . ... . . 58 CHAPTER VI THE NEW HOMESTEAD Appearance and Location of "Cedarcroft" Family and Visitors The Quaker Neighbours The Status of Woman Among Them Perished Types . . 86 CHAPTER VII WAR TIME Rumours of Coming Conflict Election of Lincoln In New York Lecturing to Pay for " Cedarcroft " The Firing on Sumter Progress of the War Supposed Danger to " Cedarcroft " A Visit to the Fatherland The Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg- CONTENTS Continued Jx PAGE Gotha Entertain Taylor Return to America Visitors at "Cedarcroft" War Scenes New Lec tures War Correspondence for the Tribune Taylor s Appointment as Secretary of the Legation at St. Petersburg . . . x , . . . 94 CHAPTER VIII THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE In the Far North Society in the Russian Capital Journeys in the Empire Novgorod and Moscow A Russian Dinner Taylor Becomes Chargt d - Affaires The Diplomatic Corps Lord Napier, Baron Gevers, Count Golz Taylor and Russian Confidence in the North s Victory Christmas and New Year The Emperor s Reception The Tay lors at Court Society and Gossip Plans for the Future Farewell to Russia . . * . ,120 CHAPTER IX THREE PROLIFIC YEARS Lecturing and Novel Writing The "Echo Club" American Painters "The Picture of St. John" Improving "Cedarcroft" The Winter of 1865 in New York Taylor s Fortieth Birthday Assas sination of Lincoln Guests at "Cedarcroft" Boker, McEntees, Mr. Stedman The "Story of Kennett" Lecturing in the West Beginning of the "Faust" Translation Letters from the West 145 CHAPTER X IN EUROPE A Week in England "Barry Cornwall" Mr. Swinburne Reading His Poems From Gotha to Geneva Taylor s Letters from the Pyrenees, Majorca, Barcelona, etc. In Germany Gustav Freytag A Picnic in the Thuringian Forest Venice Florence Naples Sorrento Rome In fluence of Rome on Literary Work Corsica The Old Home New Poems and Studies . . . 173 x CONTENTS Continued PAG CHAPTER XI THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" Winter at "Cedarcroft " Rendering the " Walpurgis Night," the "Intermezzo" "Faust," Part II "Home Pastorals" Their Form Lecturing Anew Letters from Utah Failure of San Francisco Lectures News of Sedan Final Completion of " Faust " Plan of a Combined Biography of Goethe and Schiller Sale of the "Faust" Translation The Burden of "Cedarcroft" "The Masque of the Gods" 198 CHAPTER XII IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN Gotha Berthold Auerbach Travelling in Goethe s Country The Italian Lakes German Appreciation of Taylor "Lars" Death of Horace Greeley Failure of Income from the Tribune Viennese Cor respondence for the Tribune New Poems Letters from Weimar Egypt Italy Death of Hansen Back to America 223 CHAPTER XIII SUNSET Admirers at Home Lecturing in the West Meeting with Sidney Lanier Struggling with Narrow Means "Prince Deukalion" In the Tribune Office The "Centennial Ode" Toiling in Summer Gradual Wearing Out of Taylor s Strength Resting in Sulphur Springs New Liter ary Labours Taylor s Appointment as Ambassador to Germany At Berlin Letters from Berlin Visit of General and Mrs. Grant to Berlin Bismarck and Grant Last Letters A Royal Wedding Failure of Taylor s Health The "Epicidium" Ode Taylor s Death. 254 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS BAYARD TAYLOR (1877) .. Frontispiece FACING PAGE PETER ANDREAS HANSEN . . . . 6 THE DUCAL OBSERVATORY AT GOTHA . . 39 BAYARD TAYLOR (1864) 94 " CEDARCROFT " ...... 152 GOETHE S GARDEN HOUSE AT WEIMAR . . 238 SIDNEY LANIER (1875) 258 EMPEROR WILLIAM I. AND PRINCE BISMARCK 280 ON TWO CONTINENTS CHAPTER I ON THE SEEBERG MY childhood belongs to a bygone time. In those days the power of steam had hardly been put to the test ; the electric spark had produced none of its wonders. In the evening people sat by a tallow candle, which was ignited with a paper lighter, and no household was with out its flint and steel as well as its punk or tinder for starting the fire. The snuffers, on their metal stand, lay beside the candle and not for show alone. Goethe had even sighed in rhyme: "Who, forsooth, could make a better invention Than a candle that burns without snuffers attention ! " So primitive was life then in contrast with the present, when we suffer under the high pressure of a highly com plex existence, that, for instance, on the occasion of a visit which my father paid to the wife of the Cabinet Minister, he found that very aristocratic lady knitting a stocking by the light of. a single tallow candle. Combined with this simplicity of living, people were generally en dowed with a singleness of heart which was more esteemed than material wealth, and a spirit of economy which benefited the ensuing generation. But it is not in order to describe these times that I write my reminiscences ; it is rather because early in life I came in contact with eminent and distinguished people, of whom I feel impelled to give an account. 3 :TWO CONTINENTS I was born on the hill called the Seeberg, distant one hour (about three miles) from the town of Gotha. While digging in the sand and building clay houses, we children often found fossil shells, so that the name of the mountain seemed to be justified. And yet the house in which we lived should have been christened the Windcastle, for all the year it was exposed to the blasts that blow from eve^ point of the compass. The bare summit rose solits out of the plain, crowned by the Ducal Observatory, which was joined at right angles the less pretenti( dwelling house. My father, Peter Andreas Hanser native of Tondern in northern Schleswig-Holstein, a successor of von Zach, Lindenau and Encke, as DiV of the Observatory, and my mother was descer a long line of huntsmen, who until the beginr nineteenth century had lived in an idyllic syl at the foot of Castle Scharfenstein, the anceso the Barons of the Empire von Uetterot. My .no slender figure and finely cut features, however, bor resemblance to the Nimrods of her race, and iher intelligence made her a fit companion for that man of stern science, my father. My mother was considerably younger than her husband, and had been an attractive beauty in her youth. Beside her the stately figure of my father was doubly con spicuous. His deep blue eyes, delicate but wide nostrils, and broad, well-modelled brow framed in a luxuriant growth of hair which had early lost its chestnut hue and surrounded his head with a silver halo gave the impression of a man of unusually strong intellect and character. His figure was well knit and broad shouldered, of more than middle stature ; his fair skin was so fine and ON THE SEEBERG 5 delicate that many a lady might have envied it, and his small hands were beautifully shaped. Living as he did, entirely for his science, it is probable that my mother, who was married to him in her sixteenth year, had to go through some serious schooling before she learned to con form to the fixed peculiarities of the husband, who was fteen years her senior. A characteristic anecdote of .e early years of their married life was related to me . ng afterward by an aged friend. My parents attended ball of the " Mohrengesellschaft, " or " Society of the or," so called from the hostelry of that name, in which reunions were held. My mother wore her wedding T f cf white satin and a wreath of forget-me-nots in , . brown hair (a costume singularly becoming to ate beauty). In the course of the evening she missed her husband ; she sought and ques- L< vain he had disappeared. Frantic with ex- ne*.t- and fear she ran alone, in her white satin pers, the long way from the town up to the top of t Seeberg, where she found my father seated at his desk, buried in the solution of a mathematical problem. A sudden idea which had struck him while in the midst of the dancing throng had driven from his mind all thought of the existence of his young wife, and he had rushed headlong home to fix this idea on paper. My father owed his education entirely to his own exertions. His parents, of Danish extraction, were simple, honest burghers. His father followed the trade of a gold- and silver-smith, which yielded him a meagre profit. His only son was therefore obliged to be satis fied with the acquirements which a common school could furnish. Nevertheless, the youth s evident talent 6 ON TWO CONTINENTS for mathematics, which showed itself even in his boy hood, attracted the attention of a friendly neighbour, a physician who had a penchant for this special science. Many years later my father told me that this benevolent man during his school life lent him from an excellent library instructive books, especially those on mathe matical subjects, so that he was able to extend his frag mentary knowledge, and to fill out the gaps in a desultory school education. The persistent industry which he maintained throughout his entire life, joined to an ardent thirst for knowledge, enabled him to overcome all the obstacles which arose in his path, and finally to enjoy high honours. Besides his genius for exact science, my father pos sessed a remarkable talent for languages and music. Without the help of a teacher he acquired a knowledge of French and Latin, and later published treatises in these languages. Speaking Danish and German equally well from childhood, he also spoke and read Swedish, could make himself understood in English, and had some knowledge of Greek. Music was a delight and pleasure to him during his whole life. In this accomplishment also he never had instruction. In his youth he played the organ in the church, attempted the violin, and played on the piano. He executed only classical masterpieces, and read music with ease. But the crowning quality of his nature was his absolutely honourable character, to which any insincerity or meanness was abhorrent. The demands which he made upon himself in this respect he made equally on others, and when he found himself deceived he could with difficulty be dissuaded from harsh judgment. Entirely wrapped up in his scientific pursuits, PETER ANDREAS HANSEN Father of Mrs. Bayard Taylor ON THE SEEBERG 7 he maintained only the necessary relations with the world at large, and appeared stern and unapproachable to those who did not know him well. Even to those who were more nearly connected with him he remained in part reserved and uncomprehended, for he revealed him self only to a few. These few, however, who looked into his soul discovered there a deep well-spring of feeling, and have never been able to forget with what elementary force it throbbed and heaved. It has always been an enigma to me whence was derived the patrician quality in his nature, which manifested itself also in his outward appearance. It could hardly have had its origin in the small middle-class surroundings in which he grew up, but must have been placed in his cradle as the gift of a beneficent fairy or it was an in heritance from his ancestors, of whom he knew absolutely nothing. He was fond of jestingly tracing his descent from a certain anchorsmith, Matz Hansen, who at the court of the King of Denmark once drank a Russian boyar under the table, as is amusingly related by Oehlen- schlager, in his "Islands in the South Sea." The for mer s tough, robust nature was also characteristic of my father, but in his mastery of the art of drinking the resemblance ceased. Art was foreign to my father s comprehension, and his undivided pursuit of science left him little time to occupy himself with literature. In spite of this he was not unacquainted with literary productions. He had a pronounced predilection for certain masterpieces, to which he remained true to the end of his life. Thus, the " Saga of Frithiof " was an especial favourite, and I remem ber vividly how in later times, when he was obliged to 8 ON TWO CONTINENTS take more rest, he turned again to this heroic epos and read it aloud to me in the original, moved by delight in its rythmical and intrinsic beauties, from time to time appealing to me, who, as he knew, understood no Swedish, with the exclamation: " Isn t it beautiful !" At another time he was enthusiastic over Horace s Odes. One beautiful summer evening, when he was an aged man, and partly blind, my parents, Taylor and myself, together with a cousin of my mother and an ardent admirer of my husband, were gathered on the vine-covered veranda of the new observatory at Gotha, when the conversation turned to Horace and the most beautiful of his odes. My husband began to quote from memory, Doctor Henne- berg, my mother s cousin, followed suit, and animated by this my father declaimed ode after ode with an enthusiasm which was a revelation. My father became Director of the Observatory of Gotha in 1825, when Professor Encke, his predecessor, accepted a call to Berlin. The observatory on the Seeberg had been founded in 1787 by Duke Ernest II., of Gotha- Altenburg, an intellectual and enlightened sovereign. He was liberal minded, a believer in the constitutions of Switzerland and the United States, and he refused, in spite of the offer of large sums, to sell his troops to England for the suppression of freedom in the colonies. In his will he left the sum of 40,000 thalers ($30,000) out of his private fortune as an endowment fund for the Observatory, and expressed the wish that this scientific foundation should remain as his monument. The building was originally well planned and stately. The observatory proper, built of yellow Seeberg sandstone, was the principal structure, flanked on each side by a ON THE SEEBERG 9 rectangular wing. Between them lay an open paved courtyard. The left- (the eastern) wing, which contained only offices and servants rooms, perhaps also stable and carriage house, was no longer in existence at the time when my father entered upon his duties as director ; only the foundations and the cellar remained. Some steps, covered by a trapdoor, led down into the latter. In the western wing, in which we lived, my father s study communicated with the observatory. High double doors led first into a small completely dark passage, where on the walls hung loaded guns and pistols, none of which was ever put to use. Beyond, a tightly closed door divided it from the library, a large, very high room, which, however, was much inferior in size to the halls beyond, which were devoted to purposes of observation. In the latter, where the chilly atmosphere of science pervaded everything, and the visitor was awed into walking with noiseless tread, the solemn silence was broken only by the ticking of astronomical clocks. These spacious rooms, with their mysterious instruments, inspired us children with fear; the presence of some colossal busts of Copernicus, Tycho de Brahe, and others, which had at some time or other received a coat of black varnish, tended to heighten this impression. The succession of rooms was interrupted by the hall a vestibule connected with the principal entrance from the court yard. Behind this was a spiral stairway of stone leading to the flat roof, while an immense folding door opened into the garden toward the south. On pleasant summer afternoons we drank our coffee in this so-called "hall" and enjoyed the view of the faint blue chain of the Thurindan Mountains and of the castles of the Drei io ON TWO CONTINENTS Gleichen* rising eastward out of the plain. We children experienced a special pleasure then, for three or four of us were allowed to sit in the giant armchair that had come down to us from the time of Herr von Zach. It was far from beautiful, but conspicuous by its sofa-like proportions and abnormally high back. The rooms of the dwelling house w r ere hardly smaller or lower in proportion than those of the observatory; this wing consisted of a first floor built over extensive cellars, kitchens, etc., and a low-ceiled upper story which contained for the most part the living-rooms of the janitor.f There was neither spring nor well upon the Seeberg. Rain water was collected in immense wooden tubs that stood in the courtyard under the tin leaders from the roof. Our drinking water was brought daily in two copper kettles, hanging from a shoulder yoke, by a man-servant. He carried it from a spring situated a mile away in the meadows of the nearest village, and up a steep path on the side of the hill. The climate on the Seeberg was extremely rigorous during the greater part of the year. There were no trees in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, nor was there any protection against rain or storm. *Three isolated conical peaks, each surmounted by a castle, that rise abruptly from the plain, some miles south of Gotha. One of the castles, the Wachsenburg, is inhabited, the others are in ruins. They are celebrated in story as the heritage of the Graf of Gleichen, who joined the last Crusade, was captured by the Saracens, and rescued from slavery by the Sultan s daughter, who fled with him. In grati tude for her sacrifice of kindred and rank he married her, although he had a wife in Germany. On his way home he gained the Pope s sanction for this step, and when he returned with the Princess to his ancestral castle, and told the story of his escape to the Countess, the latter embraced the Saracen wife and vowed to treat her always as a sister. The Count was buried in the Cathedral at Erfurt, between his two wives, where their skeletons may be seen to this day. fThe dwelling house was afterward converted into an inn, which was consumed by fire in the winter IQOO- OI. ON THE SEEBERG n Often the blasts roared around the solitary building, so that no one dared go outside. I recall a furious storm that blew off the flat copper roof of the building and carried it down hill into the fields below. Another storm lives in my memory a snowstorm that kept us prisoners for several days in the town whither we had gone to visit our grandparents. After the snow had fallen all day it was not possible to reach the hill either afoot or on wheels. Not till the following day could my father, with the help of snow shovellers, dig a path through the drifts which had formed at the foot of the last steep ascent. My father s salary, as long as he lived on the Seeberg, amounted to 600 thalers ($450) annually, with the addi tion of free lodging, fuel, and light. Even in those days of cheap living this was a scanty income for a family; but my mother, a woman whose education had taken a practical direction, was a very provident and economical housekeeper. In later years I was also schooled by her in this respect a circumstance which has been of great advantage to me during life. In spite of her delicate frame and frequent ill-health, her house and table were always well furnished. She possessed the art of improvis ing a savoury dinner with very scant means, and was sometimes called upon to exercise this art when strangers, usually famous men of science, were guests of my father. She had learned fine cooking when a very young girl under the direction of the well-known Kuchenmeister* Dietrich, in the Court kitchen of the Dowager Duchess Caroline Amalie, a favour which was granted to my grandparents by the princess. Thus, she was able to prepare most *Chef with the title of "Kitchenmaster." 12 ON TWO CONTINENTS delicious food and pastry, a fact which my father thor oughly appreciated, for, although never a gourmand, he did not contemn the pleasures of the table. Whenever we had guests the table was set in the Saal, a spacious apartment extending up through both stories to the roof, with three arched windows toward the west, affording a view of the park side of the town, crowned by the castle of Friedenstein. South of the Saal was the "blue room," the parlour, so called on account of its sky-blue, glazed wall paper and curtains partly of white, partly of pale-blue mull. A bookcase stood in this room, which in very early years began to have a fascination for me. It contained a complete edition of Goethe s works, the last from his own hand, and one of Schiller s, as well as a number of those so-called Taschenbucher, so popular at the time, handsomely bound, finely printed volumes, illustrated with good copper-plate engravings and con taining articles of general literary interest. Before we left the Seeberg that is, before I had completed my tenth year I had devoured all the stories in the latter, as well as Schiller s dramatic works. Goethe had as yet no interest for me. I was the oldest child and after me came four brothers and two sisters. When I was old enough to go to school I went to live with my grandparents in town. For vacations and on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, when we had no school, I started after lesson hours were over, if the weather was fine, and went home to the Seeberg. The walk often seemed very long to me; I usually went alone and often not without fear. The latter half of the way was unfrequented ; only occasionally I met a stone-cart coming from the quarries of the Great ON THE SEEBERG 13 Seeberg, and then was terrified by its unprepossessing- looking driver. In summer I was sometimes frightened by the clouds towering in gigantic masses. It seemed to me I could almost touch them; sailing past above me they appeared to come nearer and nearer, as if to over whelm and devour me. Arrived at home, the boundless liberty of the hill was mine, and I romped at will with my brothers, while down in the town, at my old grand parents home, my life was more sedate. But there were pleasures there, too. An old maid-servant told me tales and legends, also robber stories, alas ! and in the evening sometimes an ancient great-great-aunt, who had often seen Goethe in Weimar, sat at my bedside and sang me to sleep with the song : "Up there on yonder mountain I ve stood a thousand times." My grandmother was a slender dark-haired woman of superior intellect, and masculine visitors old friends of the family were fond of conversing with her. One con versation in particular lives in my memory, which I heard her hold with the preacher of a neighbouring village about the fortunes of the Saxon-Ernestinian line (the reigning Dukes of Thuringia) during the Reformation. I sat un heeded at the window, drinking in every word, and I believe that my growing interest in history dated from that incident. My grandfather was a tall stately man with short, curly blond hair and pleasant blue eyes, a huntsman like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. When a young man he was appointed as B uchsenspanner* *The title of an attendant, who was always near the sovereign while hunting, and whose duty it was to carry, load and cock his gun. i 4 ON TWO CONTINENTS to Duke August,* who later raised him to the dignity of Forstmeister (Master of the Preserves), a rank which had hitherto been conferred only upon noblemen, and kept him in close attendance upon his person while he lived. My grandfather s official residence, called the H of j tiger ei, was situated on the Jagerstrasse, which led from the town park into the open fields. The eight buildings which it comprises are all state property, and were then used as official lodgings for Court functionaries of various degrees. Behind the dwelling house of the Hofjdgerei lay a spacious courtyard with outhouses, and beyond these extensive gardens with kennels, hay mows, and stables. In one of the latter hunting implements of all kinds were stored, among other things a silk net several yards in length, for catching larks, that had been made by some princess of the reigning house. After the great ducal hunts in winter, at which my grandfather was always present in his green huntsman s uniform with a short cutlass at his side, the kill was brought the next day into the courtyard of the Hof jdgerei; the carcasses were then skinned and cut up by the Forstgehilfen (foresters apprentices) in a large stone vault, which was built for this purpose. A portion of *My mother told me many interesting stories of this genial prince, whom she had often seen when a child. With his well-known gener osity, he gave a number of valuable gifts to my grandparents, which have been handed down as heirlooms in the family. I have in my possession, also, a small three-cornered note in the Duke s own hand writing addressed to my grandmother, which reads: "A Madame Braun, ne e Henneberg, chez elle. I hope, my dear Braun, that this time you will lay aside your bad habit, and accept this small Christmas gift, and wear it. The closets in your house are very musty, and such mildew spots can never be removed from light- coloured stuffs. Trust this time in my good advice. Your well wishing "llMILE." Above the wafer with which the note is sealed, the letter "A" is embossed upon the paper. ON THE SEEBERG 15 the venison was delivered to the Court kitchen, the rest was sold to the townspeople at a moderate price. When the hunt, which almost always took place at some dis tant point, was over, and my grandfather had returned home in the evening, he immediately changed his clothes, put on the gold-embroidered dress uniform (in which he looked extremely handsome), and hastened to the castle, where he took part in the dinner of the ducal party. CHAPTER II FROM THE SEEBERG TO TOWN IN the year 1839, when I was ten years old, my father received a call to Dorpat, which he accepted unwillingly and under the stress of circumstances. His resignation had been accepted by the Government, trunks and boxes had been packed and were waiting in Lubeck, preparatory to shipment into Russia, when one day, just before our departure, my father returned from the town in a state of pleasurable excitement and exclaimed to my mother: "You will be happy to hear that we stay here after all!" Then he told her that he had accidentally met the Duke* in the town park, who had accosted him with the words : " Well, Hansen, you are really going to leave us? " " Yes, Your Highness," he had answered, "I am unfortunately obliged to do so." He went on to explain that with an increasing family his salary was no longer sufficient for his needs, and that life on the Seeberg offered ever-in creasing discomforts, whereupon the Duke replied that these matters could be mended. At the earnest solicita tion of the reigning prince my father then expressed his willingness to remain in Gotha, and at once received the promise of a higher salary and permission to live in the town in the future, and to direct the Observatory thence. Thus, we moved down from the height of the Seeberg into the suburbs, where my parents soon built a house *Ernest I., of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who had ascended the throne as next in succession to the extinct family of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. 16 FROM THE SEEBERG TO TOWN 17 of their own in the midst of a garden, with a view of our former home. It was surrounded on all sides but one by fields, and no one then suspected that a beautiful wide thoroughfare (the Bahnhofstrasse) would sub sequently be laid along the rear of the garden, whereby this modest property would gain considerably in value. My father built a small addition to the house, in which he fitted up on the simplest scale a private observatory. He obtained permission to have the transit instrument brought down from the Seeberg and set up here, and with its help made the observations necessary for his computations. In his weekly visits to the Observatory on the Seeberg he made an inspection of the instruments there, and also superintended the responsible caretaker who was placed in charge. The secluded, solitary life on the Seeberg and the growing size of her family, as well as the death of a seven-year-old son, had given a serious bent to my mother s earnest nature. In town she continued to live principally for her husband, children, and aged parents, and her delicate health left her neither time nor strength for the fulfilment of social obligations, while my father found supreme satisfaction at his desk, where he sat early and late, working out with tiny figures his mathe matical computations. His habits were frugal and regular, and he interrupted them only by occasional trips for scientific purposes, or when guests came from other cities to visit him. For these reasons our life at home was somewhat monotonous and lacking in diversions. My brothers had their com rades, and early developed pronounced talent ; but while they could devote themselves to play and follow their 1 8 ON TWO CONTINENTS inborn tastes during leisure hours because they were boys, as a girl and the eldest I was not so well off. Accord ing to the custom of those days, it was my place to assist my mother in the household, to learn knitting, sewing, and embroidery perfectly, and to acquire only so much scholarly knowledge as was necessary to be classed among educated people. To be conversant with French was the principal desideratum, but in other respects the school to which I was sent was an antiquated one, which my mother had attended in her time. The mistress, " Ma m- sell" Osann, was an old, rather intelligent, and peculiar lady; and a real " schoolmarm. " She always sat in an armchair in the window corner of the first class, whence her argus eyes watched every one of our movements. A black velvet bag was her constant companion, which she opened and held to her nose once in a while in order to take a surreptitious pinch of snuff. Although she endeavoured to keep pace with the requirements of the times, she never quite succeeded in doing so, and the inadequate school education which I received under her direction has always been a hindrance to me. A desire to know a great deal, which I developed early, was un fortunately not fostered by mediocre and superficial teachers; there was but one exception, the teacher of history, who made his instruction to us of the first class very interesting. His lessons were my favourite ones, and I was always able to answer correctly when he asked questions in review. In my thirteenth year my schooling came to an end. I was then almost fully grown and looked older than I was, so that a new nursemaid thought me my mother s sister. In the same year I was confirmed in the Court FROM THE SEEBERG TO TOWN 19 chapel of Castle Friedenstein, and swore dutifully to accept articles of faith which I did not comprehend. I was now obliged to help diligently in the housekeeping and to assist my mother, who was often ill and over burdened with household cares, but I frankly confess that I took little pleasure in this occupation, and would much rather have applied myself to intellectual pursuits. It was only in the evening that I could take up a book, usually a borrowed one, without pricks of conscience, and even then I did not venture to read unless I was at the same time busily knitting a stocking. Yet I was not quite without instruction. I took some private lessons in history, geography and drawing in company with young friends, and had weekly lessons on the piano. But I had more talent for languages than for music. When my eighteenth year approached I asked for per mission which my father very readily accorded, over ruling my mother s objections to take part in private instruction in English. Thus, I came by that knowledge of the latter language which was destined to be of the utmost importance to my future. But all the rest of my attainments were fragmentary and did me little good. Besides, I was obliged to conceal the little that I did know, in order not to win the dreadful reputation of a bluestocking. However, my life was not entirely lacking in pleasures, which took the form chiefly of balls and visits to the thea tre. The latter was then at its best. The company was a good one, and even included several first-rate actors. Every Sunday an opera was given, and there were three performances a week a comedy, a drama, and a tragedy. In addition, famous actors from other theatres often 20 ON TWO CONTINENTS gave benefit performances. With the low prices then prevailing, even people of moderate means were able to go often to the theatre, and the latter exerted an edu cating and refining influence on the public, as its repre sentations consisted of classical plays and the best operas. This made my taste so fastidious that in many other places, as, for instance, in New York, I could never again find real enjoyment in the theatre. My grandfather lived to see the accession of Ernest II. of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and ended his career as Oberforst- meister (Master of the Hunt) under the latter s rule. Ernest I. died on January 29, 1844, and with his death the ancient regime ended in our little principality. Ernest II.* was a true representative of his time. With the prevision of a statesman he recognised the political drift of affairs and was an adherent of the liberal tendencies which culminated in the revolution of the year 1848. His varied attainments, manifold gifts and clear mind rendered a hollow court cere monial abhorrent to him. He took pleasure in outward sim plicity and in intercourse with intellectually distinguished people. After ascending the throne he continued to reside in the small Palais of the suburb, in which he had lived since his marriage, and the apartments of the great quadrangular castle above the town remained empty except on the occasion of special festivities, such as balls, masquerades, or banquets. At the court functions under Ernest I. my father wore a dress coat, black silk breeches and stockings, low shoes with gold buckles, and a sword; but the invitations now read, "Dress, a black dress suit with white cravat." This change was not at all to my liking at first, as my father had looked so much *Brother of Albert, Prince Consort of England. FROM THE SEEBERG TO TOWN 21 handsomer in the former court dress, with his wealth of silver hair, his intellectual features, and noble bearing. In the meantime he had become a scholar of extended reputation. As early as 1830 he won the prize offered by the Academy of Berlin for " Researches concerning the reciprocal perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn." Other successful prize treatises followed, among which I mention here only the one offered in the year 1850 by the Academy of Paris (" Memoir e sur le calcul des per turbations qu epreuvent les cometes"), which also brought him in a considerable sum of money. The compendious manuscript, which fills a thick quarto volume, was written in French. The numerous scientific works of my father brought him honours and decorations, but seldom coin of the realm, which led him to remark jestingly once, in allusion to his discoveries in the moon: "My property is not of this world; it lies in the moon." My father s work was principally theoretical. His specialty was mathematical astronomy, the so-called theory of perturbation, which required mathematical calculations much more than observations of the sky. A younger contemporary, the celebrated American astronomer, Simon Newcomb, made the statement a few years ago :* " He (Hansen) may now fairly be considered the greatest master of celestial mechanics since Laplace," a judgment which I assume to have been prompted by strict impartiality. The disciples, who sought him in Gotha, as Wilhelm * Atlantic Monthly, September, 1898, "Reminiscences of an Astrono mer," since then published in book form. 22 ON TWO CONTINENTS Scheibner,* one of the most distinguished of them, said in an obituary notice, "received oral instruction from him, which he gave with an amiable patience. This privilege he refused to none in whom he recognised talent and ardour for his science." One of the foreign students was a young American, my first acquaintance among the countrymen of my future husband. The young man pleased my parents, and during the time that he worked under my father s supervision he remained under our roof. He made a name for himself as the astronomer Dr. B. A. Gould. About the year 1850 I made the acquaintance of a woman who was to have a great influence on my mental development. My mother s eldest brother, Emil Braun, who had earned a reputation as an archaeologist, came to Gotha on a visit to my grandfather, to introduce his second wife, an Englishwoman. They were on their way to Rome, where my uncle was at the head of the Prussian Archaeological Institute. My aunt s maiden name was Ann Thomson. She was a native of Man chester, but had lived much in London and had received an excellent education from her intelligent and art-loving father, so that with her clear mind and active intellect she had developed into an unusual woman. She was well informed in all branches of literature and fine arts and spoke several languages. Liebig did not consider it beneath his dignity to carry on a correspondence with her, and Layard, the discoverer of Nineveh, had taken great interest in her. She was a friend of the Brownings, of Mrs. Jameson, Mrs. Gaskell, John Kenyon, and be longed to their circle in London, as the published letters *Professor of Mathematics at the University of Leipzig. FROM THE SEEBERG TO TOWN 23 of Mrs. Browning go to show.* When Emil Braun informed my mother by letter, in 1849, of his engagement to Miss Thomson, he compared her nature and character to that of Portia in "The Merchant of Venice. 1 She was of medium height, with blond hair and regular, finely chiselled features. In years she was almost the equal of her husband; he was in his fortieth year and she was about thirty-six. Her cheerfulness, however, and her vivacity had kept her young, and she earned the undivided approbation of the family as soon as she entered it. I was fortunate enough to win her liking during her first visit to Gotha, and in spite of the great gaps in my education she did not disdain to interest her self in me. During a later visit from her to my grandfather I was indebted to her for my first acquaintance with Haw thorne s "House of the Seven Gables," published shortly before, which, she told me, was a very remarkable book and left it for me to read. She also spoke to me of Tenny son and his poems, which were entirely unknown to me, but she placed them below those of the Brownings. These years held my entire future in their lap without my being in any way aware of it. In the autumn of 1851 my mother s brother-in-law, the landholder August Bufleb, made a journey to the Orient, an undertaking so unusual in those days that it created quite an excitement in our little town. At the same time my future husband, Bayard Taylor, was also on his way to Egypt. He and *In a letter to Miss Thomson Mrs. Browning addresses her: "You, who are a Greek yourself!" This letter and a few others of the year 1845, published in "Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning" (in two volumes), have reference to some translations from the Greek for an Anthology, which Miss Thomson was editing at the time. 24 ON TWO CONTINENTS my uncle, who at first intended to travel in Palestine, but was induced by the Prussian Minister at Constantinople to make the trip to Alexandria, met on the steamer which ran from Smyrna to the latter port. Both travellers, the German and the American, although far removed in age, felt attracted to each other at once, and formed a friendship which lasted as long as they lived. Arrived at Cairo, they hired a dahabiveh together for the Nile trip, and started on November lyth. On December ist my uncle wrote to his wife, my aunt : "One evening is as beautiful as another, but none resembles its predecessor. It is impossible to withstand the sweet magic of this landscape; peace, heavenly quietude takes possession of the sympathetic heart, and beautifies, ennobles life. Every such evening finds my comrade and myself on deck, thinking with loving hearts of our absent dear ones, and the bonds of friendship are drawn closer and closer by the rare harmony of our habits of thought and action. We travelling companions avoid speaking of the time when one of us will be going through the Nubian Desert to Sennahar, and the other returning alone on the boat to Cairo." On December i6th the day of separation and sorrowful farewells dawned. But Bayard Taylor had already given his promise to his friend to visit him in Gotha after finish ing his travels in the Orient. On his return my uncle never tired of talking of his young American travelling companion, and thus w r e learned that he was seeking to recover in foreign countries from the deep wound which fate had dealt him in the loss of his first love, to whom he had been wedded on her deathbed. We were all anxious FROM THE SEEBERG TO TOWN 25 to make the young man s acquaintance, and when in September, 1852, he came in fulfilment of his promise the houses of the family in all its branches were opened to wel come him in the most hospitable manner, and even in more remote circles the appearance of this much-travelled stranger created a sensation. All who came in contact with him were attracted toward him, and he, for his part, in spite of the inherited reserve of his nature, was warm in praise of German Gemuthlichkeit. This quality was even inherent in his own blood, as the ancestors of both his grandmothers had been German colonists. He was at that time twenty-seven years old, his tall figure was still slender, his oval face deeply browned by the sun of the Orient. He gave the impression of an unusual, unspoiled, good and noble man, and thus he remained in my memory. I knew him but slightly at that time, as I met him only at the various dinners which were given in his honour by the family. That he would be my future husband did not enter my mind ; nor did I seem to make any deep impression upon him. CHAPTER III IN ROME A YEAR later I made my pilgrimage to Rome, which was a turning point in my life. Ever since the beginning of 1853 there had been some talk of my complying with the wish of my uncle and aunt, who were living there, to spend some time with them. I had been in correspon dence with my aunt for some time, and so I was informed of the interesting life which awaited me in her home, and I was full of the anticipation of taking part in it. It sounded so enticing when she wrote: "Emil is now giving two German lectures and one in English every week. The German lectures are for the young artists and students of Rome, but are public, and diligently attended by many ladies and gentlemen. Sometimes we leave the lecture-room and go down into the forum, or to some other place where antiquities are to be discanted upon, and have the lecture in the presence of the ruins of old Rome." Then again Aunt Ann wrote: "About six weeks ago we had quite a brilliant singing evening, and last week an instrumental performance of Beethoven s trios, when de Witt, our invalid, played divinely with two Italians: violin and violoncello. It went off so well that several persons have since begged for invitations for the next time, and Madame Henzen said to me, it was etwas Grosses solche Musik im Hause zu haben [a great thing to have such music at home]." 26 IN ROME 27 Finally, in the autumn of 1853, an acceptable travelling companion was found for me, and I bade adieu to my dear ones at home. Under the protection of a friend of the family I travelled by way of Vienna, Venice and Florence. I had letters commending me to the care of acquaintances in each of these cities, and stopped long enough to see the sights before proceeding to Rome, where I arrived on December 3d. It was night when the mail coach drove through the gate into the Piazza del Popolo, and darkness covered the Capitol as I climbed to the Monte Caprino,* where stood the house in which I was to dwell, the Casa Tarpeia, close to the Tarpeian Rock. A stairway of stone, with more than eighty steps, communicated with the upper floor on which were the apartments of my relatives. I was very tired, but sleep was long in coming that night. The following morning, to which I had looked forward with pleasant anticipation, brought me a disappointment, as the first few days of their stay have done to so many visitors in Rome perhaps in order that later they may be the more securely caught in the bonds of the enchant ress. It was the darkest month of the entire Roman year ; a gray blanket of clouds covered the city and the Campagna, and veiled the distant mountains. In such an atmosphere the gray ancient ruins which I saw from the window did not look very promising, and the crowded masses of low houses between them did not seem particu larly interesting to one who could not disentangle them. For our lodging was situated principally on the south side of the building, whence from the Saal (which was the sitting-room and at the same time my aunt s drawing- *The name applied to the southwestern portion of the Capitoline Hill. 28 ON TWO CONTINENTS room) and from the adjoining loggia ancient Rome lay spread in a wide semi-circle at our feet. The unfavourable weather gave me leisure to grow acquainted with my new home. The rooms were filled with books, pictures of the old masters, and fragments of ancient sculpture. These formed the background of the comfortable English home which the taste of my aunt had created. The family circle into which I was ad mitted consisted of five persons : my uncle and aunt, my eighteen-year-old brother, who had come to Rome in the previous year, Miss Cannan, a Scotch lady, and the young musician, Theodore de Witt, whom my aunt in her letters called her " invalid." To depict accurately the individuality of my uncle, Emil Braun, that rarely gifted and personally attractive man, is more than my pen is capable of. He possessed a tall, slender figure, crowned by an almost ideal head. He stands before me now with the finely cut features of his thin, pale face, lighted up by a spiritual expression, kindness of heart and profound thoughtfulness showing in the glance of the blue eyes, and with his long ash-blond locks combed back from a broad brow. As First Secretary and for many years Director of the German Archaeological Institute on the Capitol, he was rooted fast in the Eternal City, and was well known and w r ell beloved not only among Italians, but also by his own countrymen and dis tinguished visitors in Rome. Mrs. Browning thus speaks of him in a letter to Miss Mitford, of January 9, 1850: "Charmed, too, we both were with Dr. Braun I mean Robert and I were charmed. He has a mixture of fervour and simplicity which is still more delightfully IN ROME 29 picturesque in his foreign English. Oh, he speaks English perfectly, only with an obvious accent enough ! " * My uncle was an extremely busy man; often we saw him only at the two principal meals, but he always had something new or interesting to tell us, and his conversa tion was full of sparkling humour and wit. The Scotch lady had come to Rome in the previous year in order to make, under the supervision of my aunt, an English translation of Emil Braun s latest work, "The Ruins and Museums of Rome." Regularly every morning the two ladies sat at their writing desks in the Saal, occupied with their task. My brother, who had previously studied art in Dresden, was continuing his studies in Rome and only occasionally found time to de vote himself to me; de Witt, finally, was equally fitted with my uncle and aunt to attract the attention of those who came in contact with him. He had been in Rome since 1850, whither he had come partly on account of his health, weakened by protracted study, partly led by the desire to study ancient music, especially that of Palestrina, at its source. The means for his Roman sojourn were given by the King of Prussia at the inter cession of Meyerbeer (who had accidentally become acquainted with an early composition of de Witt s) and of the musical Court Chamberlain, Baron von Dachroden. For a year past he had occupied two rooms communica ting with Doctor Braun s apartments, and the bonds of friendship which united him with the latter and his wife were more closely drawn. The wasting disease of which he was a victim had not been checked in a southern climate ; *"The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning," New York, 1897, Vol. I, page 431. 30 ON TWO CONTINENTS it had continued its ravages, and his hollow cheeks and pallid face showed only too plainly what would be the fate of this young genius. At the time I came to Rome he was occupied with a critical edition of the Moieties of Pales trina, and in the course of time I learned that he succeeded, in spite of obstacles of various kinds, in getting into his hands all the remnants of that immortal music, which were scattered among the libraries of Rome, and thus in saving much that was threatened with destruction. At home there had been no lack of intellectual interests, on account of our acquaintance with learned men and other well-known and cultured people, but these interests had always been more or less one sided, and the aesthetic half of my nature had hitherto remained undeveloped. The benignant fate which took me to Rome and into the surroundings which I found there is responsible for the growth in me, as far as natural gifts and capacity made it possible, of that ideal of the beautiful which had previously floated but dimly before my vision. The disappointing impression of my first view of old Rome was dissipated by the rays of the sun, beneath whose radiant light I beheld the panorama from the flat roof of the Casa Tarpeia. In a great circle the city lies spread out from the Esquiline Hill to the Coliseum ; in the background the chain of the Sabine Mountains and that of Albano ; then in the foreground the picturesque Aventine, with the Tiber at its foot beyond, the Janiculum, the dome of St. Peter s, and to the north the impressive outlines of Soracte. Where in the whole world could one find another view like this! Down from the Monte Caprino a grand flight of stairs IN ROME 31 leads to the Piazza, of the Capitol and thence the Capi- toline stairway extends into the city below. Narrow, crooked streets, where one picture follows another, lead to the Corso, where we again step into the modern world. But the strait and dirty alleys where the people lived, with here and there an old palazzo, were my favourites. There one saw a Rome which no longer exists to-day. The papal Rome of those days was still pretty much the same Rome in which Goethe had felt so happy. After the political regeneration of Italy and of Rome a wealth of poetical associations and of artistic beauty disappeared forever. Those walking Caryatids, the Italian women of the people, still wore their picturesque costumes, and in the Piazza Montenara, where Goethe had supped, the campagnuoli could be seen daily in their short jackets, red vests, and gay belts. Not far from the Corso, around some splashing fountain, you might see a goatherd camped with his bearded charge, keeping his noonday siesta, and numerous monks and priestly processions added variety to the daily panorama. Among the mass of new impressions which were crowd ing upon me the deepest and most lasting was that which the sight of antique art exerted upon me. Even at my first visit, by the side of my classically educated aunt, to the Vatican Museum, a new world was opened to me the realm of "pure form," or, to quote the words of Goethe, "the highest that is left to us of the antique world, the statues." My first delight was overpowering, but the continued guidance of such teachers as Emil arid Ann Braun was necessary, in order that my originally superficial enjoyment of the antique should become part and parcel of my being and remain a pos- 32 ON TWO CONTINENTS session for my whole life. Besides visiting the museums, we frequented the splendid picture galleries among which that in the Palazzo Sciarra, now no longer in existence, although small, contained some unique master pieces. But great as was my enjoyment of the masters of colour, it always remained secondary to my delight in antique sculpture. To such an extent was this true that in later years my husband made the remark that the sense of colour was subordinate in my nature to the sense of form. Before I entered the Vatican I was taken to St. Peter s, but the church made less of an impression of grandeur upon me than did the Piazza outside with its obelisk, fountains, and surrounding colonnades. The enormous dimensions and wonderfully harmonious pro portions of the interior of the church make it impossible for the eye to find at once the correct standard of measure ment. A whole year later, on the occasion of the procla mation by Pius IX. of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, I recognised for the first time after repeated visits what a wondrous building, incomparably grand in architecture, the church of St. Peter is. It was late when my uncle, who accompanied me, started from home, and the solemn function had begun before our entrance. The nave and the aisles were closely packed by a countless multitude of worshipers; only the space between the portals and the first colossal columns was empty, with the exception of a few persons scattered here and there. Beyond, the people stood like a wall, head behind head, a crowd composed in great part of the contadini from the Campagna and from the distant mountains, all in their many-hued, distinct costumes. Far behind this compact IN ROME 33 throng rose the high altar, where the papal proclamation was being delivered, so distant that only a faint murmur now and again, a few tones of the proclamation or of the singing reached our ears. Thus, the immense size of the interior was brought home to me, and I understood the glorious idea of Bramante, which Michelangelo afterward carried out to portray the unlimited might of the Papal Church in the plan of this, the greatest temple of Catholic Christendom. Besides the educational influence which surrounded me in Rome there was no dearth of social pleasures. My relatives were on a footing of acquaintance or friendship with the best members of the foreign colony, English as well as German, who every winter came to live in the Eternal City. Among the former were the Brownings - Both were in the years of their highest productiveness: they stood at the acme of their creative activity and of their fame. Robert Browning could be called a hand some man at that time. When I saw him again in 1867 his thick dark-brown hair was blanched, his heavy whiskers had disappeared, and of his former beauty all that remained was the spiritual impress 01 his strongly marked features. In contrast to the robust virility of her husband was the small, slender figure and delicate appearance of Mrs. Browning. But in her eyes glowed the same deep fire as in his, only in hers it seemed more concentrated, as her black hair, hanging down in long curls, so framed her pale, haggard face that her dark eyes seemed to be the only feature visible. Browning counted himself happy to be in Rome, "a country," he said, picking up a clay vessel filled with water for evapo ration which stood on the iron stove, "where you find 34 ON TWO CONTINENTS utensils of this form and colour in daily use among the people!" The last time that I met the wedded poets was on the occasion of a morning concert in our salon. The young Prussian Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (afterward Emperor Frederick) made a short stay in Rome in the winter of 1854 ; his attention had been directed by the then Prussian Charge d Affaires, Harry von Arnim, to de Witt, and he expressed a wish to hear the young musician play upon the piano. This gave the motive for the concert at which the Prince appeared with his suite, and where a small company of distinguished guests, among them the Brown ings, awaited him. The Prince was then a handsome blond youth of twenty-two, with an agreeable presence. His modest demeanour created a favourable impression upon everyone. When my uncle, who was the Prince s cicerone, was questioned about the future heir to the throne, his sagacious judgment was that the youthful mind of the Prince was open to all good influences, and that it was to be hoped that his surroundings would always remain in accord with such influences. In the course of my first Roman winter I had gradually learned to know Rome and its nearer surroundings so well, together with all that the Eternal City offered of artistic and natural beauty, and manifold other pleasures and sights, that before a year had passed I was completely enmeshed in her enchanted web, and the thought that I must soon set my face toward the north weighed heavily upon me. My joy was therefore great when my parents, at the request of my uncle and aunt, gave me permission for a longer stay in Rome. This was in May. He who has never spent that exquisite month in Rome IN ROME 35 knows not how beautiful she is. The gray masonry of the ruins, on which the nimble lizards have hitherto sunned themselves, are covered as if by enchantment with green blossoming vines, the villas are gardens of roses in which nightingales sing, luxuriant vegetation is everywhere, and even the desolate width of the Campagna is decked with fresh verdure. Nevertheless our plans were made betimes to leave the city for the country toward the end of June. The Scotch lady had left us in the spring ; my uncle, who had always defied the summer in the Eternal City, was unwilling to leave, and my brother preferred to ac company a student friend to Subiaco. So it happened that my aunt went with de Witt, her "invalid," and me into the Apennines, w r here a small place San Gemini near Terni had been recommended to us. A veturino took us, after a two days journey, to the foot of the steep hill on whose summit rose the gray walls of the little town, and after a hot drive the ancient gate received us into its grateful shade. We were the first foreigners who had entered here within the memory of man, so that we created no little excitement until we finally reached a large stone house in a narrow alley, where lodgings had been engaged for us. In this spot, surrounded by fertile vineyards and fields, with a view of picturesque mountain scenery dominated by the lofty snowcapped summit of a towering peak, we remained for three full months, which were diversified by various peculiar experiences and events. Among them was our acquaintance with scorpions, of a small variety, it is true, and said to be harmless unless angered, but nevertheless unpleasant. In order to prove the fact which we had formerly heard stated, that the scorpion 36 ON TWO CONTINENTS commits suicide when he finds himself in danger from which he cannot escape, we caught one of these little creatures and put it in a paper bag. Then we placed pieces of red-hot coal in a circle about a yard in diameter on the stone floor of the kitchen, and let the scorpion out of his prison into the middle of it. He ran in all directions in his terror, and finding no way of escape he swiftly raised and bent back his tail, inserted the sting in his own neck and fell over, dead. If I had not seen the occurrence with my own eyes I should still believe it to be a fable. After these real Italian summer months we returned to Rome, where long-missed artistic pleasures awaited us. As no piano was to be found in all San Gemini, we had been sadly deprived of music, and now enjoyed all the more de Witt s glorious playing on my aunt s grand piano and the concerts which were given in the course of the winter. Thus, I had the privilege of hearing Mrs. Sartoris (the famous Miss Kemble) and the celebrated Barisotti sing for a charitable purpose; but a concert given by Formaggi, the organist of St. Peter s, made the deepest impression upon me a concert in which only ecclesiastical music was on the programme, among others the "O bene Jesus" of Palestrina, sung a capella, and a " Santo Santo" for six voices by Theodore de Witt. The latter was acquainted with all the Italian musicians of note then in Rome, and we often saw them, playing or conversing, in the salon of my aunt. Other Italians also came and went, and I thus had occasion to educate my ear for the best Italian : " lingua toscana in bocca romana." Besides the old acquaintances of the previous winter, which we renewed, we made some interesting additional IN ROME 37 ones. Among them Wolf von Goethe, attached to the German Legation, a tall man, no longer young, whose features had a slight resemblance to those of his grand father. He had a noble manner, with an aristocratic turn of mind, and was rather blase. Another reminiscence of Goethe s time was furnished in the person of a little brunette lady of forty, a granddaughter of Werther s Lotte. Miss Kestner was a simple, amiable, and cultivated lady, whose round face, red cheeks, and bright, dark eyes left a lasting picture in my mind. The winter passed like its predecessor with manifold interests, foremost among which were the frequent visits to the art collections, with Doctor Braun s " Ruins and Museums of Rome"* as an intellectual guide, until finally the short beautiful spring set in, followed immediately by a scirocco temperature, which forced us into ville- giatura. This time we sought the nearby Alban Moun tains, where we found an airy lodging in the Villa Picco- lomini, in Frascati. One day during a drive through the Campagna a merry adventure happened to me. I was going to Rome to do some errands and for this purpose made use of the daily vetturino. In the narrow rattling vehicle I sat with an old campagnuole and his two sons, who were also going to Rome. The latter were bright young fellows, and they as well as the old man, like all Italians of the lower class, behaved with inborn politeness. At the same time the Italian peasants are true children of nature (at least, they were so then), confiding, open- *Mrs. Browning wrote to Mrs. Braun under date of May 13, 1855: "lam only sorry I did not get to Rome after the book: it would have helped my pleasure so, holding up the lanthorn in dark places. So much suggestiveness in combination with so much specific information makes a book (or a man) worth knowing." "The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning," New York, 1897, Vol. II, page 195. 38 ON TWO CONTINENTS hearted, without timidity, and I enjoyed talking to them. The old man addressed me as g-iovanotta and all three said tu to me. I had to tell them where my home was, then they questioned further: If it was distant twenty miglie? "Oh, no," said I, "it is farther than a hundred, yes, farther than two hundred miles," whereupon the old man opened his eyes wide and asked, "Is it farther than Napoli?" The more the summer waned and autumn drew near the more I was weighed down by the thought of my approaching separation from Rome and its enchanted soil, which was scarcely diminished by the joyful expecta tion of seeing my family and friends again. I believed I had found in Italy the home of my soul, and much as I felt drawn toward parents, brothers, and sisters it was a dreary prospect to have to accustom myself again to the narrow horizon and the small interests of my native town. In the month of October came the dreaded day when I bade farewell to the Eternal City. I took with me, at the request of de Witt, the portion of his score of Palestrina which was ready for the printer, with the commission to send it to a publisher in Mann heim, who had shortly before made satisfactory offers for the publication of the work. Three volumes of it were ready for the press when the talented musician succumbed to his illness in December, 1855. In the sum mer of the following year my uncle, Emil Braun, died of the perniciosa, the worst form of Roman fever, and in the ensuing winter my brother, the artist, died in Munich. As Miss Cannan wrote to me from Scotland shortly after ward, "Death has made sad havoc in the Casa Tarpeia!" W en C OQ O O . H CHAPTER IV RETURN TO GOTHA THERE was joy in my parents house when I arrived, and joy entered into my heart also. Many changes had occurred during my absence. Grandfather had departed this life and my younger sister had become engaged to a young Curlander, August Wagner, who held a position in the Observatory at Pulkowa, near St. Petersburg. An event of very great importance was the removal of the Observatory from the Seeberg to the town of Gotha. This change had been mooted and deliberated upon since the year 1850 ; now my father had at last secured the con cession from the Government and the Assembly, and at the time of my return work was begun upon the new building. The stones for the latter were furnished by the sandstone blocks of the old structure, which were rehewn and thus regained their original handsome deep-yellow colour. The location chosen was the site of the old disused Court smithy at the lower, southern end of the Jagerstrasse, beside the Leina* Canal and close to the public park, with a fine view of the Thuringian Mountains. The building was near to our house and was a constant attraction to my father, who visited it several times a day, even during the earliest and roughest stages of construction. *An artificial brook laid out by the monk Bonifacius in the twelfth century, by which water was conducted from the mountains to the arid town of Gotha. 39 40 ON TWO CONTINENTS It would seem that during the two years that I had been away from my family a noticeable change had occurred within me. My intellectual horizon was broader, my character had become firmer, and my parents seemed consciously or unconsciously, to take this fact into con sideration by no longer treating me like a child, although such was in those days the customary treatment accorded to daughters even older than I was. Freely and openly, as I had never ventured to do before, I joined in the conversations in which my father indulged during meals and in the short pauses for rest, which he allowed himself several times during the day away from his desk. Almost uninterrupted mental work and healthy sleep were neces sities to him a severely regular, simple mode of life, and these talks seemed to be the only relaxation he required. When in the year 1856 a pamphlet was published on the "Life and Works of Gaus"* its contents recalled a num ber of incidents. Among other things it mentioned that this eminent scientist had taught himself to read; "but so did I," added my father. Then he continued: " I once scored a point over Gaus, as perhaps no one else ever did. I was calling on him in Gottingen and during our talk I spoke of the influence of refraction upon eclipses and occultations. I noticed immediately that the existence of such an influence was quite unknown to him, because he quickly changed the subject, as he was used to do whenever any topic was disagreeable to him." He also told us of the fact that Gaus did not begin to memor ise his logarithms until he had found out that he (Hansen) knew them by heart.f *Karl Friedrich Gauss, the celebrated astronomer ot Gottingen; died 1855. fFrom an old diary. RETURN TO GOTH A 41 Another time he told us a neat anecdote of his (Danish) countryman, Oehlenschlager, with whom he was ac quainted in his youth in Copenhagen. An insignificant young man who had been introduced to the author asked if he might call upon him at his lodging, and what was the address. Whereupon the latter made answer, " I live at 390 Street." " Oh," said the young man, "how can I ever remember the number?" "Easily," replied Oehlenschlager; "you need only think of the Graces, the Muses, and yourself." The time now approached when Bayard Taylor came again to Gotha. It was the summer of 1856. A year before he had announced this visit to my relatives, August Bufleb and his wife, and when my uncle wrote to express his pleasure at the prospect his letter continued as follows: "A short time ago I bought the property next to my estate, a garden with a little modest house. This cot tage shall shelter Taylor, when next year he keeps his word and conies to visit us. All arrangements are being made with this end in view ; the upper half of the garden a real French design of the last century with statues and fountain, dark beech alleys and trimmed box is put in order and awaits our distant friend; a smaller cot, near the fountain, is encased in bark and will serve as a bath house. The lower portion of the garden, a grove with fine large trees, containing a few acres, will refresh you with its shade and hopes to afford you a secret shrine of nature. The little parlour in the garden house will assemble us around you as often as you please. Thus, my dear Taylor, I have written my letters to you and therefore, in spite of distance and long separation, you* 42 ON TWO CONTINENTS heart could not give you news of any change in my feel ings or thoughts. On the contrary, the coincidence of our mutual harmony of thought possesses to my mind something truly touching; while you were dedicating your excellent work on Central Africa, your innermost ego, to me, I was beautifying the choicest part of my estate for you!" Bayard Taylor had returned home from his travels in the Orient late in the year 1853, and had published his three volumes, " Africa," "The Lands of the Saracens" and " India, China, and Japan. " He had visited the latter country with the American Expedition under Commodore Perry, which opened these islands to the commerce of the world, and was thus one of the first foreigners to set foot on Japanese soil. When he arrived in Gotha in August, 1856, he brought with him his two sisters, who were about my age, and his youngest brother, a youth of seventeen. All three were attractive in appearance, and had a natural grace of manner. The older sister, Annie, was tall, with a calm and stately carriage; Emma, the younger, was shorter and plumper, a dark brunette with fresh pink cheeks and a lively disposition. I can see her still, a picture of youth ful brightness, as she came to meet me for the first time, clad in a white dress, with a freshly plucked flower in her black hair. Frederick, the youngest of all, gave the impression of a healthy, bright boy, modest but not bashful. All three were evidently greatly attached to their older brother and followed his lead implicitly. Bayard Taylor s external appearance had changed somewhat since his earlier visit. His face, even then RETURN TO GOTHA 43 burned by the African sun, was tanned a still darker shade and his untrimmed beard was thicker and slightly curly. His features had matured, while the physical exertions and mental activity of the intervening years had left their mark upon him. But his amiable disposi tion, his cheerful spirit, and his unquenchable sense of humour had not suffered; he openly showed his delight at being with his old friends again and enjoying German Gemuthlichkeit. In front of the garden house, in which his hosts had prepared his lodging, a terrace surrounded by flower beds and shade trees extended toward the garden with its splashing fountain; this was our trysting place during the afternoon hours, when nothing else was going on, and if ever I did not put in an appearance volun tarily " Fritz" was despatched by his sisters to summon me. In this way Bayard Taylor and I became better acquainted than we had been during his first visit in 1851; but as he did not know how to carry on a courtship, our intercourse remained on a footing of simple friendship. At that time he gave me the latest volume of his collected poems, so that I became familiar with his poetic work; his books of travel I had previously read. Thus several weeks passed pleasantly, until the travellers resumed their journey, proceeding first to Italy and then to Switzerland where the young people were left in a French pension at Lausanne while their brother returned to the North in order to spend the winter in Sweden and Lapland. On his way thither in the middle of Novem ber he passed through Gotha again, and said good-by with the assurance, " Next spring you will see me again! " I was then ready to set out as travelling companion to my father on a trip to England, which he undertook in 44 ON TWO CONTINENTS order to superintend the printing of his "Tables of the Sun and Moon," which the English Government had offered to publish. He took advantage of an invitation from Airy, the Royal Astronomer of Greenwich Obser vatory,* to be his guest during the time of his stay there. Mrs. Airy had added the request that he should bring his eldest daughter with him. Mrs. Airy was an extremely amiable lady and her household was a typical English one. Her four children were remarkably w T ell bred ; the eldest daughter, although entirely grown up, was not yet emancipated from the nursery, and during the day wore pinafores like her younger sisters. In the evening, when the dessert was put upon the table, they all four appeared, dressed in white, with bare necks and arms, and coloured sashes around their waists. The season was a very unfavourable one for my first visit to London. A dense fog enveloped us upon our arrival and penetrated into the innermost spaces of the enormous railway station, so that I, in my inex perience took it for the steam from the many locomotives continually coming and going. From the Observatory, which is situated high upon a hill in Greenwich Park, with a glorious view extending to the distant Marine Hospital, there was nothing to be seen on the morning of our arrival except a grayish yellow mantle of fog covering everything. As the sun seldom broke through the clouds during the three weeks of our visit, I saw very little of London, but passed the time agreeably notwithstanding, and learned to know and admire English family life. My father in the meantime occupied himself in his usual way *Afterward Sir George Airy. RETURN TO GOTHA 45 and generally disappeared after breakfast, as did Mr. Airy, to reappear again in the evening for dinner; after ward in the drawing-room he made himself agreeable with conversation and music, which was no hardship to him when he became animated. There was one great deprivation, however, to which he had to submit, since smoking in the house was tabooed by our hosts. During a former visit of my father, in company with the older Struwe, it even seemed to be a source of embarrassment to Mr. Airy when the two gentlemen lighted their cigars in his presence while walking in Greenwich Park. When they offered him one he declined with the remark, " I have a character to lose!" Mr. Airy had, however, been so considerate this time as to provide for my father, who could not very well dispense with his cigar while he worked, a small room in the Observatory proper, where the clouds of smoke which arose while he was correcting the proofs of his "Tables of the Sun and Moon" would disturb no one. After a very stormy passage of the English Channel, we arrived in Ostend December yth, and two days later we were at home again. In the following spring the three younger Taylors came back from Switzerland and again were the welcome guests of my relatives on the Bufleb property. Here they awaited the return of their brother Bayard from the North, with the intention of starting upon their home ward voyage over the ocean without him, who had fur ther plans of foreign travel. During his icy northern journey Bayard Taylor s name was often mentioned, not only in private circles, but also in the German press. Early in January his friend Bufleb wrote to him : 46 ON TWO CONTINENTS "It is really almost amusing how you have become the watchword within the narrower and wider social circle in which I move. As often as I appear in such a circle it seems to be expected of me to begin talking of you. If I do not happen to do so they call out:- the watchword, the watchword! and I am at once launched on the subject which I am ever fond of con versing upon. Even persons not near to you or me prove their sympathy by sending favourable criticisms about you which they have seen in one newspaper or the other." Later he wrote to Taylor at Stockholm : " Of yourself we have lately read and heard a good deal. The Cologne Gazette brought us your visit to Humboldt; the Village Gazette in a very genial article your talk with Mugge; the Europa your views about several notabilities of German literature. Only this morning Z sent me some longer productions of your pen which the Saxon Constitutional had taken from the Tribune. 1 In another paper a correspondent described Bayard Taylor s visit to friends in Dresden during the previous autumn: " Lately we went in his company to the house in Korner s vineyard in Loschwitz, where Schiller wrote Don Carlos. It made a strange impression when the American, stand ing in a snow flurry on the white and cold vine hills of the Elbe, told us of India and related how at Benares, on the banks of the holy Ganges, he had thought of our poet in the temple of the goddess Zhavani. She is the Ceres of the Hindoos. When Bayard Taylor stood before that temple hundreds of country people came up to it in pro cession to lay sacrificial gifts upon the altar. They RETURN TO GOTHA 47 carried in their hands urns of bronze filled with water, and were bedecked with flowers and green branches. This reminded me forcibly, said the traveller, of the festival of Eleusis, and I repeated the glorious poem, Windet zum Krauze die goldenen Aehren!* My worship in the temple of the Indian Ceres was given to Schiller ! The stay in Stockholm lasted longer than had originally been Bayard Taylor s intention, and it w r as the middle of May when he arrived in Gotha. It was an unusually beautiful month of May for our bleak Thuringian table land. Fresh green foliage was everywhere, fragrant lilacs were in bloom around the garden house, the grove below the clipped arbours and hedges proffered a grateful refuge from the hot sunshine, and lilies-of-the-valley, daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips were in flower in the beds. A few days passed, and I was engaged to him. My parents, to whom it was a great hardship to let me go so far away, across the ocean, especially since they had already given one daughter to Russia, had nothing to say against the engagement, and gave me their blessing. It was a short time we spent together. Bayard Taylor accompanied his brother and sisters to Bremen early in June, whence they took passage for New York, and then carried out his plan, previously formed, of visiting the North Cape and seeing the midnight sun. Since Taylor had started again on his travels in 1856 the Muse seemed to have turned her back upon him. Not one of his poems was written during this period of wander ing. On the other hand, during his temporary visits to *"Das Eleusische Fest," beginning: "Ears of the wheat for the gar land you re wreathing." 48 ON TWO CONTINENTS Gotha, he composed German verses (sometimes also parodies of German poems) which bear testimony to his overflowing spirits. Thus, he one day sent the follow ing note by his servant to his hostess, my aunt : "An die liebe, gute Tante, Die beruhmte, vielgenannte, Die ich schon seit Jahren kannte, Send ich eiligst meine Bitte Aus der laubumrankten Hiitte. Hier ich dicht und durst im Freien, Abgeschieden von Mareien, Fern vom heitern Pfingstenfeste, Wie ein Vogelein im Neste. Und ist mir das Herz schon bange, Denn ich g essen hab schon lange, Und gerauchet drei Cigarren Und Du lasst mich immer harren Auf das Bier, das heissersehnte, Das noch niemals abgelehnte, Das was einst die Gotter trunken, Woraus spriih n der Freude Funken, Einz ger Trost und einz ge Labe, Die ich nun auf Erden habe, Ausgenommen die Marei, Und ich wollt sie war dabei."* [*"To the dearest aunt and best, Celebrated, oft addressed, Whom for years I ve known and blest, Swift I send this prayer of mine From the hut embower d in vine. Here I write and thirst, and sigh, Separated from Marei. Far from the pleasant Whitsun Test* Like a birdie in its nest ; And my heart is getting low Since my breakfast, hours ago, RETURN TO GOTHA 49 This is a sample of quite a collection of comic German poems written by Bayard Taylor which I possess. Before Taylor returned from the North we had moved into the dwelling house of the new Observatory. When on September 2oth we were at last settled, not only we, but all those who visited us to wish us happiness in our new home, were pleased with the spacious, two-story house and its appointments. My mother also, who had been reluctant to leave her own house, was reconciled to it, and my father was so obviously rejoiced to find himself at the goal of his long-cherished hope, the suc cessful establishment of his well-considered plan for the new Observatory, that we were all very happy. The day was drawing near when I was to leave the parental home with all the love that it contained. Besides father and mother, my youngest brother and sister, the only ones left at home, were very near to my heart. August, a handsome seventeen-year-old boy, and Ida, hardly more than a child, were very much attached to me. The little sister especially, whose sunny disposition made her the favourite of everyone, was quite as much a product of my influence as of my mother s education. I studied French with her, but we talked English together by preference, in which we were joined by our brother. They told me the happenings in their little lives, their And I ve smoked cigarros three While I wait so dismalee For the beer, for which I ve pined, Which I never yet declined. Which the gods of old were quaffing, And in jovial humour laughing. Only solace, only joy, Which I still on earth enjoy, Excepting Marei, And I wish that she were nigh!"] L. B. T. K. 5 o ON TWO CONTINENTS joys and sorrows. These family ties were now to be superseded by the bond which I formed for life. At the end of September Bayard Taylor returned to Gotha, and on the 2yth of the following month we were married in the pleasant little Court Chapel in Castle Friedenstein by our never-to-be-forgotten friend, the Oberhofprediger (Court Preacher) Karl Schwarz. At first there had been some difficulties in the way of the wedding, because my fiance", whose ancestors were Quakers, had not been christened, while at that time a baptismal certificate was required by the authorities before the banns could be published. Fortunately our revered Oberhofprediger was an exceptionally liberal clergyman, and after a paper had been procured, in which Bayard Taylor s parents affirmed their consent to the marriage, and an affidavit of his citizenship, Dr. Schwarz arranged matters so that the wedding ceremony could be performed. To my fiance s great amusement the sexton came to him before the banns were read with the question, what was the rank of the Herr Brautigam? he must surely have a title? "Oh," was the reply, "you can say: Landowner and citizen of the United States; that will suffice." And thus was he proclaimed before the whole parish. Among the wedding presents he re ceived as presage of the future, a small copy of Goethe s " Faust," the gift of a friend, which Bayard Taylor after ward used for his translation. Immediately after the wedding we left for London, whither my husband was called by the necessity of pre paring his volume of "Northern Travel" for the press. The text was ready to hand in the letters which he had written for the New York Tribune during his trip to Nor- RETURN TO GOTH A 51 way, Sweden, and Lapland, and it was only necessary to put them together and join them into a consistent whole. As I was fired with the unconquerable ambition to be not only my husband s wife, but his assistant as well, he yielded to my wish and allowed me to cut out and paste the published letters on sheets of paper. He was fond of teasing me with this mechanical work, and compared me to Dora in " David Copperfield, " saying I helped him by holding his pen. This time I really learned to know London. The metropolis itself made little impression upon me. It is not beautiful; but I was attracted by its enormous size, its thousands of inhabitants who were to be seen in the streets, by the multitude of carriages and carts, by the Strand, Fleet Street, and the heart of the "city." This old London, with its ancient buildings, was of more in terest to me than Hyde Park or Piccadilly, and I was glad that we were lodged in the old quarter in the well- known Wood s Hotel. A gray, unassuming edifice, it occupied the background of a large court, surrounded by equally dingy high houses. The entire square was called Furnival s Inn, and was entered from Oxford Street. I wonder if it still exists in these changeful times ? Wood s was a family hotel; an almost solemn silence pervaded the entire house; every footstep was muffled by thick carpets ; the liveried sevants spoke in low tones, using the fewest words. The meals were formally served in our rooms, which were so comfortably furnished that we felt very much at home. Soon after our arrival I made Thackeray s acquaintance, and found confirmed in his person the characteristics which I had guessed at from his works a warm heart 52 ON TWO CONTINENTS under the mask of scathing satire. On the occasion of a small dinner which he gave us he said to my hus band, after the gentlemen had rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room: "By-the-by, I must give you a wedding present. What shall it be?" Then going to an etagere he took down a silver inkstand and gave it to his friend, in spite of the evident displeasure of his youngest daughter, usually so amiable, who exclaimed with all the naivete of her fifteen years: "Oh, not that one, papa!" But papa gave no heed, and a few days later sent us the gift with the inscription engraved upon it: "W. M. Thack eray to Bayard Taylor, Oct. 27, 1857." In the beginning of December, after a short visit to my parents, we were on our way to Greece, where we intended to spend the winter. We took passage at Trieste on the Lloyd steamer Miramar, and coasted along the pic turesque shores of Dalmatia, and thence by way of Corfu to Ludraki. Here we landed, and crossing the isthmus of Corinth, proceeded to Athens. Taylor has fully described the very interesting voyage on the Miramar and the incidents of the Grecian trip in his seventh volume of travel, "Greece and Russia, and an Excursion to Crete." Therefore little remains for me to mention. We were not fortunate in one respect, as this winter was an exceptionally cold one in the South. During the months of January and February one rainstorm, and even of snow, followed another. Everyone shivered and complained, and finally more or less destructive earthquakes supervened. We welcomed the sunshiny days all the more joyfully, and made use of the very first to visit the Acropolis. Poor as Athens is in ancient RETURN TO GOTH A 53 monuments as compared to Rome, the latter possesses no ruin like this temple of Pallas Athene, none in which the pure Hellenic spirit thus speaks to us from the crumbling masonry. What is left of the temple and of the Propylaea alone makes it worth while to travel to Athens, and to bear all the hardships of storm, frost, and earthquake. My husband, who was very fond of sketching in water colours, could not rest until he had made several pictures of the glorious Acropolis rising out of the plain, from different sides and under sunny and stormy skies. These were the first of a whole series of aquarelles which we took home with us from Greece. Our very comfortable lodgings were in the house of Francois Vitalis, who had accompanied Bayard Taylor as dragoman on his trip through Asia Minor. When the stormy weather confined us to our rooms we passed the time agreeably with divers occupations. My husband wrote his letters for the New York Tribune and studied modern Greek. Besides, we read together historical works on Greece, and studied the ancient geography of the country. We read also with great interest Edmond About s "Le Roi des Montagnes," and "La Grece Con- temporaine," both of which proved to be good companions for the trip. Thus, January passed, and in February my husband started on his excursion to Crete. Twice only could my traveller send me word of himself, on account of the difficulty of communication, but some news concern ing him, received from another source, was a great and joyful surprise. It was contained in a letter, which a Greek girl in Canea wrote to her former teachers the Americans, Mr. and Mrs. Hill in Athens and was to the effect that the Turkish Pasha was quite enchanted by 54 ON TWO CONTINENTS the American traveller, and had received and enter tained him like a prince. Early in March my husband unexpectedly returned. The abnormally bad weather had prevented him from carrying out his original plan to extend his trip to some of the islands of the archipelago. Toward the middle of the month, as the weather seemed to improve and to grow spring-like, he started again, and visited first the Peloponesus, and then, after a short rest in Athens, the north of Greece. Again without me, because, as he wrote to his mother, there were no inns on the way, and the houses were dirty, without beds and full of fleas, and he must therefore leave me behind. During these trips of my husband I had no lack of entertainment. We had found very dear friends in the American missionary and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Hill, who had for many years presided over a school in which they educated a large number of Greek girls of all classes. A charming intimacy existed between them and us, and even during my husband s absence few days passed without mutual visits or drives and little jaunts in their company. Another agreeable acquaintance was Sir Thomas Wyse, the English Minister, and the latter s niece, Miss Wyse, who presided over his house and received with great amiability at the small soirees which they gave weekly. On one of these pleasant evenings at the Legation I expressed my astonishment at the sight of school children, evidently of the lower classes, whose books were carried for them by a servant. Thereupon Miss Wyse told me that the little daughter of her coach man, who went to school where the pupils have to sweep out the schoolroom, one day broke her broom, and was RETURN TO GOTHA 55 sent out by the teacher to have it mended. On the way she met her father, who was furious to see his daughter in the street with a broom, and threatened her with severe punishment if she should ever dare to carry any thing again in the street. "This stupid pride," Miss Wyse added, "has diminished to a marked degree in this city, principally owing to the noble endeavours of the Hills." About the middle of April Taylor wrote to me from Livadia : " Yesterday I drank of the streams of Helicon, and was saluted by the cries of the goats Zizi, Quiqui and Mimi,* from the top of the rock. The water is delicious clear, sweet and strong, and for two hours afterwards I talked in rhyme: " He now can drink who chooses, At the Fountain of the Muses, For the ancient gods and goddesses And the nymphs in scanty bodices, Are now no more detected In the shrines to them erected. Nothing but the lonely pelican Now inhabits famous Helicon, And the only Fauns and Satyrs Are the Greeks who plant petaters; Dirty, lousy, lazy beggars, Scarcely better than our niggers, Unworthy even to clean the shoes-es Of Apollo and the Muses, f *A reference to a passage in Immermann s "Munchhausen," which we had read shortly before. f"In Greece and Russia," page 223, this letter has been used in a different form. 5 6 ON TWO CONTINENTS " At this place is the cave of Trophonius, once a famous oracle. It is a wonderfully wild, picturesque spot; and would make a charming sketch, only the rain falls so heavily that I cannot take it. I have only made two sketches as yet, but hope to bring you ten at least. We shall probably have good weather after this rain is done, and I still hope we shall get back in fifteen days. . . . The nightingales are singing deliciously. Over against us is Daulis, where Philomela became the first nightingale." Taylor brought back from his Grecian trips not only sketches, but also a flower, a fern, a twig of laurel or olive from every classic place he visited. These I carefully pressed between sheets of paper, and pasted them after ward into an album, with the names of the places where they were plucked. I still possess this relic. Meanwhile I kept up a lively correspondence with my mother, and thus learned that my father had received from the King of Belgium the Commander s Cross of the Order of Leopold "a beautiful, large order, to be worn around the neck." Besides that, the Duke and Duchess, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden, the Princess Marie of Baden, and the Princes of Lein- ingen had come to see the new Observatory. "They came unannounced at noon," wrote my mother, "while I was out, and father in dressing gow r n and slippers. The Duke came first, and saw father, who had recognised his voice, on the stairs in this costume. Oh, he said, if you only put on other shoes it will be all right. Father asked them to step into the Saal and then dressed quickly. The strange Princes were very much pleased with the Observatory, and the Duke seems RETURN TO GOTHA 57 to be well satisfied with it, or he would not have come again. They are coming in the evening soon to look at the sky." Early in May we bade adieu to Athens and Greece, and returned by way of Constantinople, the Black Sea, and the Danube to Germany and our Thuringian home. There my little daughter was born in the late summer, and with this occurrence the traveller Bayard Taylor was again metamorphosed into the poet. When our baby was eight weeks old we departed for the home of my husband, which was thenceforth to be my own. It was a grievous parting. CHAPTER V OUTRE MER AFTER a voyage of nineteen days on the old Saxonia, of the Hamburg line, we arrived in the harbour of New York during the night of October 226.. The moon shone clear and bright as I stood on the steamer s deck and looked out upon a new world with all it concealed for me in the veiled future. Next morning the wide beautiful harbour was revealed, with its countless ships, its ferry boats like low swimming houses, crossing hither and yon ; to the left the rolling hills of the Staten Island shore, to the right the roof line of the metropolis, and between these the broad waters of the Hudson merging into the bay. Not long after our arrival at the As tor House friends of my husband began to drop in to bid him welcome and to take a look at the wife whom he had brought from a foreign land. This wife was over whelmed with a feeling of apprehension until she dis covered that everyone met her with evident good-will. Among our first visitors was Horace Greeley, of ponderous form, with a round face, a healthy complexion, light-blue eyes, long, scanty, pale-yellow hair, and a pleasant, half absent-minded expression. After him came Charles Dana, then second editor of the Tribune, jovial and ver satile, who spoke German almost without an accent, and George P. Putnam, the intelligent publisher of Bayard Taylor s prose works, who greeted me with cordial 58 OUTRE MER 59 bonhomie. Other guests were the Stoddards,* whom I was especially glad to meet, as they were intimate friends of my husband. Of medium stature and slender build, with dark hair and beard, he was all open-heartedness, candid in everything he said, and bubbling over with wit and humour. She was smaller, her hair was dark brown and very thick, her eyes a dark gray, while her features indicated a decided character combined with great intensity and esprit. All her utterances were cleverly turned, and she vied with her husband in witty remarks. She at once took possession of me on the certain presumption that we should be friends ; and after the many years which have intervened, considering the great divergence of our characters and dispositions, she still remains that one among my friends with whom I am most intimate and in whose society I find the greatest mental stimulus.! We did not tarry long in the city. We longed for the country, where parents, brothers and sisters were await ing us, and where my husband expected to build his home. After a short stay in New York we proceeded southward to Kennett Square, situated thirty-four miles south of Philadelphia and sixty miles north of Baltimore. As the railway from the former city to Kennett was then in process of construction, we were obliged to travel as far as Wilmington, Delaware, whence a drive of fourteen miles in a northwesterly direction brought us to our destination. It was my first experience of the rough country roads of Chester County, the neglected condition *Richard Henry and Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard. fSince the above was written Mrs. Stoddard died, in August, 1902, and Mr. Stoddard followed her the ensuing year. 60 ON TWO CONTINENTS of which is a reproach to the progressive spirit of the people of that section. Nevertheless the countryside through which our primitive road led us after we had left the valley of the Delaware was so lovely, so idyllic, that I forgot how bad it was under foot. We skirted hills and valleys, tilled land, and green woods in changeful succession; hedged fields with here and there a single wide-branched tree casting its broad shadow, and mea dows through which a brook fringed with willows mean dered along, where fine herds of cattle were grazing, or resting in the lush herbage. Anon we passed gentle slopes overgrown with bowers of foliage, of maple, sycamore, walnut, chestnut, locust and sassafras. Tangled thickets intervened with grapevines clambering to the tree tops, and in damp hollows an exquisite wilderness of flowers and ferns ran riot. Nestled among sheltering clumps of trees the farmhouses lay scattered here and there, surrounded by orchards and barns which were often larger and more pretentious than the modest dwellings. There is no other village between Wilmington and Ken- nett Square, which at that time had a population of about five hundred inhabitants. After leaving the latter place the road continued to the north between fields of corn stubble and green winter wheat a short mile to a beautiful piece of woodland at the left. "Our wood!" my husband exclaimed. On the right, where a lane diverged between the fields, the youngest brother and sister suddenly burst out from behind a clump of trees, and with the cry "We couldn t wait any longer!" Emma sprang upon one step of the carriage, and Fred upon the other, and both embraced us with tears and laughter. A short distance beyond the farmhouse lay OUTRE MER 61 before us, where our welcome was no less warm and hearty, if not quite so boisterous. My mother-in-law at once seized upon her grandchild, and I willingly gave it into her care, for the new impressions which had crowded in upon me during the last few days and my unaccus tomed surroundings had robbed me for the time being of the circumspection necessary to provide well for my little daughter. I did not feel entirely at ease again until I sat down in the midst of the assembled family to a dinner table loaded to profusion, and was at liberty to study the many strange faces. According to country fashion all the dishes were put upon the table at the same time. A large juicy ham occupied one end, an immense roast of beef the other, and between were placed five or six kinds of vegetables, sweet and sour preserves, and an assortment of pies. It was not customary to have soup, and, as I discovered later, in those days this course did not belong to an ordinary menu even in the cities. It also surprised me to see the plates passed around and filled with a helping from every dish. When my plate at last reached me I was secretly frightened at the wealth of good things which was heaped upon it. The only eatables lacking were the pies, which served as dessert. The succeeding days were full of excitement. Begin ning with the morrow a long procession of relatives and friends of the family came to bid us welcome. The major ity of the numerous Taylor family in all its branches (my husband used to say he had so many cousins that he would be willing to sell some of them at twenty-five cents a hundred), as well as of its many friends and acquaintances, belonged to the religious society of the 62 ON TWO CONTINENTS Quakers or, as they preferred to be called, "Friends. * In their peculiar manner of dress, with its entire absence of colour, in the simplicity of their speech and of their whole behaviour, which was not lacking in a certain quiet dignity, the Quakers interested me greatly from the very beginning and I soon learned to love and esteem them. My husband s ancestors had belonged to this sect since the days of William Penn ; his paternal grandfather, however, committed the grave offense of marrying a wife of the Lutheran faith. For this misdeed he lost his birthright, and thenceforward neither he nor his descend ants were members of the Society. Nevertheless, his children and grandchildren still adhered to the funda mental principles and to a great extent also to the man ners and customs of the Quakers; and therein lay the source of Bayard Taylor s morality and of his religious beliefs, so free from any kind of dogmatism. Almost all the people whom I met, and among whom my life was to be spent in future, were the descendants of the original settlers, who had left England one or two centuries before, driven forth by religious or political persecution. The first Taylor, Robert by name, was one of the companions of William Penn in his expedition to the new world. He settled in the southeasterly district of the wide territory which owes its name to that great Quaker and friend of humanity. He came from Warwickshire in the year 1681, and was the ancestor in direct line of Bayard Taylor. His descendants had lived on the same lands for almost two hundred years, and Joseph Taylor, my father-in-law, owned a portion of them. In the two generations preceding my husband OUTRE HER 63 an admixture of German blood had been infused into the old English stock. The grandmother, for whose sake John Taylor allowed himself to be expelled from Quaker "meeting," came from Lancaster County, and was a descendant of those German and Swiss Protestants who were driven from the Palatinate by religious persecu tion at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Not only my husband s grand mother, who never learned to speak English fluently, but his mother also was descended on the maternal side from those Pennsylvania " Dutch " colonists. The latter, however, did not speak German easily, and although brought up as a Lutheran, soon adopted the religious beliefs of the Quakers. She was a woman of a lively intellect and a cheery, vivacious temperament, combined with great energy. She possessed the gift of always looking upon the bright side of every situation, and under less circumscribed conditions, with a higher education, she would have been a distinguished woman. But to her it was sufficient to be Bayard Taylor s mother; it was the crowning joy of her life. She alone had understood the aspirations of his youth, and had taken his part against conditions which were antagonistic to him. She secretly supplied him with books, and gave him opportunity to gratify his desire for knowledge by inventing excuses to keep him away from the hated farm labour. Although her son had inherited the nature and excel lent qualities of his mother, in external appearance he resembled his father. Contrasted with the vivacious energy of his wife, Joseph Taylor showed a placidity and unconcern, which was a disadvantage to him in the 64 ON TWO CONTINENTS successful tillage of his land. Perhaps in another calling he would have accomplished better results, for he was by no means lacking in sagacity or in the executive abilities of an employer. His tall stature and dignified carriage gave him the appearance of a handsome man even in his old age. The inherited farm comprised about 150 acres of field and woodland, with hills and meadow. The farm house lay off the main road, and a broad avenue of pines and spruce trees winding between the fields led down to it. The house, not overlarge, was built of wood with a covered porch over the front door, shaded by a group of lofty trees, under whose shadow a hammock was sus pended. Thick hedges of box defined the open space before the house and the flower beds of the adjoining garden. A glorious October day dawned on the morrow of our arrival, as perfect as one could wish for the first inspection of one s future home. The entrance to our land was through a gate just across the main road from the lane to the "old house" (my father-in-law s farm). After traversing a grove of old oak, hickory, and chestnut trees, we came out upon a large open space, on the highest point of which our house was to be built. The land sloped gradually southward down to the main road in a broad stretch of grass : a natural lawn set with small groups of wild cedars. In the far distance the dim blue outlines of a chain of hills could be discerned, faint in the haze of the Indian summer. In every other direction the building site was surrounded by park-like groves of trees, with pleasant vistas over fields and wooded slopes, a beautiful panorama which filled me with delight. Art OUTRE HER 65 could not have produced anything more perfect than un assisted Nature had created here during the fifty years when she had worked her will unrestrained. We owed this circumstance to the whim of a rich old farmer, the former owner of the land, who had let this tract of eighty acres lie fallow, and paid no attention to it during his whole life, as it lay at some distance from his farmhouse and was supposed to be of little value. But the qualities which roused the farmer s displeasure were just those which delighted the poet. He had been the owner of the land for several years past, and had added to the original purchase another eighty acres bought partly from his father, partly from an uncle. This tract lay to the southeast of the first, separated from it by the main road. It contained an old stone farmhouse, a barn, stable, and dairy -springhouse. Although we had fixed upon the site for our home, the means for its erection were still in great part to be sup plied, a task by no means difficult at a time when east and west in this broad country public lectures by promi nent men were in great demand and well paid for. They were a necessity to the people of those days and served as a means of education to the great middle stratum of the population and equally as a source of entertainment to the more cultured. Bayard Taylor had already been a popular lecturer on his return from his travels in the Orient, and had acquired a considerable sum of money in this way. The proposals for him to deliver lectures began to pour in upon him again from all sides when he had hardly set foot upon his native soil. Great preparations were not necessary to fulfil the expectations of the average audience. The public wished to hear from him principally 66 ON TWO CONTINENTS how things looked and happened in foreign countries, what kinds of people, customs, and conditions he had met with abroad, and what inferences he would draw from what he had seen. My husband was not a born orator, but had adapted himself to the profitable tem porary profession of a lecturer, because it was demanded of him. His harmonious voice and smooth fluent speech were decidedly in his favour. The lectures were soon to begin, and, with a few short interruptions, were to con tinue for several months. Before this happened our future house was staked out and the work of digging for the foundations was begun. One day we went over to the site to inspect the progress made. It was a wonder ful day in November, and while we were enjoying the warm sunshine and balmy air of that latitude, praising anew the beautiful situation of the house-to-be, we sud denly were aware of an eagle circling far above us in the blue sky. Like ancient Romans we greeted his appearance as a happy omen for the future which awaited us in this place, About this time we heard that George William Curtis was to deliver a lecture in West Chester, a town fourteen miles distant, on " Democracy and Education." As he was not only a near friend of my husband, but also had the reputation of being an excellent speaker, it seemed a matter of course that we should drive over to West Chester and hear him. We met him at the inn, a hand some man with brilliant gray eyes, strong intellectual features, full of character, light-brown hair and whiskers, and a tall, noble presence of winning gentleness. Joined to all this he had a deep mellow voice which at once prepossessed his audience in his favour. As soon as he OUTRE HER 67 entered the hall he was received with storms of applause by the great concourse of people that crowded the large building. As both he and my husband, who walked beside him, were popular authors, all eyes were centred upon them. My two sisters-in-law and I followed, passing through the audience that crowded to the right and left of us, until we reached the platform. Those were awkward moments for me, as I knew that my hum ble personage also was an object of curiosity. I hardly dared raise my eyes, while my companions looked about them and noticed how the people nudged one another and whispered: "Look, look, that is Bayard s wife!" It was the first occasion on which I appeared in public with my husband, and although I was to a certain extent proud to be the wife of a distinguished man, at the same time I deeply felt the heavy responsibility of such a position. I told myself how much was expected of me and how little I could offer. After the lecture was over a number of persons from among the audience came upon the platform to be intro duced. One of them was the aged Dr. Darlington,* who had received the news of my marriage with almost the same words as Alexander von Humboldt. The latter, when Taylor told him of his engagement to a daughter of Hansen, said in his usual charming manner: "When you visit me again bring her with you. I must be polite enough to live until then." Before we started on our drive home, at a late hour, we went into the inn again with Curtis. A gentleman and two ladies were the only other occupants of the public *A well-known botanist, and author of an excellent work on the flora of Chester County, entitled "Flora Cestrica." 68 ON TWO CONTINENTS parlour. We paid no further attention to them, as they sat together in a far corner of the spacious room. Shortly after we had seated ourselves Taylor exclaimed in his usual lively way: " George, don t you want something to drink?" Whereupon Curtis, more on his guard than his impulsive friend, answered, "Do people drink here?" "Don t you drink after lecturing?" Taylor replied; "I always do. I drink a glass of ale." When, soon after, the other three guests left the room Annie Taylor began laughing heartily. " Do you know who those people were?" she said to her brother, and then mentioned the names of a fanatical temperance reformer and of two of his most zealous supporters. Funny as this was in fact, it had an awkward side also, since the temperance advo cates are a power in the countryside and were able to put a not entirely abstaining fellow-mortal under the ban of suspicion to such an extent that he was soon accused of being given to drink and utterly lost. Scarcely a year before a neighbouring temperance orator had dared in a public speech to make open allusions to Bayard Taylor s sisters and brother, who had just returned from Europe, saying it were better that the ocean had turned into a sea of fire rather than that young Americans had learned to drink wine beyond its farther shore. Even beer was condemned by these so-called reformers, and somewhat later a cousin of my husband, a favourite with everyone, was expelled from the Temperance Society for having drunk "soft" cider (for having eaten an apple, according to her own laughing version). Naturally all this appeared very strange and wonderful to my European mind. Early in December we left the farm and went to Brook- OUTRE HER 69 lyn to live, where we shared a rented house with Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard. My husband had made this arrange ment so that I, still a stranger to my new country, should have the companionship of these trusted friends during his absences. Nor did we separate in the following win ter; they accompanied us to New York, and we kept house together in the latter city. Our first Christmas Eve in America we celebrated as a joyous feast. I instituted the German custom, which was then almost unknown in this country, of trimming a Christmas tree procured for me by my husband. Under its branches, with their many bright candles, lay the presents which we exchanged. For our German supper I had brewed a bowl of cardinal punch, which was duly appreciated, and put Taylor in mind of Kenyon s " Cham pagne Rose," the reciting of which was followed by Stod- dard s reading a song in praise of claret, by Alexander Brome, "dead over two hundred years." Soon after, my husband took up his travels again, and was away more or less until spring. When he started once more early in January, after a short stay in New York, we made an attempt to visit his old patron, N. P. Willis,* at Idlewild-on-the-Hudson, but were obliged to give up the attempt on our way thither, on account of sudden unusually cold weather. While my husband continued on his journey, I turned back to New York. Next day he wrote to me from the little town of Hudson : " I feel a little anxious to hear that you have reached home safely, without being frozen. It was well that we ^ *Willis was very fond of taking rising young authors and poets under his protecting wing, a fact which gave R. H. Stoddard opportunity lor a bon-mot: "Willis," he said, "was the wet nurse of American literature." 70 ON TWO CONTINENTS did not attempt to cross the river yesterday. The air was 15 below zero on the ice, and the wind almost took my head off. I crossed in a large sleigh, with eight persons, drawn by one horse, and the ice was so smooth that we continually whirled around like a top. . . . However, I reached Kingston in season, and notwithstanding the weather, had an audience of 600 persons the largest of the season. This morning we had 14 below zero, but now it has risen to 4 above, and promises a snow storm. The cold was the greatest ever known in New York, so you know how cold it can be." Very different was the tenor of another letter of March i3th from Detroit: " I reached here at eleven o clock last night, and read your three letters before going to bed. The news from home the description of Lily s growth and development and the thought of seeing you so soon, kept me awake for a long time. To-day I have been perfectly lazy and happy the weather is divine ; no other word will express it. We had no day in Athens lovelier than this. Not a cloud in the sky, the air a luxury to breathe, and the lake here sparkling like the ^Egaean Sea!" In the course of the year I twice accompanied my husband on lecturing journeys, which gave me an oppor tunity to become acquainted with wide regions of the country. In the spring he took me with him into the Middle West, and in August we took passage together for California. Both trips were full of new and interesting sights; the impressions which I received are faithfully reflected in the notes of my travels which I wrote down for my parents. They were penned many years ago, and describe conditions and scenes which have long ceased to OUTRE MER 71 exist or have yielded to a new and more civilised life. For this reason some extracts may be of interest. "May, 1859. The sun rose gloriously as the train carried us into the beautiful wild forest regions of Ohio. For many, many miles forest and nothing but forest, which the railway traverses almost in a straight line. Since the road was built people have begun to clear the virgin growth here and there; settlers who could find no home anywhere else came, and with their axes and the help of fire won the ground on which to build their log cabins and to plow their first plot of land. Some pioneers had achieved a green field, while others still had the gigantic task before them, having accomplished only the building of a miserable hut surrounded by the smouldering trunks of trees. At other places better results had been obtained. Little villages had sprung up, and comfort seemed to walk hand in hand with labour. But between them stretched the most luxuriant, the greenest forest, untouched by the hand of man, where Nature had held undisputed sway for thousands of years, and had de stroyed or built up as primeval laws had dictated. Through the whole of Ohio and Indiana we had this magnificent mysterious woodland almost constantly on either hand. Toward evening the trees began to grow more sparse and finally merged into an extensive meadow land, whose treacherous green sprang from a marshy soil. Then followed more woods, and once in a while a still, motionless lake, until gloomy waters came into view on both sides of the track, while the sun was sinking in glowing tones of red and orange. Along the northern horizon lay a bluish streak, which showed us that we were not far distant from Lake Michigan." " (Two days later.) Our road to-day lay through the rolling prairie. A peculiar feeling of freedom and of 72 ON TWO CONTINENTS peacefulness lays hold of the spectator. Toward every point of the compass the prairie seems limitless. No where does the eye meet with a check ; no fence, no hedge marks a boundary; the horses and cattle graze unre stricted, or the herd, pausing beside a small brook, seeks the shade of some nearby oaks, lies in the grass, or stands in the water cooling its flanks in the clear stream. The eye of the traveller wanders from this idyllic picture to the long, swelling lines of the prairie fading away into the dim horizon, and it will seldom meet with a sight more lovely." " On the evening of the second day we went aboard the small steamer which was to carry us up the Missis sippi to St. Paul. The trip, which occupied several days the boat steamed between the low and sparsely settled banks of the river and past numerous small green is lands was not without its charm. Saturday evening we finally arrived in St. Paul. The ten-year-old city, with its 10,000 inhabitants, rises in a series of ter races on both sides of the broad river. As in all these new towns of the West, the dwelling houses are built separately, scattered over a disproportionately large area. Here also everything is still in the rough and incomplete; it is evident that the buildings were put up in haste, and that the settlers had an eye more to business profit than to comfort and convenience. I know of nothing more uncongenial than such a youthful city, much as I admire the courage and energy to which it owes its existence. St. Anthony, not far distant, with its falls of the Mississippi reminding me of the Rhine falls at Schaffhausen, and the four-year-old town of Minne apolis across the river, are situated at the end of civilisa tion. North of these two places the only inhabitants are Indians, bears and wolves." It was our turning point, and after an absence of four weeks we were at last again united with our little daughter OUTRE HER 73 at the old farm near Kennett Square. During the follow ing month my husband was occupied with literary work, at the same time superintending the building of our house. Not long after our return the cornerstone was laid. The building after that progressed rapidly and con sumed a much larger sum of money than its builder had calculated; therefore, when in the course of the summer he received a most favourable offer to deliver a series of lectures in San Francisco, he accepted for the sake of the remuneration. The lecture committee of that city was willing to pay him his travelling expenses and $1,500 for four lectures, with the privilege of making engagements of a similar nature in other towns in Cali fornia. About the beginning of August we left our twelve months -old baby in the care of her grandmother and aunts and set out upon our long ocean journey by way of the Isthmus of Panama a wonderfully beautiful voyage, particularly upon the Pacific. On this side of Panama one of our fellow-passengers was Commodore Montgomery, an agreeable old gentleman. While we were gliding over the waters of the Caribbean Sea, under a tropical full moon "ringed with gay rainbows" he told us how he was the first to plant the American colours in California in 1846. He was then a captain in the navy, under command of Commodore Slod, whose squadron lay before Mazatlan, in Mexico, where the English were also anchored. As there were rumours abroad of a war between the United States and Mexico, the Americans were only waiting for a suitable opportu nity to take possession of California, which was sparsely settled by Mexicans. But they were not the only nation with an eye to this goodly land. Mexico was deep in 74 ON TWO CONTINENTS debt to England, and for this reason the English con sidered that they had a right to California as a pledge. This was the state of affairs, when Commodore Slod suddenly gave orders to his fleet to sail for South America. With secret joy the English, watching from the decks of their frigates, saw the sails of the American ships one after another disappear beyond the southern horizon, and believed that now was the proper moment to throw out their drag-net and haul in their beautiful prize. But what was their astonishment when they cast anchor before Monterey to find the Stars and Stripes floating above the Mexican fort ! As soon as the Commodore was out of sight of land, instead of keeping his course south ward, he ordered his squadron to about ship and sail for the north. Montgomery with his frigate was sent ahead. He found the population of Monterey in revolt and inclined to side with the Americans, and taking advantage of this state of popular feeling, in accordance with his instructions, he succeeded in hoisting the Star Spangled Banner upon the Mexican fort without stroke of sword, thus taking posses sion of California in the name of the United States. The balmy climate, the glorious city of San Francisco enthroned upon her hills, the beauty of the seacoast, enhanced by the classic outlines of the near and distant mountains all combined to awaken a sense of delight and exhilaration such as I had not anticipated. Even Taylor, who had been in California in 1849, and had seen the earliest stages of her development, received an absolutely new impression. After looking around he exclaimed in astonishment: "Here we have Spanish, African, Greek and Palestinian elements in the landscape, all at the same time!" OUTRE HER 75 Intervals of several weeks elapsed between the lectures in San Francisco. Meanwhile my husband spoke in the large and small towns before audiences of the most diverse character, before educated people, settlers from the Eastern states, as well as before gold miners and rough-looking men. I accompanied him on his expedi tions into the wildest regions, sometimes in the old- fashioned stage coach, sometimes in a comfortable carriage, and several times up in the Sierra Nevada on horseback, where adventures, funny and serious, were not lacking. In the large district of the gold mines I had occasion to witness the four different methods of obtaining the precious metal. In order to see the interior of a gold mine I had to submit to be shot down a steep incline, crouched in a tiny car, into the depths 200 feet below. But I pass over all our diverse experiences and hasten homeward, back to our child, whom we joyfully clasped in our arms again in the month of November. After a short stay at the farm we settled in New York, where the house was ready for us, and I began to ac climatise myself socially during this and the following winter. New York, although a metropolis in those days, was, after all, a small city in comparison to its present importance and extent. The changes of all kinds that have taken place in the last forty years are such that the younger generation of to-day can have no conception of things as they then were. The development of the whole country went hand in hand with that of New York. After the Civil War a number of men became multi millionaires and plutocracy increased more and more. Under the influence of these colossal fortunes and of the ever-increasing flood of immigration the rich resources 76 ON TWO CONTINENTvS of the land were rapidly exploited and the building of the transcontinental railways joined the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. The vast regions in the centre of the country, hitherto inaccessible, were populated, and the great West, which now represents a power in the land, was born. When I made my debut in New York no one suspected that these changes would come to pass. People felt only a faint premonition of the grand development of the nation. The international relations with Europe were not close, and every-day life, as well as many social usages, manifested strongly the primitive character of their civilisation. In those days great simplicity prevailed, even in the well-to-do families of New York, in their mode of life and the furnishing of their houses. The exclusive circle of descendants of aristocratic families from Colonial times (mostly of Dutch origin) had not yet been pushed to the wall by the plutocrats and formed the self-constituted elite of society. Equally eminent was the small group of intellectual and genial men and women, masters of the pen, the brush and the chisel. Among these freedom of mind, agreeable manners, good taste, a sparkling wit and lively, suggestive conversation reigned supreme. Such was the society into which I was introduced. But when I recall the acquaintances and friends whom I knew in those years, whose names for the most part have a well-known and a pleasant sound in their native land, with few exceptions they are now but "A memory and a name." Poets, authors and artists were welcomed in our always hospitable house, and Stoddard wrote in later years of OUTRE HER 77 that time: "We were a nest of singing birds." George H. Boker, whose drama "Francesca da Rimini" was just being enacted, sometimes dropped in from Phila delphia; T. B. Aldrich, who had made his debut as a poet, was a frequent guest, and Edmund Clarence Stedman soon after became a member of our circle and one of our nearest friends. Taylor one day announced him to Stoddard as a new poet, whose acquaintance he had just made. "A new poet?" said Stoddard, shrugging his shoulders; "and what has he written?" " The Diamond Wedding, " was the answer; "the poem which you read yesterday in the paper. And I have invited him to visit us, for I know you will like him." * Charles G. Leland, the painter Thomas Hicks, with their wives, Fitz-Hugh Ludlow and his wife (afterward Mrs. Albert Bierstadt) belonged to our inner coterie, to which were later added Jervis McEntee and his charming wife, and Sanford R. Gifford, both landscape painters and genial men. Another guest of the early times was Orlando W. Wight (the translator of "Heloise and Abelard"), who had a funny habit, when addressing anyone, of laying his white-gloved hand upon his heart with a sigh and a flourish. I very soon made the acquaintance of Mrs. Botta,f and met the sisters Susan and Anna Warner at one of her evening receptions. The literary productions of the former (under the pen name of Elizabeth Wetherell), *From Stoddard s speech at a dinner given in honour of Stedman in 1899. According to Stedman s own recollection, his poem about John Brown was the one that gave him Bayard Taylor s friendship, after the latter had chanced to read it on one of his Western trips. f Miss Anne Lynch, noted in early life for her poems and her literary salon, was married to Vincenzo Botta, of Turin, who received the title of Commendatore from Victor Emanuel in the seventies. 78 ON TWO CONTINENTS "The Wide, Wide World" and "Queechy," books that are now not wholly forgotten, enjoyed a wide popularity, and had even penetrated to Germany, where I had read them. The two ladies, no longer in the heyday of youth, lived upon an island in the Hudson opposite West Point, but came to New York occasionally. They were feted on account of their literary renown, especially by those who were in sympathy with the pious tendencies of their works. Miss Susan, the elder, was so firmly persuaded of the infallibility of her religious views that after making the acquaintance of Thackeray, when he came to New York in 1856, she said of him one evening at a party: " He is an excellent man, but there is a whole world he knows nothing of a world which I know." Later in the evening, when refreshments were served, Mrs. Stoddard made one of her witty remarks at the expense of the Misses Warner. Alluding to the long necks of these ladies, she whispered to my husband: "Look at the giraffes grazing!" Of other notabilities I must not omit the sisters Alice and Phoebe Gary, who were esteemed for themselves as well as for their writings. Greeley was one of their admirers and intimate friends, and rarely missed one of their social evening parties. Spiritualism had many adherents in those days, and the sisters, who were inclined to place credence in its manifestations, frequently held seances at their home. Strange tales were told of the happenings on these occasions. I was never sufficiently curious to take part in one of these meetings, and the attempts of Mrs. Greeley to win me over to spiritualism were without avail. Everyone who knew the latter OUTRE MER 79 knows also what a peculiar woman she was. The very first winter that I spent in New York she wished to make my acquaintance, and extended an invitation to me to come to one of her receptions, which I ac cepted for Greeley s sake. When I arrived with my companions we found the latter alone in the drawing- room; some other guests appeared, but Mrs. Greeley was not in evidence. Her husband was visibly embar rassed, and sent to inform her of our presence, doing his utmost in the meantime to play the amiable host, and every few minutes expressing the hope that his wife would soon come down. The evening passed and we were on the point of taking our departure when Mrs. Greeley appeared at the head of the stairs. After exchanging a few words with her we left the house. In this and other similar trials Greeley never for a moment lost the saintly patience with which he treated his wife. I met William Cullen Bryant, the aged poet with the Homeric head, at one of the always popular soirees in the house of Dr. Edward Robinson, the author of a celebrated topographical work on Palestine. His talented German wife* when a young girl, had published a translation of Servian folks-songs under the name of Talvy, and had thereby earned the distinction of a laudatory remark from Goethe.f During these experiences in society I was deprived of the companionship of my husband, who was heroically earning the means for building our house by lecturing in distant towns. During his frequent absences we sought * A daughter of Dr. von Jacob, of Halle. f Eckermann s "Gesprache mit Goethe," Vol. I, page 130. 8o ON TWO CONTINENTS to comfort each, other by the exchange of almost daily letters. In one of these he replied to a passage in a letter of mine: "I am curious to see Stedman s Penelope. Don t compare yourself to that old Greek strong-minded female. You may have her constancy (I believe you have) and, like her, spend twenty years on one piece of crochet-work but I am not a Ulysses, for all that, and I don t want you to have suitors during my absence, as she had." My husband could never under any circumstances renounce his humorous vein, of which his letters furnish abundant proof. In the winter months of 1859 to 1862 he often solaced himself on his travels by sending home long accounts of his adventures by the way, of queer occurrences that could hardly happen nowadays, when the population at large has grown less simple minded. Here is one of them: "I shall not describe the day s jaunt, further than to relate to you The Triumph of Weidenfeld ! * On reaching a village called Middletown, we discovered that one of the tires was broken, and stopped to have it mended. I was sitting in the tavern, where various Sunday loafers were congregated, when one of them came up to me suddenly, drew his chair beside me, sat down, lifted up the tail of my overcoat, spread it over his knee and began to examine it. Well, said he, that you might call a coat! I swan, it makes my mouth water. Another man spoke up and said : I seed what it was jest from looking at the back of it. It took right hold of my heart! Then began the exclamations What is the name of that cloth? Why, it s tough as buckskin, and tight as injy-rubber ! Lined * A fashionable tailor at that time. OUTRE MER 81 with silk all through! There hain t been no sich coat seen in these diggins before! Would you object to stand up, like, and show how it hangs ? The price of it rather staggered them, for they all seemed inclined to get just such coats for themselves. When the tire was mended, they all came out into the road, and their eyes were fixed upon the coat until we drove off." From Pittsburg my husband wrote, January 2pth: " I have had a hard time this week took cold on Monday, which made me very hoarse, and have been howling and barking huskily at the audiences. Drink red pepper tea in a bottle every hour or two people think it brandy. . . . Talk in tragic whispers, which has a solemn effect. . . . Popularity tre mendous people come forty-eight miles through the mud to hear me mothers hold up their infants to look upon the great man, or hand them over to be kissed, owing to which my moustache is full of molasses." Another time he said : "You would never guess that merchants, livery- stable keepers, mechanics and day laborers are among my admirers. The crowd was composed entirely of such. The baggage man on the train said to everybody, B. T. is in the car he is a big writer. What did he write? asked a man. I don t know what it was, was the reply, but he s the biggest kind of a writer! " In a letter from Springfield, 111., occurs this anecdote: " I gave the driver my little wicker-bottle occasionally, in order to make the horses go faster. He told me a good story of some Eastern man, who travelled in Illinois 82 ON TWO CONTINENTS twenty years ago, when the liquor was wuss than it is now. This man reached a tavern one night after a hard day s ride and called for brandy. There was a nigger sitting in the bar-room, whom he called tip to the bar to take a drink. The darkey poured out half a glass of brandy and drank it the traveller let the bottle stand. Well, said the landlord, ain t you a-goin to drink, too? I m going to wait twenty minutes, he answered, and if it don t kill the nigger, I ll take some myself." The following letter I quote entire, for obvious reasons : "My dearest wife, Upon my life I am not particularly inspired To write when I am tired. However, this will tell you That I do not expel you From my thoughts when away, By night or by day. I lectured last night in Homer, (What a misnomer)! And to-day have driven miles thirty, Over a road exceedingly dirty, To this place, where I lecture, So you must not expect your Husband to write more which He can send from Norwich. To-morrow I go to Sherburne (Probably in a dearborn), And on Friday to Oswego Hardly a place where you d have me go But now there s no assuagement Since I ve once made the engagement, And on Friday to Cortland, Which is rather a short land OUTRE HER 83 To reach from the latter, And so it s not much matter. On Saturday, as I told you, I shall once more behold you. I find that the best train Is the morning express train, Which leaves Binghamton at 1 120, And gives me time enough, plenty, To get over the Hudson Betore you ve got your duds done On Saturday evening, So you needn t be grievening. Do not the door fasten, Because I shall come at J past 10, And, as we don t live in cloisters, You may get a few oysters And make a gentle stew, Which I shall enjoy with you. I m in good health and spirits, And you ll be glad to hear it s Mighty fine weather at last, Since the rain is past. Write according to my direction, And don t disappoint my expection, So shall I love you as formerly, Only much warmerly, And hope you ll never find it a cussed band Which unites you to your husband, "B. T. "Give my love, heavy and thick To Lizzy and Dick." Taylor would always round out and amplify the incidents of his trips upon his return home. Among other things, the names he collected were almost incred ible. One day he encountered a woman whose Christian 84 ON TWO CONTINENTS name was "Lettice, with the surname Pray." Another time a man introduced his little son as follows: "We call him Napoleon, and his little sister we have named St. Helena, after Napoleon s wife." In the winter of 1860, when Taylor again delivered a lecture in Detroit, he found to his great delight that the room which was assigned to him had a "crimson velvet carpet and curtains, rosewood furniture, hot and cold water cocks and spring mattress!" . . . "We must have a velvet carpet in our bedroom it is so pleasant to the bare feet," was his comment. Such a carpet and a crimson velvet dressing gown were the refrain of an oft-expressed wish of his that never was realised. Susceptible as he was to the ameni ties of life, his habits remained simple and frugal. His personal wants were few, and he spent very little on himself, only succumbing to the temptation of a work of art or a rare book which he could not always resist. He delighted also in fresh flowers or fine fruit in winter and spared no expense in providing them. About this time, in the winter of 1860, the reports that he received anent the cost of our house began to frighten him. It was evident that the contractor was not as trustworthy as he had been represented. In January my husband wrote to me: "I have the pleasure of informing you that our house will cost considerably more than I reckoned upon. It has already consumed just $13,000, and $2,000 more will scarcely cover the rest." At the same time the poetic fervour began to manifest itself strongly again. On March i8th he wrote: OUTRE MER 85 "I am also much occupied, mentally, with my poems. I am fully resolved upon writing a great many, and the character of them becomes clearer and warmer as the time approaches. You must allow me to keep silent on this one point it is a poetical idiosyncrasy which I cannot overcome. You will see them first of any one, after they are written." And again on the 3oth: "I commenced a poem on reaching here, and became so absorbed in it that I forgot to write to you until this moment. I must be quick, as the lecture hour has arrived. . . . Don t forget to go to Westermann and order Humboldt s letters to V. von Ense for me. I must have them. Oh, what I lost, not knowing of Appleton s sale. I wanted Purchas His Pilgrims, and it went so cheap!" Soon after my husband sent me two poems for safe keeping. One was "The Fountain of Trevi," which he hoped would please me well. As soon as he was at home again these poems were followed at short intervals by others, among them the first of the Pennsylvania Ballads, "The Quaker Widow." And when he was finally settled in his own house, " the freshet of song," that had all along been giving signs of its approach, set in. CHAPTER VI THE NEW HOMESTEAD THE house was a stately mansion built of natural brick, with cornerstones of silver-gray granite and broad verandas on both sides of a large arched window projecting on the southern front. In the second story two balconies rested upon the entire length and breadth of these porches. Spring was abroad in the land, and summer not far distant, when we set up our Lares in our own home. Joyous budding and blossoming were going on all about us, and it was a delight to step out upon the terrace before the house in the early morning and to let the eye rest upon the gently sloping lawn with its groups of cedars. The luxuriant foliage of the high trees oaks, chestnuts, sassafras, tulip, walnut and gum trees, that hedged in the lawn on both sides in natural beauty of arrangement glittered with dew in the morning sun light. The air, soft and mild for the Northland and the South mingle here, ". . . where the sprays of the elm first touch the plumes of the cypress,"* was laden with the scent of exuberant vegetation, and at the same time refreshing in its balmy purity. Descending from the terrace and wandering on the soft turf of the woods, our native flora soon offered us a fair nosegay of *"Home Pastorals. 86 THE NEW HOMESTEAD 87 anemones, hepaticas, pink azaleas, yellow violets, and those strange, ghostly flowers, the Indian pipes. A little farther on, beyond the highway, stood the old stone farm house that had originally belonged to the family, and now was a part of our property. A few rods more and our farthest wood was reached, where at the foot of a ridge a brook babbled and gurgled between fern-clad rocks, overhung by the mysterious shade of magnificent old beeches, " . . . where the dircus flung His pliant rod, the berried spicewood grew." * Turning homeward from this idyllic woodland spot, we could make a detour toward the western part of our property, where a long row of tulip trees covered with thousands of yellow cups reared their crowns skyward, like giant sentinels of field and wood. This circuit, extended as it was, had not led our steps to the confines of our domain, which resembled an English park in its variety of landscape. Writing to my mother, I described our home thus: "The house is spacious, cool, airy and comfortable. I have a large family to provide for. There are eight of us, not counting the child and four servants. In spite of the latter, there is much for me to do much to look after and superintend ; and especially there are numerous visitors to be entertained. People come from far and near to take a look at our house, and owing to the great number of relatives and friends of whom Bayard and his parents are possessed in the neighbourhood, we have many guests and dispense hospitality plentifully." The large family that was gathered together under our *"The Poet s Journal." 88 ON TWO CONTINENTS roof owed its numbers to the fact that Taylor had taken, with my consent, his aged parents and two sisters into our new house to make it their home henceforth. Besides these, we had during the summer two guests from my old home, my Aunt and Uncle Bufleb, who had come across the ocean to visit us. Our house was thus a hospitable one from the first day of our tenancy, and so it remained until the end. There were days "honey-bee days," as an old squaw (the last survivor of the Delaware Indians) , who lived in the vicinity, called them when carriageloads of visitors, one after another, drove up to the door, as if by previous agreement; often they stayed to dinner or to supper. Neither were less transient guests wanting in all the years that we spent in our home. The Stoddards, husband and wife, with their little son Willie, often spent several weeks at a time with us, and this first summer also they were our guests. A comedy, written by our two poets, Stoddard and Taylor, was enacted, and our property was christened "Cedarcroft." While it became my task gradually to make the house more homelike, and to regulate the household (an under taking not always easy, on account of habits and ways of living to which I was unaccustomed, and with indiffer ent servants) my husband at last could relieve himself of the poetic conceptions he had carried with him mentally so long, and to which he gave the name of "The Poet s Journal." During the whole month of June and longer the Muse held him enchained, until at last he could sing : "Come, for my task is done." * It was one of Bayard Taylor s peculiarities, as he had *From the dedication, "To the Mistress of Cedarcroft." THE NEW HOMESTEAD 89 written to me during the winter, that he was not able to express himself about his poetic inspirations. If a crea tive idea arose in his imagination he allowed it to ripen in his mind, sometimes a long while, until it took form and being. Then, after he had committed to paper the creation of his brain, he willingly read it to his intimates. It often happened that he said to me: "I have a poem in my head, but cannot tell you what it is ; the idea would leave me at once if I did!" But sometimes a poem suddenly stood complete before his inner eye, and he read it to me in his sonorous tones on the same day. So, for example, his melodious "Improvisations" of later years. He filed short poems very little ; longer ones he sometimes corrected copiously. At times a poem pleased him so little, especially as regarded the form, that he rewrote it entirely or cast it aside. It was not easy to cultivate a mutual and sympathetic understanding with my new acquaintances among the country people. They received me with great good will, but their mode of life, so primitive in many respects, the utterly different point of view from which they looked upon and judged the world and its affairs, as well as a certain embarrassment of manner and the Quaker repression of every outward show of feeling all these qualities were as foreign to me as my character and manner, my views of life, and my opinions must have been strange to them. I was fortunately endowed with the faculty of accommodating myself easily to different circumstances and conditions, and this gift was a great help to me in the early period of my new life. The sanguine temperament of my husband was my guiding star dining this time. But I did not begin to feel really 90 ON TWO CONTINENTS at home in this country until four or five years had passed; partly owing, perhaps, to our frequent trips to Europe, for when our little daughter was five years old she had crossed the ocean with us five times. Among the people who lived in the neighbourhood there was a small number of families with whom we were more intimate dear people, whom I learned to esteem. Whittier, who was once a guest for several days in one of these farmer families, said of them: "I found a people of plain living and high thinking," a true characterisation of the leading Quaker farmers in the neighbourhood of Kennett Square in those days. The men tilled their fields with their own hands and performed the various tasks connected with a farm; their wives did the house work and looked after the dairy, often without assistance. Everything was done quietly and methodically, without unnecessary hurry, and they found time to visit friends and acquaintances during the afternoon, or to drive out in the evening, sometimes for miles, to hear a lecture by some famous speaker. When we drove up to the door unexpectedly to pay one of them a visit we always found the house in exquisite order, and looking as if it had been freshly furbished. If we came in the afternoon we were usually asked to stay to supper, and nothing could have been more appetising than those impromptu evening meals. In spite of all their work and toil, these people took a lively interest in everything that was going on in the world, and particularly in the closer politics of their own country. Besides taking several newspapers, they had good books on their shelves, and their talk soon turned to intellectual topics. They discussed the questions of the day, and had formed opinions on all the religious, THE NEW HOMESTEAD 91 social, philanthropic and reform problems which filled people s minds at that time. One point that struck me from the very first was the status of woman. As in the country at large, she enjoyed a degree of independence that is seldom met with abroad. But here this position was hers by inheritance, and therefore free from any kind of excess. Its foundations were set in the first principles of the Quaker faith. Within the pale of this sect the woman was the absolute equal of the man ; she had the same rights in the family and in the community; at the religious meetings she was as privileged as any man to stand up and address the as semblage whenever "the spirit moved." The self- reliance that the women acquired by this means endowed even the least of them with a quiet dignity that never under any circumstances deserted her. Since that time the surprising developments of the later decades of the past century have caused many changes in Chester County. The old barriers of Quakerdom have fallen before the onslaught of new conditions ; the descendants of the " Friends," no longer satisfied within the restricted boundaries of their inherited acres, have wandered out among the "world s people," have adopted professions, and have thereby won wealth and fame. Kennett Square no longer knows the peculiar dress that we used to see every day, no longer hears the plain speech and owns the high intellectual atmosphere of former years, for another race has taken possession, and but few of the surrounding farms are in the hands of the old families. Many strange characters have also disappeared along with the former generation. Where could one find now adays a parallel to the case of one old spinster of good 92 ON TWO CONTINENTS Quaker family whom I knew when I first came to Kennett? She had her coffin made ready and, pending its final service, put it to economical use for years as a trough for mixing her bread! A typical Quaker, on the other hand, was " Cousin Ruth," a distant relative of the Taylor family, an aged woman much beloved by everyone for her cheerful, happy disposition. Her picture lives in my memory as she talked pleasantly with us and smoked with enjoyment a short clay pipe the while. She was the original of "Martha Dean" in my husband s novel, "The Story of Kennett." I must not forget another relative; her name was Becky Taylor. She, with her brothers and sisters, all single, lived upon the old farm which they managed together. She was the eldest, a tall, spare woman, who lived to be over ninety, and went to her last day with a carriage as straight as that of a young girl, and without a gray hair on her head. Her manner was reserved and she spoke seldom, but she gave the impression of an intelligent person with a firm character that nothing could shake. My astonishment was great when I dis covered that in former years, in the seclusion of her simple home life, she had acquired without instruction a mastery of the German and Italian languages, so that she was able to read "Faust" and the "Divina Commedia" in the original tongues.* I know not how to account for the fact that, generally speaking, the Quaker women possessed more refined and noble features than the men. The type of the Quaker *Her youngest brother was Dr. Franklin Taylor, one of my hus band s two companions on the first trip to Europe. He left the farm when a young man, and, like so many American youths, earned the means for his own education. He afterward studied in Heidelberg, and gained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. THE NEW HOMESTEAD 93 woman is one of the most beautiful that the world has ever seen. The noble mind, the inward peace, express them selves in the depth of the eye and in the delicately modelled features. This type can no longer be seen in its purest form, since the younger generation of the "Friends" has become "worldly," and has exchanged the "meeting house" of its ancestors for the churches of other denominations. CHAPTER VII WAR TIME AMID the idyllic life of that first summer in our own home we heard low at first, but growing ever louder the threatening premonitions of approaching civil war. In the dog days the political excitement in Kennett and the country round about grew to fever heat, the more so, as some of the most zealous abolitionists lived near our little village. About two miles away a farm, whose owners were numbered among our friends, was one of the stations of the "underground railroad," that system by which runaway slaves were secretly conveyed to Canada and safety. In the month of August a political mass meeting took place on the meadows of the Brandy- wine Creek, near Chadd s Ford, where a battle of the Revolution was fought in 1777. Upward of 40,000 people came together here from far and near, filled with enthusiasm for Lincoln and the weal of the nation. Bayard Taylor was unanimously elected chairman of the meeting, and made his first political speech upon this occasion. Autumn came and painted all the landscape in gay colours. The first night frosts had opened the prickly burrs of the chestnuts and the breeze had shaken them down from the trees. The walnuts and hickory nuts dropped with a light thud, and all were eagerly garnered. In the fields where a little while ago the corn stood tall 94 WAR TIME 95 and stately the golden ears were harvested and the dry stalks bunched in stacks like wigwams. Here and there a field of winter wheat or a meadow along the edge of a wood spread their vivid emerald green, while everywhere the frost had bedecked trees and bushes with a mantle of colour here flaming red, there golden yellow, inter mingled with pink, violet, purple, amaranth and palest green a dazzling splendour tinged with gold by a warm sun that shone through a bluish haze. Along the roads the goldenrod, the tall asclepias (milkweed) and delicate asters still bloomed in profusion; the lowland marshes were resplendent with cardinal flowers, blue gentians, yellow rudbeckias and slender ferns. Above these beautiful autumn days the clouds of threatening war assumed ever greater proportions. The excitement of the presidential election had grown steadily since midsummer, becoming ever more intense as the day for the decision at the polls approached. On November 6th Lincoln was elected by an overwhelming majority, and a vital conflict between the North and South became inevitable. On December 4th I wrote to my mother: " We are having hard times here ; there is lack of money everywhere and banks are failing, all in consequence of the dangerous political crisis. The South is so violent in her hatred of the North that people who are of Northern birth are in danger of their lives, even if they have lived in the South for years." And on December 28th: "People talk of nothing but politics. You will have heard the news that South Carolina has declared her withdrawal from the Union. Everything now depends on the inauguration of the new President." There were sympathisers with the seceding South in 96 ON TWO CONTINENTS the North as well. In the middle of December, when George W. Curtis made a political speech in Philadelphia, he was hissed and silenced something so incredible that a few days later, on the occasion of a lecture in Brooklyn, Bayard Taylor felt impelled to touch upon this incident, when he, too, was interrupted in his discourse by hisses. This experience was so unexpected and new to him that, as he told us afterward, everything for a moment was as yellow as saffron before his eyes to such a degree was his anger roused. Two days later, when he also was to speak in Philadelphia, the authorities considered it expedient to have a guard of policemen on the platform. Early in 1861 we were again in our house in New York, and my husband started once more upon his lecturing tours, in order to cover the cost of building " Cedarcroft," which had far exceeded his expectation. The winter was severe and Taylor had to endure much bodily fatigue. Not to mention other disagreeable happenings, once in February his train was stuck fast for two days in a snowdrift near Lake Ontario. All the more enjoyable were his temporary rests between these trips, which he utilised by writing several short stories. These furnished him with a welcome addition to his exchequer, as the principal sources of his income for example, the ordi narily large returns from the publishers of his books began to shrink considerably, owing to the general business depression. Since anxiety for the future seemed suddenly to have reduced to a minimum the interest of the public in literature, the publication of the "Poet s Journal," which was ready for the press, was also postponed to a more favourable time. WAR TIME 97 As in the preceding winter, the companionship of the Stoddards enabled me to support my husband s frequent absences better. We took our meals in common and often spent the evenings together, when friends of both occasionally dropped in. Stoddard was a real book worm and intimately acquainted with old English literature. He seldom came home from the Custom House, where he held a position, without bringing a rare book or print that he had discovered in some old shop. When my husband came to stay with us for a few days we always had the best of times, and Stoddard would declaim in high good humour: "Let us sit upon the floor and tell sad stories of the death of kings." Although the public strife of those days could not keep our poets from sparring with the blades of wit, there were not nearly so many social entertainments as in the preceding winter. Late in February I received a letter from my husband, in which he wrote : "There is a good deal of excitement in the West; the people are all ready to fight. The prospects, however, are improving every day. Great numbers of Western men are going on to Washington, and if the Southerners attempt to prevent Lincoln s inauguration, they will get terribly thrashed. ... I have been reading Carlyle and the Atlantic for March, but have been most of the time occupied with my story.* I have written twelve pages. I enjoy this kind of writing very much, and am quite anxious to show it to you. Perhaps I shall have it finished by the time I return." For the past six months we had been looking forward to a visit to my parents home in Germany in the coming * "The Haunted Shanty." 98 ON TWO CONTINENTS summer, and in spite of the troublous times we still held to our intention of carrying out this plan. But it almost seemed as if it was not to be. For when the Carolinians fired upon Fort Sumter on April i2th, and the garrison under Major Anderson surrendered, civil war was un avoidable and people asked each other tremblingly: "What will happen next?" For the sake of economy we had given up the New York house early in April, and were in "Cedarcroft" when the dread news arrived. In the beginning of February the stay-at-homes had sent me a nosegay of hepatica, anemones, wintergreen, violets and partridge berry from our woods. My sister-in-law Emma wrote at the same time that twelve small gray owls were roosting among the cedars, looking as grave as judges; that the bluebirds had come back and redbirds flew upon the terrace to regale themselves on the bluish cedar berries. When I wrote to my husband of these things I added: " Cedarcroft grows ever dearer to me. It is rich in poetry and must be the future home of your Muse, for does it not seem made for a poet? " But where were now the Muses? They had fled before the blare of the war trumpet. And their leader? " The sword of Mars chops in two the strings of Apollo s lyre." * If " Cedarcroft " was not without its charm in February, how much more attractive was it now, when Spring was bourgeoning everywhere and bedecking itself with fresh beauty. A greenish film was spread over the woods and the sun shone with fruitful warmth upon hill and dale. In the terrace -beds hyacinths and tulips blossomed * Bayard Taylor to Mrs. Stoddard, "Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor," page 381. BAYARD TAYLOR 1864 WAR TIME 99 fragrantly, and my nurslings, the vines on the pillars of the veranda Dutchman s-pipe, Virginia creeper, wistaria and trumpet flower, planted by myself the year before began to unfold their tender leaflets. But the enjoy ment that the home of our own creation afforded us was overcast this year by anxiety. In a letter of April 2ist I wrote to my mother: " Every heart is bleeding for the nation and the wrong being done to it. All work, all business, is at a stand still, all the men capable of bearing arms are going to the front, among them Fritz. His young comrades, the cousins, friends and acquaintances, have all volunteered. Even the most stiff-necked Quakers abandon the peaceful tenets of their sect and buy uniforms and arms for their sons. One Quaker woman of the neighbourhood ac companied her three sons to the borough hall to see them sign their names in the list of volunteers. The patriotic enthusiasm is so great that no one begrudges any sacrifice of money, and the young men are eager to go to battle. At home there are five of us sitting and sewing flannel shirts for the regiment in which more than one of the boys whom we love is enrolled fine young men, the flower of the community. It is principally owing to Fred Taylor s exertions that an entire company has been formed in the neighbourhood, and $4,000 subscribed for their equipment and maintenance. He goes to Harris- burg to-day to put them at the Governor s disposal." After the attack in Baltimore, on April i9th, upon the troops from Massachusetts on their way to Washington, it was apparent that the Federal Government had allowed itself to be taken by surprise. Our part of the country seemed also to be in grave danger. Delaware, whose boundary line is only six miles distant, was thought to be ioo ON TWO CONTINENTS true to the Union ; but it was feared that the Marylanders might undertake a raid to revenge themselves on the hated abolitionists of Kennett Square and the vicinity. Self-defense was our only safeguard. While the young men had gone into camp at some distance as Company H of the Bucktail Regiment * (the first Rifle Regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteers) and were busily drilling, the older men of Kennett Square formed themselves into a police force for the defense of their homes in case of necessity. As our house was a mile from the village, and the New York Tribune, with which Bayard Taylor was connected, was cordially hated in the South, we would have been in a very dangerous position in the event of an attack. My husband therefore instituted a private night patrol for the protection of his property, which was kept alternately by himself and his farm hands. It is doubtful whether this guard would have been of any use if we had been attacked, for we possessed no arms. Two Turkish scimitars (one with an ancient Damascene blade), an African spear, a war club of the Shillook negroes, a shield of rhinoceros hide, and other archaic weapons that my husband had brought home from the Orient, were hunted up and kept in readiness. In spite of the insecurity of our position we could not refrain from having our fun over these inadequate means of defense. The night was clear and the moon shone; a silver haze lay over the sloping lawn, and nothing broke the stillness but the monotonous croaking of the frogs and the oc casional deep-toned bass of a bullfrog. Nevertheless sleep fled from our eyelids. With the dawn the humid *They wore bucktails on their caps; hence the name of the regi ment. WAR TIME spring mists were dissipated and the anxious thoughts of the night were banished; we breathed more freely, and when the following day also passed without any signs of hostile attack our fears of personal danger gradually waned. But not so the exertions of the patriots to influence the minds of their neighbours. Hardly a day passed that Taylor did not appear in one place or the other to exhort the country people to rise up in defense of the Union to inspire courage in the faint hearted, to prick the conscience of the indifferent. When in the ensuing weeks confidence in the Govern ment at Washington grew apace and the situation began to clear up, so that it appeared as if no definite action would be taken during the summer, we finally decided to make a short trip to Germany and sailed at the end of May. The roses were in full bloom in the garden of the new Observatory in Gotha when we arrived there as guests of my parents. And not we alone, for my sister had come also with her husband and children from Russia, so that the summer was one long family feast from begin ning to end. My father, whose eyes had begun to suffer from the affection that later made him almost blind, had in the meantime been accumulating honours. As early as 1859 my mother had written to me: " The Tables of the Moon will soon be used in England for navigation. For this purpose comparisons have been made with the observations of one year, and Airy writes to father that the result is surprising and exceeds all expectation." Early in the following year the Astronomical Society of London for the second time conferred upon him the gold prize medal "with great enthusiasm and a large majority TWO CONTINENTS of votes." More agreeable still was the later news that Parliament had awarded him one thousand pounds sterling for the "Tables of the Moon." As my husband had been suffering for some time from an affection of the knee joints, aggravated during the winter by sitting so much on the cramped American car seats (there were no parlour cars in those days), the physician had advised him to take moderate daily walks. This suggested the plan to travel on foot through Franconian Switzerland, with the further idea of making literary use of the jaunt and writing an article * describing this region so utterly unknown in America. Before going to Franconia my husband stopped for a short time at Coburg, where he had asked for permission to pay his respects to Duke Ernest II. He wrote me from there : "When I reached the station here, I had no sooner alighted on the platform than I was accosted by a pleasant gentleman with a white cravat, who asked : Are you not Herr Tylore? Yes/ said I. His Highness, the Duke, expects you at the Callenberg, zur Tafel, at 7 o clock this evening. I then perceived that the gentleman was an Oberhof-Etwas. Of course I answered that I should have the honor to accept Hochderselben s invitation. At seven o clock, he repeated. You must leave Coburg at half past six: wear a black cravat and a dress-coat. " I bought a black cravat and white gloves, and hope to make a respectable appearance. . . . The Oberhof- Etwas also said to me: Where is your Frau Gemahlin? The Duke expects her also. Indeed, I wish you had come. You know I proposed it. The prospect before me would be much more pleasant, if you were here. *Published first in Harper s Magazine under the title "A Walk Through the Franconian Switzerland," and afterward included in "At Home and Abroad," Second Series. WAR TIME 103 "After dinner (of which I made a lunch) I walked out to Neusass. I went in through Ruckert s * garden oh, the splendid pinks! Broad masses of a single color, and the hot air thoroughly impregnated with spice. It was a leaf out of the Orient. I found nobody in the lower rooms, and wandered about in uncertainty until at length Miss Anna issued from a stable. . . . She was surprised to see me. Oh, said she, Marie was wondering whether you would come. ... I went up stairs, and presently the old poet came. He looked much older, but still the same noble head, the same splendid eyes. He seemed heartily glad to see me, and talked for an hour with the greatest animation princi pally on American affairs, which he understands very well. Also on Oriental literature. He still writes poetry, he tells me, but has firmly resolved that none of it shall be published until after his death." He continued the letter next day: "I must wait until nearly 12 for the train to Bamberg, which gives me time to continue the story. I found the landlord had engaged for me an aparten Wagen with two horses. So, putting on my duster to protect the black dress, . . . I set out for the Callenberg. The evening was perfectly delicious: the old Veste Coburg shone golden in the sun, and long shadows lay across the meadows of Rosenau. There was a mild breeze, hay- scented, blowing over the hills. At 10 minutes before 7 I reached the Callenberg. The Duke s darkey was at the door, and I gave my duster . . . into his hands. He conducted me to an upper terrace a delicious, shaded place, planted with flowers in rococo style, with a fountain in the centre. At the main entrance stood two lackeys. I followed the darkey, and was about entering, when I was confronted by a tall, stately *Friedrich Riickert, the poet. io 4 ON TWO CONTINENTS gentleman, with ... the most wonderfully curled and waxed moustaches that I ever saw. He bowed with gravity: I answered stiffly. He looked at me as if expecting me to say something, but I was so taken aback by the marvellous twist of his moustaches that I could not think of a single appropriate remark. One of the lackeys, seeing that I was absorbed in the contempla tion of this gentleman, politely introduced him as Ober- hofmarschall von W . Thereupon he suddenly remarked l Vous etes arrive aujourd hui? I answered in German, which seemed to relieve him whereupon he conducted me around the terrace, and pointed out the beauties of the landscape. I fell in love with the Callen- berg at once. There is not a more exquisite situation in Germany. It is high enough to command a wide and splendid panorama, yet not so high as to lose the sentiment and expression of the different features. Each angle of the parapet gives you a new landscape. There is, first, the valley of Coburg, crowned by its hill and fortress; then a broad mountain of dark firs nothing else to be seen; then a vision of England hedgerow trees, green lawns and water; then a rich plain, stretching away to the southwest, where the volcanic peaks of the Gleich- berge rise against the sky; and so on, all around. The trees on the hill itself are superb, and the castle on the summit so thoroughly harmonizes with the scenery, that it seems the natural crowning expression of the whole. "Presently a lackey came and whispered to the Ober- hofmarschall, who informed me that the Duke s adjutant, Herr von R , with his wife and sister (I believe) had arrived, and asked whether it would be agreeable to me to be presented to them. The Adjutant was a slight, gentlemanly person, with an air of refinement ; the ladies both handsome and graceful. Scarcely had we exchanged a few common-places when the Duke and Duchess came out upon the terrace. Off went hats and down dipped the ladies. The Duchess did the same, and the O. H. WAR TIME 105 Marschall immediately presented me to her. At the same moment the Duke came up to me, bowed and addressed me very cordially.* I bowed profoundly to both. As the Duke addressed me in German, I answered him in the same. He immediately asked after you, and seemed a little disappointed that you were not with me. He looks remarkably well. His face is tanned and has a fine healthy look, and he has splendid brown eyes. He at once took me off to the parapet and began to comment upon the landscape, but in a few minutes dinner was announced, and we rejoined the company. The dinner was very pleasant. Not only were the dishes remarkably good, and the wine excellent, but there was a free, unre strained flow of conversation, in which all took part. The Duchess is passionately fond of scenery, and knows how to remember and describe what she has seen. The Duke is a head and shoulders above the men who sur round him a bright, wide-awake, well-informed, living man, with very extensive acquirements and exquisite taste. . . . "After dinner we went upon the terrace, and had coffee and cigars. Then the Duke took me into a corner where we looked down on the loveliest woods and talked for about an hour. As I had to lend him my cigar several times for a light, I noticed that his hands were not near so handsome as mine, and that he had not the least idea how to present a cigar in the graceful Spanish manner. He talked with the greatest animation and frankness, and I was really so pleased with him as a man that I totally forgot he was a reigning Prince. He spoke of European and American politics in the most unre strained way, and I was equally unrestrained in expressing my own sentiments. I was surprised to find how many views we shared in common. *The Duke had made Bayard Taylor s acquaintance in 1858, in the new Observatory at Gotha, when the former had paid a visit of inspec tion in the company of his brother Albert, the Prince Consort of England. io6 ON TWO CONTINENTS " About ten o clock, there was a movement of departure. . . . I had passed, as you may suppose, a most interesting and delightful evening on the Callenberg." Ere the wanderer had completed his journey on foot he was heartily tired of this whimsical method of treat ment, and wrote to me shortly before his return, the end of June: "I might appropriately take to myself the name of an Indian chief whom I once knew Blister-feet." In August the Duke and Duchess came for a stay of several weeks to Castle Reinhardsbrunn, at the foot of the Thuringian Mountains. On the ruins of a rich mediaeval monastery, that had been destroyed in the Peasants War,* the father of the reigning Duke had erected a beautiful summer residence in the Gothic style of architecture, and had surrounded it by an English park. It is exquisitely situated between artificial lakes and groups of trees ; its principal facade looks toward the Abbot s Mountain, clothed with magnificent beeches, and to the bold summit of the Evil Mountain beyond. Shortly after the arrival of the ducal party we received a promised invitation to dinner at Reinhardsbrunn. We were in the latter half of August and the days were autumnal rather than summer-like; nevertheless the six- o clock dinner was served in the open air. The table was set in a triangular space between the newer building and the old restored chapel f of the monastery, and facing *"A dreadful war broke out in 1525: the army of thirty thousand peasants ravaged a great part of Southern Germany, destroying castles and convents. . . . The movement extended through Middle Germany, even to Westphalia; some parts of Thuringia were held for a short time by the peasants, and suffered terrible ravages." "A His tory of Germany," by Bayard Taylor, page 263. t It contains the burial stones of a number of Landgraves of Thu ringia, three of them life-size effigies in stone. WAR TIME 107 a group of fine old linden trees, at whose foot stands the ancient weather-beaten "Monks Table" of stone. The cordiality of the ducal hosts and the absence of any formal court etiquette contributed to make this occasion a very pleasant memory. After dinner we assembled in the billiard-room, where tea was served. The ladies sat around the Duchess ; the gentlemen played billiards, sometimes stopping to address the ladies. The Duke was in excellent spirits and amused himself at the expense of the lady-in-waiting; just as she was raising a spoonful of tea to her lips a well-directed stroke of his billiard cue sent the contents back into her cup. His good humour gave the keynote to the conversation of the evening and time passed rapidly. At nine o clock our carriage was waiting to convey us back a two hours drive to Gotha. We soon afterward started homeward, and arrived in America early in September. We found the political situation not much improved. People still felt great anxiety as to the outcome, and the scarcity of money was disagreeably apparent. Like thousands of other families, we were obliged to economise in our daily life ; this was, however, no hardship to us, as we were conscious that our happiness was not based upon externals. Our life in the country in autumn had great attraction for me, of which neither our slender purse nor the scarcity of servants could rob me. Our orchard supplied us with an abundance of apples and pears, the woods gave us chest nuts and other nuts, and it was a pleasure to gather the fruit in baskets and bring it to the house. Guests came and went, among others George H. Boker, of Philadelphia, one of the handsomest men I have ever known, whose io8 ON TWO CONTINENTS frequent visits always had an agreeable and stimulating effect upon my husband, his intimate friend. Taylor employed his leisure in the country and his enjoyment of his own hearth for a many-sided literary activity, partly in order to meet current expenses and partly to unburden his mind of its accumulation of poetic material. The library adjoined the family sitting-rooms, in which guests were received. When he complained of being disturbed in his work I hastened to close the doors of the library as soon as visitors were announced, but so convivially inclined was my husband s nature that he presently upset all my plans for his privacy. In the course of a few minutes he opened the sliding doors and came forward to greet our guests with his inborn amiability. At this time he began writing his first novel, " Hannah Thurston," and thus entered the domain of fiction, in which he had previously attempted only a few short stories. When my husband read the first finished chapters aloud to me I could not refrain from playfully chiding him for the realistic delineations that were antagonistic to my taste whereupon he only laughed good humouredly. He very well knew the dualism of his creative faculty and recognised that two different spiritual elements held the balance in his nature: one idealistic, which constantly urged him to higher aspiration and showed forth in his poems, the other realistic, that led him to see and picture life as it actually is. When shortly after our return home my husband went to Washington for a few days, he wrote me thence: "Six regiments arrived to-day. There are now in and around Washington 200,000 men. . . , Charlie WAR TIME 109 Lamborn * was here yesterday. His regiment is 6 miles off. His Colonel says he is the best adjutant in the Army. Fred s regiment is expected to move down to the same camp in a few days. . . . Yester day Willis, Stedman,f Judge Titian Coffey and myself went over the river and along the line of defense. Gen. Keyes, who has command at Arlington, was going to the pickets, and we accompanied him most of the way. . I saw enough to know that Washington is the safest place in the country." One Sunday morning in October the family was greatly rejoiced by an unexpected visit from Fred Taylor, who had obtained a short furlough. He looked handsome and manly and his uniform set off his good figure. The weather was delicious and so entrancing that by evening we could count upward of forty guests who had entered our doors since morning, and a large number of whom had claimed our hospitality either for dinner or for sup per. Later in the season, however, when the rainy days set in and the roads, bad enough at any time, became well-nigh impassable, visiting was not so frequent. In the short days, also, people had not time for junketing, for everyone was busier than ever, especially the women, who, besides doing their own work, were sewing, knitting, and preserving fruit for winter comforts for the troops and the hospitals. In the beginning of December my husband left us for a short time. From Boston he informed me: *A young Quaker of Kennett. fMr. Stedman was war correspondent of the New York World during the years of 1861-65. In this capacity one of his first com munications was a letter filling a newspaper page, describing the Battle of Bull Run, which opened the eyes of the public to the actual progress and true results of tne war. no ON TWO CONTINENTS "Fields* will send proofs of my Hebel t and the Experiences of the A.C. to the Cornhill Magazine: per haps Thackeray may take both. If so, better. Gilmore will pay the Atlantic s price for the article on Ibn Batuta. Fields is anxious for the Quaker story, and Gilmore wants a story also so that I shall have as much literary work as I can undertake. ... If Thackeray accepts both, it will be an addition of $200 to my funds. . . . Ibn Batuta will probably bring me another $100. Fields also paid me in advance $100 for Hebel ... he offers to pay me always in advance. . . . I am glad you are reading Titan. J It is chaotic, but very fine." At the close of the year winter set in at last. Snow covered the earth, but the sun shone bright and clear. It happened that my husband had to deliver a lecture in Washington on December 26th, and he persuaded me to go with him and to visit the camps in his company. I quote from my letters to my parents describing this excursion : " Our little trip to the Potomac was intensely interest ing. The weather was cold but favourable, wonderfully clear and sunshiny. After my husband had shown me the Capitol and the halls of Congress, we packed a large basket of provisions for Fred, added some home-made apple jelly for the field hospital, and drove out of the city along the Potomac. Some distance beyond a sus pension bridge took us over to the opposite bank, which *James T. Fields, the publisher; at that time the editor of the A tlantic Monthly. f The German Burns," an article by Bayard Taylor, full of apprecia tion of Johann Peter Hebel, containing translations of a number of his Allemanic poems. JBy Jean Paul Richter. WAR TIME in rises steep and rocky, while trie waters rush along between boulders a wild, tumultuous stream. Thence toward the south the heavily laden forage wagons followed one another, and the roads were full of soldiers infantry as well as cavalry. We had a government pass good for three days, without which we could not have got across the river. My husband had received it as a special favour, and we could therefore take our time in seeing the different camps. On this first day that of the Buck- tails was our goal. The road up to the top of the ridge of hills that follows the river led through a picturesque gorge, from the end of which we could overlook the seat of war. Where in the autumn the rebels had still been undisputed masters now stood the tents of the Union army. Even from this distance it was evident that war had wrought terrible havoc. Magnificent trees cedars, pines, chestnuts, sycamores lay prone along the roads, hacked and hewn to splinters. Farther along an entire wood had been cleared away, leaving the naked stumps standing, while all the branches had been used for con structing intrenchments. Of course, the fields were un tilled, the fences torn down, and orchards had fallen under the axes of the sappers. The stately country houses upon the hills were abandoned by their owners; some of them were used as headquarters of the generals, and one as a field hospital. About two miles from the Potomac we saw the camps of McCall s division, to which the Bucktail regiment belongs. The latter lay encamped along the front next to the enemy, and we were shown a hill upon whose farther slope we should find it. We soon saw the tents shining in the light of the declining sun, and a horseman came galloping to meet us. It was Fred, for the time being acting colonel in place of his superior officer, who had received a gunshot wound in the victorious Battle of Drain esville, shortly before Christ mas. He took us to his tent on the summit of the hill and showed us the point, about a mile away, where stood ii2 ON TWO CONTINENTS the last outpost of the Union army, with the enemy not far distant. The air was keen upon the height, and we were glad to enter the tent and warm ourselves by the small iron field stove. Besides a hard camp bed, the tent contained a table where toilet articles lay side by side with books and writing materials and four small camp stools, on which it was difficult to keep one s balance. "As time pressed we did not stay long. With Fred on horseback beside us, we drove along between the rows of tents, where the young men of Kennett had their quar ters, and greeted our acquaintances. Here we were entertained with an account of the Battle of Drain esville, in which the regiment had been under fire for the first time. One of Taylor s cousins showed us the coat of his uniform, in which a grapeshot had torn a hole. The concussion had thrown him down without materially injuring him, and his comrades teased him by saying that when he fell he cried out : * There are both my legs gone! This and other jokes were told us. The Buck- tails were fortunate in this battle.* Fighting against an equal number of the enemy, they had not a man killed and only seven or eight wounded, which they ascribed to the poor marksmanship of the rebels. " Our quarters for the night was, of course, the hotel in Washington. Next day we came back and saw a review of the thirteen regiments that had distinguished them selves in the recent battle. The weather was glorious, and the snow sparkled and gleamed in the sunlight. We had the distinction of seeing the review in the suite of the Governor of Pennsylvania and the Secretary of War, and were pleased that the Bucktails, under Fred s command, were placed at the head of the brigade, and received special recognition from the Governor for their courageous * This regiment was later engaged in the most murderous battles of the war. Very few of the young people of Kennett ever saw their homes again ; their bones lay scattered over the battlefields from Get tysburg to the Wilderness. WAR TIME 113 behaviour during the fight. After the review we ac cepted General Reynolds s* invitation and dined with him in his tent. There we found our friend Charles Lamborn (his adjutant), the rest of his staff, and brother Fred as his guests. The dinner was very good and all were in the best of spirits a charming intermezzo." The last day of the year saw us back in " Cedarcrof t. " This was my first acquaintance with country life in winter. Snowstorms alternating with rainy days caused me to long for spring ; for not until then would the roads be passable and healthy exercise out of doors possible. The days crept by monotonously after my husband again left for the West on a lecturing tour. Reading his let ters, which I received almost daily, was my favourite recreation. He wrote to me from Peoria, 111. : " I passed through the scenery described in the Haunted Shanty, and was surprised to find that I had remembered it so correctly." Another time he sighed: "O that I had everything off my hands, except the novel! I work at that, in my head, a little every day." From Zanesville, O., he wrote among other things: " I was attacked by a bore, who asked me the following questions : 1. What is the cause of the difference in the manners of nations ? 2. Do free schools promote infidelity? 3. How fast do ostriches run? 4. Does religion depend on climate? 5. Would Lapps live in this country? * John F. Reynolds, one of the bravest generals of the Union army, fell on the first day at Gettysburg. ii 4 ON TWO CONTINENTS 6. Will there be more Protestant sects in the future? 7. What people live in Spitzbergen? 8. Did Evil originate with Adam? 9. How large is the white bear? 10. Is not industry fatal to civilization? I answered the fool according to his folly." Apropos of these questions, I cannot refrain from quoting a similar experience that happened to Browning in later years, and which he himself related to my hus band. At a dinner party he was requested to take in a lady, who hardly gave him time to sit down, when she began, " Oh, Mr. Browning, I have been wanting so much to meet you, in order to ask you some questions: Who were the Davenport Brothers, and the Plymouth Breth ren?" Browning explained to the best of his ability, when she inquired breathlessly : And what are Yarmouth bloaters?" Bayard Taylor was not infrequently victimised by bores of this sort. I remember that one day, while we were in the country, a strange woman, who called herself an authoress, paid him a visit. After she had bored him for a while, and still gave no signs of leaving, my husband began to cough violently, and excused himself with the remark, "We have an epidemic in the house that takes this form" in two minutes the woman made her exit, and he was rid of her. Although usually the most long suffering of men, yet Taylor sometimes very nearly lost his self-control when tried by these persons. Once, in New York, a stranger of doubtful education forced himself upon my husband, and bored him almost to death for more than half an hour. WAR TIME 115 At last, when the door closed upon his visitor, he cast himself furiously upon a roll of carpet that stood in a corner ready to be laid down, and threw it from one end of the room to the other. I happened to be present, and exclaiming, "Quick, a cigar!" I offered him one, and a lighted match as well. This approved sedative did not fail of its effect ; a few puffs and his anger had evaporated. In the first half of February Taylor persuaded me to go with him to New York for a few weeks. I had an added reason for doing so; our friends, the Stoddards, had suffered the misfortune to lose their six-year-old son Willie in January. I hoped to afford them some com fort by staying in the same boarding house in which they were living. Such proved to be the case, as appears from a letter to my mother-in-law : " It was," I wrote, " a trial at first for them to see Lily, but the shock of the first meeting over, I think her pres ence is beginning to be of some comfort to them. Willie had the strangest longing for Kennett and Lily ever since his last visit, and Stoddard has the touching belief that Willie is somewhere near him as long a? Lily is in the room." On March 8th my husband came home and said, " I have just been at the Tribune office, and have been asked to go to Washington as the head correspondent of the paper. A battle is expected there hourly, and I am to report it." As he had never declined a service to the Tribune, which was, so to speak, his alma mater, he felt impelled to comply also with this request. The new turn of affairs threw us into great excitement, and my heart was very heavy when my husband was ready for n6 ON TWO CONTINENTS departure next day. The news that I received from him during the following weeks may rank as history, and I quote some extracts: " WASHINGTON, Monday noon. "There is a general advance this morning towards Manassas (private) the rebels have left their batteries on the Potomac, and contrabands who came yesterday say they are leaving Manassas. The general impression here is that there will not be much fighting after all. Fred s division was to move this morning. There is motion everywhere. I arrived just at the nick of time. I shall probably not start until to-morrow morning. I think I shall have chances of sending every day from camp. No one anticipates hard fighting. So don t be concerned about me." "FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE, Monday evening, March 10. "Here I am, 12 miles from Manassas. After writing to you this morning, the news came that the whole army was moving on Centreville. I rushed around and got everything ready, took the boat for Alexandria, and rode hither 18 miles by dusk. I have comfortable quar ters with Gen. Slocum in a secession house. McClellan is here. The rebels are leaving Manassas as fast as they can. There will be no fight, or next to none. . . . My horse is superb. The journey was grand. 50,000 men are bivouacked around us in the moonlight drums and trumpets sound on all sides." "WASHINGTON, Wednesday, 3 P. M. "I have just returned from riding two miles beyond Manassas. I got there ahead of McClellan, and 20 hours after the Rebels. I am stiff and sore from riding 70 miles, and sleeping two nights on a bare plank. The weather has been glorious, and the experience something to remem ber for a lifetime. We found Manassas burning, a dread- WAR TIME 117 ful scene of ruin. I picked up a bowie-knife, plated spoon and wooden fork, but could not find a pistol for Dick.* The fortifications are a damnable humbug and McClellan has been completely fooled." As the campaign came to a standstill after this defeat, my husband returned home for a few days, and went back to Washington on the 2oth in order to go with the army to Richmond as people then supposed. The capital of Virginia was to be reached by water, and the army was therefore to be conveyed by ship to Fortress Monroe, which was garrisoned by Union troops. After his arrival in Washington, Taylor wrote to me: "WASHINGTON, Saturday evening, March 22, 1862. "I rode out yesterday afternoon, to find McCall s division, and after wading 1 2 miles through seas of mud, as far south as Munson s Hill, I finally found them, about i-J miles from Alexandria. They are camped on a hill, in little tentes d abri of india-rubber and cedar-boughs, and look very well, after all their marches in the rain. Fred is very rugged and hardy more so than ever be fore. . . . The Bucktails want me to embark with them, and I shall try to do so. . . . They are now attached to Gen. Reynolds s brigade. ... I saw Hawthorne, this morning. He, also, is just off for Fortress Monroe, and I hope to meet him there again. I also saw Willis but he is too Epicurean to follow the army." "WASHINGTON, Monday afternoon, March 24. "I am still waiting, but with the prospect of getting off on Wednesday. I saw Gen. McDowell last night, and he says : When three more divisions have gone, get ready! On Saturday about 10,000 troops left, and *Stoddard. n8 ON TWO CONTINENTS probably as many yesterday. We shall have over 100,000 in all, and I scarcely anticipate much fighting. . . . Senator Chandler told me he thought there would be none that the rebels would not make a stand against so large a force. There is probably fighting at Winches ter to-day a continuation of yesterday s battle. We have no fears for the result." The next letter contained utterly unexpected news that seemed suddenly to turn everything upside down. It read thus: "WASHINGTON, Wednesday evening, March 26, 62. "I write in haste, on account of unexpected news. Cameron (former Secretary of War) is excessively anxious that I should be his Secretary of Legation to Russia, and has gone so far as to speak to the President about it. The matter now rests entirely with me. The salary is not much ($1,800 or $2,000), but Cameron says he shall only stay six months, leaving me as Charge d Affaires, and gave me to understand that I could be appointed Minister, in case he did not return. The Minister s salary is $12,000 a year. I must decide in three days. Now, I want you to write at once and tell me candidly what you think. ... He gives me until the ist of May to get ready, in case I can go. The proposition strikes me favorably in one respect I would have splendid facilities for making my Asiatic tour. . . . What makes me hesitate is that the future is a little doubtful. If the Minister ship was certain, I would not hesitate a moment, provided you thought favorably of the matter. . . . Cameron will certainly return to America in the fall, and I should be Charge that is the only certainty. Were it sure that he could be elected Senator (his object in returning) and that I should be appointed, it would put another face on the matter. Think it over, and give rne your woman s judgment. WAR TIME ng . . . Decide without thinking of me. My mind is so evenly balanced that it will be even easier for me to say no than yes. In fact, I almost refused him to-night, and only hesitate because he pressed me so strongly. Personally he is an agreeable man and is said to be very generous and devoted towards those he likes. . . Advise me, for I am utterly undecided." This letter reached me late in the evening. I hoped that the night would bring good counsel, but shortly after midnight I heard a carriage drive up to the door, and lo! my husband had come to advise with me in person. We talked long together, and when he left us again next morning it was decided : we were to go. CHAPTER VIII THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE EARLY in May we sailed from New York in company with the Minister and his family. A visit to my parents had been the joyful project that had beguiled our minds from the very first. Mr. and Mrs. Cameron, their two daughters and youngest son, joined us at Gotha and had their first experience of a German family circle and of true German hospitality. Then my husband journeyed to St. Petersburg with them, while I followed in the middle of July, with our little four-year-old daughter. During this short separation my husband wrote as follows : "Cameron has taken the house now occupied by Mr. Clay,* and will move into it in two or three days. He insists that I shall live with them until you come. Cameron has positively announced his intention of leaving by the beginning of September. Clay, however, now says that he wants to come back after Cameron returns, and has written to the President about it. He is very free and easy in his talk about it, saying that he will leave his family at home and come back. . . . This looks threatening to my prospects; but I don t believe Clay will ever get back here again. He is . . . rather proud of being Major General and the chances are that he will stay at home when he gets there." * Cassius M. Clay, who had resigned the post of Minister to Russia in order to join the army I2O THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 121 " Legation of the United States, "ST. PETERSBURG, Monday, June 23, 1862. "I returned this morning from Pulkowa, after a very agreeable visit. . . . After breakfast this morning, I rode into the city in a peasant s bondkara. I im mediately brought my luggage here, to the evident satisfaction of the ladies, who have a lonely time of it. . . . I have ordered a Russian teacher. It provokes me not to know the language. I begin already to under stand a word here and there." "ST. PETERSBURG, Monday night, June 30, 1862. " On Sunday we were again at Tzarskoe-Selo, and saw the Empress. I was delighted with her grace, self- possession and evident intellect. She spoke to me in German, and inquired about my travels over the world, of which she had heard. . . . We had another handsome breakfast at Tzarskoe, and were taken through the park in the Imperial carriages." In the last of these letters was enclosed the beautiful sonnet "Once more without you!" * which my husband had written the day before. After my arrival in St. Petersburg, my first excursion was a visit to Pulkowa, where the Imperial Observatory crowns a hill, comprising many buildings surrounded by park-like grounds. I made frequent and pleasant visits there during my stay in Russia. The higher officials of this magnificent scientific institute were all Germans to the number of five or six, who each occupied a spacious apartment, and united with their families to form an * Published in the Household Edition under the title "From the North." 122 ON TWO CONTINENTS i agreeable social circle. My brother-in-law, August von Wagner, occupied the position next in rank to that of the Director, Otto von Struwe. In the capital society was passing through its dullest season. The diplomatic circle and the Russian aristoc racy, with whom we were to associate, were either in the country or travelling. The Court was at Tzarskoe-Selo, afterward going to Novgorod and Moscow, and did not return to the Winter Palace on the Neva until the New Year. It was not to be expected that a lady of the diplomatic corps could be presented before the latter date, and in the interim visiting in Russian houses was out of the question. Under these circumstances the Legation joyfully took advantage of the opportunity to make an excursion to Moscow and Nishni-Novgorod late in August. The great fair, which promoted trade between Russia and Asia, was just being held at the latter place and was an attraction. The invitation for this trip was extended by Messrs. Ross Winans & Company, who had built the railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow, and farther into the interior, for the Russian Government ; they proved most munificent hosts in the person of their representa tive, Mr. Pierce, who accompanied us. We, with servants, formed a party of ten persons. We were housed in a car fitted out in the most comfortable style and were treated everywhere with the utmost liberality. In this way I saw the old Tartar city, Moscow, which my husband had visited already, with its numerous gold, silver and green onion-shaped cupolas, its Asiatic-Byzantine character and its wondrous Kremlin. Of all the sights that I beheld there in swift review two only stand forth vividly THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 123 in my memory. One was the astounding basilica of Ivan the Terrible, the Vasili Blakenoi,* which can be compared to no other church in the world, and seems to have been put together by chance out of towers of varying height, form and colour. Taylor called it " the apotheosis of chimneys." The effect of the interior is thrilling and eerie. From every cupola of the slender towers a colossal face of the Virgin, or of the Saviour, looks weirdly down with great, staring eyes upon the beholder, until awe overcomes him and he is fain to turn away. The other sight that I remember is entirely different. Among a magnificent collection of old vestments, kept in the building of the Holy Synod on the Kremlin, I recall the most marvellous one of all. Woven of gold and silver threads, the entire fabric seemed to gleam with a rosy shimmer. A broad band of crimson velvet bordered the garment. It was elaborately embroidered with arabesques formed of seed pearls, interspersed here and there with a brilliant diamond or a large pearl of great value. The groundwork of gold and silver tissue was decked with medallions enclosing scenes from the New Testament the Crucifixion, the Entombment, etc., the outlines of which consisted of rows of tiny pearls; the faces of the figures were wrought with the needle in the finest silk. Words are inadequate to describe the exquisite effect of this wonderful example of ancient Byzantine art. In Nishni those of us who did not know the Orient were ushered into a new and strange world. A piece of Asia was there presented to the eye. But I pass by all this, and will mention only a thoroughly Russian meal, *Described by Bayard Taylor in his volume "Greece and Russia," P- 338- i2 4 ON TWO CONTINENTS that we had asked to have served to us, for the sake of the experience. The Russian waiters all wore the national costume of shirt and trousers, the latter stuffed into high boots. The head waiter alone was dressed in a shirt of silk, of Persian weave, shimmering pale blue and white. After the appetiser, called sakusti, which is partaken of standing at a side table, we took our places, and soup was served accompanied by patties filled with aspic and finely chopped herbs. While we were eating this course the cooks, dressed in white, appeared in the dining-room bearing a large vessel, in which the precious sterlet of the Volga was swimming; this they carried in solemn pro cession around the table, to show that the fish was alive when ready to be cooked, for thus alone could its inimita bly delicate flavour be preserved. (In St. Petersburg this custom was observed at large dinners in Russian families.) While we were waiting for the reappearance of the fish, the waiters served an entr6e and at the same time placed upon the table large gold and silver ewers of antique form and workmanship. These contained beer and another peculiar brew consisting of beer, lemons and spices, that reminded me of a mixture called Maulesel (mule), which I had tasted in my childhood. These ewers were passed from hand to hand, according to the Russian custom, and each gentleman was expected to drink from the spot where the preceding lady had placed her lips. Of the other courses I will mention only the roast, which consisted of sucking pigs of the tenderest age, most deliciously cooked, and the salad, that I have since vainly tried to reproduce. It filled a large, deep bowl and appeared to be a medley of pieces of watermelon, small cucumbers, grapes and cherries, mingled with little lumps of ice. THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 125 In September the Minister with his family took leave of absence, and went back to America by way of Italy. My husband remained as Charge d Affaires and only incumbent of the Legation with a salary of $6,000, a sum so inadequate to the expenses of the position that we were obliged to restrict ourselves as much as possible. To my great consolation I discovered later that there were several other diplomatic representatives in the same plight; the only difference being that their home governments were not, like the United States, numbered among the important nations. Meanwhile our mode of life was quiet. In October the diplomats gradually began to return to St. Petersburg, and one of the first acquaintances we made was that of the English Ambassador, Lord Napier. In the absence of Lady Napier, Mrs. Locock, the wife of one of the attaches, acted as hostess of the Embassy. I was pleased to find in her an old acquaintance from Athens, the daugh ter of the American clergyman, Doctor King. This was fortunate, since she was able to introduce me to some other ladies of the diplomatic corps, among others to the Duchess of Montebello, at the French Embassy. We found a small company gathered around the tea table of the Ambassadress, an Englishwoman by birth. The conversation did not rise above the level of the common place. The Duchess entertained us for some time with the praise of a certain healing salve, by the application of which she had often worked cures among the retainers of her father, Lord L . Much more entertaining was an evening with the Belgian Minister, Baron Gevers, whose wife was an American. One of the few guests was Count Golz, who was about to exchange his post of Minister at 126 ON TWO CONTINENTS St. Petersburg for that of Paris, which had become vacant by the appointment of Bismarck as Prime Minister in Berlin. The grounds for this nomination, and the state of affairs in Prussia were of course the subject of discussion. The latter seemed to assume the shape of a giant question mark, and people wondered what sort of an influence the new Prime Minister would exert upon the fortunes of the country. Count Golz, when asked what manner of man von Bismarck was, like a true diplomat, answered evasively that he had created a very favourable impression both in St. Petersburg and in Frankfort by his agreeable address. So little did anyone then dream what a star of the first magnitude had arisen in his person in the Cabinet of King William I. of Prussia. The situation in the United States had hardly changed for the better since our departure in May, and now began to cause us some anxiety, the more so because France and England displayed their sympathy with the Southern States more openly ; an intervention in favour of the latter seeming to become an ever more threatening danger. Taylor s responsibility, as the representative of our Government, was thus not by any means a slight one. It was necessary, in the face of any reverses that the Union army might suffer, to preserve the confidence of the Russian Government (hitherto the only friendly power) in the final victory of the North. As Taylor himself was firmly convinced of the certainty of this ultimate triumph, he at length succeeded, after several long and very interesting interviews with Prince Gortch- acow, in enlisting the sympathies of this astute diplomat entirely on the side of the Federal Government, and in firmly establishing the friendship of the two powers THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 127 Russia and the United States. In these diplomatic conversations the personal magnetism which my husband possessed in so great a measure may perhaps have con tributed not a little to this result, as seems to be indicated by the following paragraph from his despatch to Secretary of State William H. Seward, under date of October 29, 1862: " We were standing face to face during the conversation, and the earnest, impassioned manner of the Prince im pressed me with the fact that he was speaking from his heart. At the close of the interview he seized my hand, gave it a strong pressure, and exclaimed, * God bless you! Later, after this despatch had been published in America, Lord Napier took occasion to refer to these words at the close of an audience with Prince Gortchacow, by ironically remarking: "When shall I be as fortunate as Mr. Taylor, and receive a God bless you from Your Excellency?" "As soon as you deserve it!" replied the Prince. The latter afterward smilingly related the inci dent to my husband. In his intercourse with Taylor Lord Napier scarcely ever assumed his role of English Ambassador; he seemed to take pains to avoid any discussion of American affairs. On the other hand, he could not refrain from asking me confidentially one day whether my husband was in reality so thoroughly convinced of the final defeat of the South as he professed to be. Lord Napier appeared to be about fifty years of age; his white hair, that contrasted well with his fresh complexion and blue eyes, combined to make him, although not strictly handsome, a fine-looking man. His manner was amiable and unconventional. 128 ON TWO CONTINENTS He told me, much to my surprise, that he had received his education in a school at Meiningen.* He was very friendly toward us, whereas the German Legations treated us with marked coldness. The wife of the Prussian Legationsrath (Councillor of Legation) von Pirch, by birth a Princess of Thurn und Taxis, was the only German lady who seemed to take pains to overlook my unaristo- cratic lineage. If I had been an American born the diplomatic corps would have approved of me to a greater degree; but as a German, and not of the nobility, I was a stumbling block in their path, which could not be ignored on account of my husband s official position. Besides the English Embassy, the members of the Russian aristocracy treated us with consideration. Their social tone was always as courteous as it was free from formal stiffness. In the drawing-rooms of the Russian nobility we made many pleasant acquaintances. I recall with special interest a friendly lady beside whom I found a seat at a very crowded soiree. She began to converse with me without waiting for an introduction, and we both agreed that the elegant society assembled around us offered very little that was worth taking home as a stimulus to the heart or the intellect. "77 n y a pour taut que le cercle intime qui donne de Vagrement" f was her resume", in which opinion I fully concurred. I was afterward told that I had been talking to the Princess Gagarin. Except for the duty of more securely binding the friendship of Russia to the United States, the business of the Legation was not of great importance, so that Taylor * The capital of the small Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen. f "After all, it is only our intimate circle that gives us enjoyment." THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 129 was able to cope with it even without the assistance of a secretary. He had sufficient leisure to continue his novel, which he finished in the course of the winter, and also to write poetry. Among the poems that he wrote at this time was included the one entitled "A Thousand Years," which was suggested by the celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the founding of the Russian Empire, held at Novgorod on September 2oth. This poem earned the thanks of the Emperor and raised its author above the usual level of the American representa tives at the Russian Court. The apartment on the bel etage * that we had rented and where we made our home was situated in the Gallenoi (Galley Street), not far from the Admiralty Square and the Winter Palace. We had secured the services of Ivan, the chasseur who had been in the employ of the Legation for a number of years, and spoke English pretty well. We found him very useful in many ways; for instance, when sitting upon the box beside our stately Russian coachman, he would knock on the window pane to let us know that a member of the Imperial family was approaching in a carriage or on foot, so that we might be ready to make our salutation. This was necessary, for the Russian drivers, guiding their horses with four reins, drive at an exceedingly fast pace, and the carriages pass each other in a flash. In November I wrote to a friend concerning the many and varied sights that began to enliven St. Petersburg: " Winter alone gives one an insight into the life here. Society starts upon its gay round. Ladies and gentle- *Up one flight of stairs, considered the most elegant floor. 1 30 ON TWO CONTINENTS men wrapped in costly sables drive swiftly along the Nevsky or the Neva Quai. The equipages, with thorough bred horses, are magnificent; the portly coachmen wear bushy hair and thick beards, visorless round or square caps of red, sky-blue, or green velvet, edged with fur, and wide-skirted coats lined with fur and gathered in at the waist to a tight-fitting body portion truly a superb sight!" And again in December: "Now we have sleighing, and it is pleasant to see the countless small sleighs pass by with bells a-ringing, but most beautiful of all is a troika dashing along with three horses abreast. The frozen Neva is covered with snow, and little pine trees mark the paths across the river, as well as poles surmounted by lanterns. At intervals Christmas booths are set up, made of boards, and the Finnish Lapps have arrived with their reindeer sledges; all these together form a strange and gay winter scene. The season s amusements indoors have also begun. We are going out more now, and notice it in the shrink age of our purse. People dress expensively here, every evening in grande toilette, and everything that apper tains to it is even dearer in St. Petersburg than in New York. In order to save as much as possible I spend a large portion of my time in altering and rearranging my not very extensive wardrobe in the most advantageous way, an occupation that begins to fill me with disgust, as it robs me of so much valuable time. I also miss the friends who used to drop in of an evening in New York, and with whom we could have confidential talks. In stead, we must go among strangers here in order to get acquainted." THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 131 We spent Christmas with my sister, her husband and children. Taylor gave me a beautiful watch, that he presented to me in a hatbox, hidden under a mass of loose bits of paper, a way in which he liked to conceal gifts. Soon after came the Russian New Year, and with it my presentation at Court. I used my best efforts to appear bien mise, and wore a white, very much pleated and puffed dress of tarlatan, which (to quote from my diary) "lay like freshly fallen snow upon a white silk lining." We drove up to the Winter Palace (alighting on the Perron de VEmpereur), laid aside our furs in the spacious vestibule, and proceeded up the broad carpeted stairway that was guarded by grenadiers. Above, at every entrance to the halls, were stationed two gigantic guards with bearskin caps a foot or two in height, as well as the body servants of the Emperor, black Nubians in white turbans and Indian shawls draped around shoulders and loins. The card-room, adjoining the superb hall of audience of the Empress, was the place where the diplo matic corps assembled. Here I was introduced to the Maitresse de la Cour and to the Maitres de Ceremonies. The latter, distinguished by their Marshal s wands, wore coats richly embroidered with gold, white silk knee breeches, flesh-coloured stockings, and shoes with golden buckles. When all the hundreds of guests had arrived, and were waiting in the ballroom, the folding doors into the latter were thrown open for us. A fairy-like illumi nation, produced by innumerable wax candles, met our eyes, while we were guided to a vacant space at one end of the immense hall, and drawn up in order of rank. In a few moments a " Sh! sh! " of the Masters of Ceremony heralded their majesties, who entered with the Grand 132 ON TWO CONTINENTS Dukes and Duchesses and the entire household of the Court. The Empress looked very winning and at the same time noble ; her toilette was at once rich and in the best of taste. She wore a dress of silk tulle over white silk. Hanging loosely on the full skirt, as if it had slipped down to her hips, a broad light-blue velvet sash, with a rope of diamonds twisted around it, girdled her form. On one side it was gathered into a knot, upon which a large fiery diamond sparkled and scintillated; between the long ends of the sash hung two ropes of large pearls. By her side was the Emperor,* in those days a very handsome and prepossessing man. He was tall and well proportioned, with a blond beard and moustache, and a friendly expression of the eyes. He wore a uniform consisting of a white coat bordered with sable and laced with gold cord, close light-blue breeches, and black boots reaching almost to the knees. He carried a high fur cap in his hand. After the polonaise, which was opened by their majesties, the Emperor spoke with several high personages, and then conversed with the diplomatic corps. Taylor s turn came. The Emperor exchanged a few words with my husband, and then ad dressed himself to me. As I had not expected this, not having been presented, I was somewhat taken aback by his first question, but retained my self-possession and answered him with confidence. He looked at me sharply, and wished to know to what nationality I belonged, how I had met my husband, how long I was married, and if I had any children. After several dances Count von Armfelt came for me and conducted me to the card-room, where he posted me *Alexander II. THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 133 at the head of a long row of ladies who were to be pre sented; then the Empress appeared. She looked so sweet and good that I felt entirely at my ease. She asked me when I had arrived, whether the climate agreed with me, if I went out of doors or sleigh riding often? And thus the dreaded moment, that after all was not in the least dreadful, was happily past. During the course of this ball my husband introduced me to a number of diplomats and Russian high dignitaries, with the result that I was regularly initiated into St. Petersburg society. Among the acquaintances I made soon after were three unmarried Russian princesses, the youngest of whom might have been fifty, while the eldest was perhaps sixty-five years of age. The second sister, Princess Anne, represented the others in society (people said for reasons of economy) and acted as hostess at their home. We were told that all three had always shown an especial predilection for the American Min isters, and had been most courteous to them. But of all the series, Pickens* had been the particular protege of Princess Anne, and scarcely had she made the acquaint ance of Bayard Taylor when she inquired most solicit ously what would become of Pickens in case the North should be victorious. "Oh, we will string him up!" was my husband s laughing rejoinder, and thenceforth they never met without a playful appeal from the Princess : "Monsieur, de grdce ne me pendez-pas mon Pickens, sauvez-moi mon Pickens! | The ladies had a mania for giving small dinners to the diplomats, and while the other * Francis W. Pickens, elected Governor of South Carolina, Novem ber 26, 1860. f Sir, for pity s sake, do not hang my Pickens, save my Pickens for me!" i 3 4 ON TWO CONTINENTS two sisters remained more or less in the background, Princess Anne played the amiable hostess. On one of the occasions the eldest princess expressed herself very bitterly to me concerning the emancipation of the serfs, which had lately been proclaimed by Alexander II. The income of the sisters had probably been reduced by this event, for the Princess, touching her diamond ear-drops, said to me: "It is equivalent to the Czar s taking these away from me." At one of these little dinners an old Russian general happened to be my neighbour at the table. During our conversation the old gentleman, who sat opposite my husband, suddenly said to me : " Madame, il faut que je vous fais mon compliment qui concerne votre mari. Je ne me souviens guere d avoir vu un si bel homme avec une expression si spirituelle." * It need hardly be said that we became friends. This Russian was not the only person who was charmed by the personal magnetism of my husband. The Grand Duchesses Helen and Marie (Duchess of Leuchtenberg) showed him special favour on more than one occasion, and even the Empress engaged him in a lengthy conver sation at one of the smaller Court balls. Taylor was then able to speak Russian to some extent, which seemed to please Her Majesty very much. Besides these functions, when the Emperor always had some pleasant words for us, we saw him from time to time in the houses of the high Russian nobility. He never danced there, but instead played a game of cards, in which usually the old Countess Russamowsky took part. This old lady of over ninety was always in evidence in society. She was powdered * "Madam, I must pay you a compliment concerning your husband. I scarcely ever remember to have seen so handsome a man with so spiritual an expression." THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 135 and painted, with black hair (or wig), an erect figure in a low-necked, short-sleeved gown. Her voice was a deep bass, and once when we called upon her we were mysti fied by a gruff throaty sound that accompanied her words, until we discovered that this note was the growling of a small dog, held by the Countess under her arm and con cealed by a black lace shawl. Taylor did not play cards, neither did he dance, and as I only occasionally joined in a quadrille, the balls soon began to grow tiresome. There were always the same conventional phrases, always the same vapid conver sations, and the brilliant superficial glamour gradually began to pall on us. A few dinners and petite s soirees were the agreeable exceptions to this general rule. In Lent the routs took the place of the balls. A musicale was given in the English Embassy to celebrate the marriage of the Prince of Wales, and we listened to the exquisite playing of the youthful Rubinstein, who was even then the spoiled darling of the Russian aristocracy. One of the last large entertainments of the winter season was given by the Count and Countess C , and proved to be the most brilliant of all the routs, although the highest nobility was very sparingly represented. The reason for this lay in the mesalliance of the Countess. A member of one of the oldest princely families of Russia, and the middle-aged widow of a Russian of equal rank, she had married while living in Paris a Frenchman much younger than herself, and not of aristocratic blood. In order to acquire for him the rank of a nobleman, she had bought in his name a castle in Brittany, which conferred upon its owner the titles of Count of C and Marquis of S . The husband, however, was an educated man of agree- 136 ON TWO CONTINENTS able presence and tactful manners. Taylor one day, in a small company gathered around our tea table, com mented upon the philosophical turn of mind of Count C , and remarked that he proclaimed never to be sur prised or anxious, that he bore happiness or ill-luck with equal calmness, whereupon Prince G replied: " Why shouldn t he? II a ett si souvent dans I entourage de la mort."* "Comment fa?"f I questioned. "But are you not aware that his father made coffins?" As it was the first fete that the Countess gave after her return from Paris, she sought to regain by brilliance and splendour what she had lost of prestige. She had succeeded so well in this endeavour, with the help of her immense wealth and her palace filled with art treasures of all kinds, that even the aristocratic Russians, accustomed as they were to splendour, exclaimed: "Mais, c est imperial!" At this festivity we saw the old Russian custom carried into effect, of exhibiting the family jewels in the bedchamber of the mistress of the house. They were exposed in glass cases, and occupied a long table; a maid and several lackeys stood guard over them. They consisted of diamonds, pearls, rubies, and emeralds. The latter alone represented an enormous fortune. At this time in the month of March a lucky chance enabled Bayard Taylor to render an important service to his Government. A despatch from the Confederate Government to their agent, who had shortly before arrived in St. Petersburg, had strayed into the Legation of the United States, and having thus got into the hands of the legitimate representative, was promptly sent by * "He has been so often in the neighbourhood of death! " t"How is that?" THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 137 him to Washington. But in spite of all the services that Taylor had succeeded in rendering the Government during the time he was Charge a" Affaires, he had known for some time past that he had no chance of securing the higher post. Late in November Mr. Cameron had written to him that the President, who "had been greatly troubled by Mr. Clay, in an unguarded moment had made a partial promise to let him go back" if he (Cameron) should not wish to return. "It was agreed," he continued, " that I should not resign before February. . . . This leaves you in charge till the spring, and gives your friends time to urge your case." Although Cameron did not cease his solicitations in the matter, he was finally obliged to cut off all further hope of the position. In a letter of February 4th he wrote : "I have again been to Washington, and am sorry to say that it seems to be determined that Mr. Clay shall supplant you. Mr. Seward urges an early appointment, and the President excuses himself by falling back on his promise to Clay when he did not expect me to resign the post. He admits your ability and worth, and seems to regret his promise." The middle of March Mr. Clay was nominated as Cameron s successor, but his confirmation by the Senate was only pushed through at the urgent request of the President and Mr. Seward, according to the information conveyed to Mr. Cameron by a Senator. The latter told him " Mr. Seward spent more than an hour urging it upon me ; I felt it my duty to vote against him. The ayes and noes were ordered and he was confirmed with 13 noes." 138 ON TWO CONTINENTS When it became known that the former Minister would return the general regret that my husband was not to receive the post manifested itself in open displeasure in the highest circles. The very next evening, at a soiree given by Prince Gortchacow, one of the Masters of Ceremony came up to Taylor with an exclamation of the greatest indignation. " Quel dommage pour la societt" * said the French Ambassador. " It s a shame," added the Duchess of Montebello, while others made remarks in the same tenor. We, on the other hand, were not inconsolable. We had been longing for home; and although the position of Minister would be one of honour, and we had begun to make friends in the society among which we moved, yet the constraint and the careful observance of empty formalities that etiquette forced upon us had already become a wearisome burden. To return to our accustomed sphere, in which we could move freely and live for our dearest interests this was a prospect that could only please us. And still it seemed as if this consummation, as far as my husband was con cerned, lay in the future. Not only was he obliged to remain until the arrival of the Minister, while I avoided this by going with our little daughter to my parents, but a project that Mr. Cameron had previously broached prevented his return home for the present. A letter from Mr. Cameron, received in the beginning of May, ran thus: "LocHiEL,f April 20, 1863. "Dear Taylor: I was at Washington last week, and had a very plain talk with the President and Mr. Seward * "What a pity for society." t Cameron s country place, near Harrisburg. THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 139 about the appointment of my successor to Russia which terminated in your benefit. Your letter enabled me to say positively that you would not remain in the Legation.* I spoke again of Persia. The Secretary said a mission had been created some years ago, but no appropriation had been made. The friendship of Russia and the unfriendliness of England were freely spoken of then the position of Persia on the map near to Russia, desired probably by her bordering on India and therefore an object of interest to England, was looked at, and Seward and the President soon came to the con clusion that an American Minister would be an object of interest there. To my mind it was plain that the thought had wisdom in it and besides I was glad to urge it as a payment, in part, of our gratitude to Russia for I think governments, as well as individuals, should be grateful. The Secretary said he had been thinking of this for some time but the trouble had been to get the man. A little more conversation convinced him that you were the very man. The President encouraged it ; indeed, seemed to light on you at once and to be glad of the opportunity to convince me of the respect and confidence he entertains for you. So I was commissioned to write to you and to beg that you will remain with Mr. Clay till your successor arrives. He will bring out your instructions for Persia and you will be paid out of some fund in the State Department. This is to be entirely kept to yourself. I have promised to mention it only to you. You will probably see the propriety of communicating it to Prince Gortchacow but if so, under the seal of con fidence, and it should not even extend to Mr. Clay." As Taylor had kept a like plan in mind for some years past, to travel in the then almost unknown regions of Central Asia, nothing could have pleased him more than *As Secretary. 1 40 ON TWO CONTINENTS this prospect. A diplomatic mission to Persia would enable him not only to render service to his country, but at the same time to find the means and the material for a work that should embody the final results of his knowl edge of human nature, accumulated in so many different lands and form, as it were, a cosmos of mankind. In all his descriptions of travel his greatest interest centred in the people whom he encountered. A quality in his nature that led men to confide in him, helped him to an insight into human nature and its secrets such as is vouchsafed to few. In his poem, "The Palm and the Pine," he referred to this characteristic, as he had himself in mind when he wrote the verses : "So, with untaught, instinctive art, He read the myriad-natured heart. He met the men of many a land; They gave their souls into his hand." But all these plans for the future came to naught. His successor arrived and brought nothing for him. He waited months in Germany for instructions from the Government, but received no word of any kind. At last, grown weary of waiting, he left Europe, sailed home, and went to Washington. The President was very much surprised to see him, as he supposed him to have gone to Persia long ago. When Mr. Seward was asked for an explanation of this matter, he was not able to give any information, and it finally seemed evident that he had let the affair drop intentionally. After this digression I revert to St. Petersburg, where Taylor was expecting the arrival of the Minister. The THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 141 latter came on April 3oth, and my husband wrote to me on May 6th: "Clay will be received by the Emperor to-morrow (Thursday) at i o clock, at which time my rule and responsibility terminate. . " . . . I dined with Gortchacow on Monday night. It was a diplomatic affair everybody there. Russia sat between France and England, and all three were as jolly together as if there was no such thing as Poland. . The Prince was exceedingly friendly to me, spoke of my poem to the Russian officials, and said the Emperor keeps fast hold of it. . . . I have written nothing on my new poem * for a week past no time. I shall be tolerably busy from this time on, as so many little things crowd together in the last days. I begin to feel the pressure of them now, and shall be glad when I am once more the other side of Eydtkuhnen.f I shall let you know in a week about the time I expect to reach Berlin ; but I presume that it will be time enough for you to join me after I get there." Again he wrote, May i5th: " I had an interview to-day with Gortchacow, who was exceedingly cordial. The Persian matter seemed to please him, and he promised me the full assistance of the Russian Government, including that of the Grand Duke Michael. { C and I have just come from E s, who send you their love. The dinner was better than usual. Last night I took tea at Locock s Napiers were there, and my poems received much praise. . . . To-day I took leave of the Armfeldts: the Count was * "The Picture of St. John." fThe frontier town. J The Governor of the Caucasus. "The Poet s Journal." 142 ON TWO CONTINENTS very tender, and said that the collective society of St. Petersburg is very sorry to lose us. Some of the other Ministers have called to say good-bye to me. To-day the Marquis Pepoli, excessively cordial. Much of this is conventional, but there may be a little good feeling at the bottom of it. I understand that Ivan has been saying around that we kept the only akuratni dom (properly managed household) which the Legation ever knew. He hangs around me and looks after my wants, as if he would rather wait on me than on his new master." After a few days at Gotha Taylor again set out, to see the Bohmerwald, where he hoped to find a back ground for his long poem, "The Picture of St. John," that had occupied his mind much of late, after a lapse of almost a decade since its inception. He wrote to me from Amberg, in the upper Palatinate : " I reached here last night at seven o clock, and could have gone on to Cham by the night train, two hours later; but the scenery was so very beautiful that I did not wish to lose it in the darkness. . . . I shall reach Cham about noon to-day, and go this afternoon (probably with an einspdnner) as far as Kotzting, in the midst of the Bohmer, at the foot of the Great Arberberg . . . came from Nuremberg in a very slow freight train, which gave me a good chance of seeing the country. . . . The scenery is charming thus far wild, broken, rocky valleys, and an astonishing luxuriance of vegetation." In Kotzingen my husband found what he had been seeking the mountain valley that was to be the home of his hero, with "Arber s head unshorn"* looming above. *"The Picture of St. John," Book I. THE ST. PETERSBURG EPISODE 143 After his return we accepted the invitation of the reigning Duke Ernest II. to the beautiful Castle Callen- berg, near Coburg, and spent two most enjoyable days with the ducal couple, in absolute privacy, without the intervention of Court Marshal or Lady-in-waiting. In the evening, after dinner, we adjourned to the lofty and spacious terrace of the castle. The Duchess, embroider ing by the light of a lamp, wished me to sit beside her; the gentlemen stood around and smoked the Duke used a long German pipe, and a lackey stood at his elbow ready to relight it as often as it went out during the lively flow of talk. Tea was served and all conversed without ceremony. The princely couple related inter esting incidents of their African tour, from which they had recently returned; the Duke told us how a troop of monkeys had attacked him and his hunting party in a mountain pass in Abyssinia, hurling stones, fruit, branches and other missiles upon them from above. Somewhat later the Duchess broached the subject of the different courts, and recounted a visit in Weimar, where a certain room in the castle was reserved exclusively for persons of princely birth and such others as bore the rank of " Ex- cellenz." In a spirit of mischief she had sent her lady-in- waiting, who was ignorant of this fact " You know her," she added in an aside to me into the sacred precincts. "Go into that room and look at the beautiful pictures," she had said, and then had watched with secret merriment the indignant countenances that were turned upon the unconscious and innocent offender. Thus the hours passed pleasantly; the night was mild, the stars sparkled above, and the fountain made faint music with its tinkling waters. Next morning we i 4 4 ON TWO CONTINENTS breakfasted with the Duke and Duchess, and then took our departure with the sensation of having enriched our memories by a delightful experience. We had no premonition of the sad news awaiting us on our return to Gotha. My youngest brother-in-law, Frederick Taylor, had been killed on the second day of the battle at Gettysburg by a bullet through the heart. He had been commissioned Major in September of the previous year, and in December was promoted to the rank of Colonel of the Buck tails. Arriving on the battlefield after a forced march, he fell at the head of his regiment. The news of his death caused us to hasten our return, and we arrived in New York early in Sep tember. CHAPTER IX THREE PROLIFIC YEARS A Swiss gentleman of Lausanne, Monsieur Carey, had accompanied us on our homeward voyage with the intention of claiming Bayard Taylor s elder sister for his wife, and their marriage was quietly celebrated soon afterward. This event, and our return, were the occasion for an almost uninterrupted stream of guests at " Cedar- croft," who gave its mistress much to look after until the departure of the newly wedded couple at the end of October, when comparative quiet settled down upon us. My husband and part of the family accompanied the travellers to the steamer. Taylor wrote to me from New York: "No accident occurred except that a little boy on board the steamer at Amboy got partly under Emma s hoops. She thought it was a tin bucket, gave a kick and knocked the child flat on the deck. He fell on his nose, and yelled awfully." Another letter, dated November 2Qth, " In the library of J. L. G.," * read as follows : "I snatch a moment this morning to say that I am getting on very well. My lectures at Cohoes and Po - keepsie were attended by very large audiences and were entirely successful. Yesterday I came here, and was engaged all day with Putnam in arranging for a wider sale of Hannah. . . . The notices of the book are * James Lorimer Graham, and his wife Josephine, were numbered among oui most intimate New York friends. 145 146 ON TWO CONTINENTS capital better than I could have expected. They all speak of the truth of the characters and all say that it is a success." Later he wrote me the following: "I have found quarters for us. A parlor and two bedrooms with board and two grate fires, gas, etc. $45. per week. My friends say it is not dear. The situation is just what we want. I have said that we shall come about New Years. Are you not glad? So, don t let the household troubles worry you too much, for you ll soon have a good rest." On December nth a son, Lorimer, was born to the Stoddards. He inherited the artistic temperament of his parents, but was fated to sink into his grave at the beginning of the new century, just as he was reaping the golden first fruits of his dramatic work, while his aged father and mother were left to mourn. In those days immediately after his birth Mrs. Stoddard declared that she was hoping for the ravens of the Prophet Elijah to come and feed the child ; for the wedded poets were not in easy circumstances at this time, and the Civil War had made living most expensive. At the New Year we moved to New York for three months. During this time poetry was forced to yield to prose, since the plan for another novel, "John God frey s Fortunes," was clamouring for visible form. Meanwhile our old friends gathered around us, and a lively social intercourse claimed much of our time. Each Sunday evening we saw a small select circle of friends congregate in our rooms. The Stoddards, Sted- THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 147 mans, McEntees, Aldrich, Launt Thompson, the Grahams were habitues, to whom were often added the two Cranches, Fitz-Hugh Ludlow and wife, Sanford Gifford, and some times Edwin Booth and others. These evenings were enlivened by the "Diversions," which in later years Bayard Taylor published in amplified form in the " Echo Club," and which afforded an entertainment sparkling with wit and humour. This amusement was the con tinuation of a jeu $ esprit that originated in the middle of the fifties, when the trio of poets, Stoddard, Taylor and Fitz- James O Brien, vied in the exuberance of their imagination with each other in the production of short comic poems whenever they met in Stoddard s quarters. These poetic gymnastics supplemented by parodies of noted poets were a never-failing source of the most delightful entertainment. As soon as one of our sons of the Muses had finished his inspiration of the moment, he read it aloud amid the laughing applause of his hearers, who were never at fault in guessing the poet he had parodied, so unmistakable was the imitation of the principal characteristics of his poetic expression. Of the many happy and witty impromptus, which thus mimicked the voices of the poets, I am tempted to quote an echo of Longfellow, a skit of my husband s, which proved such a close parody that he never gave it out of his hands during the lifetime of his revered friend, the poet. "THE ENCLOSURE OF THE SWINE "O er the fragile rampart leaning, Which enclosed the herd of swine, Thoughts of vast and wondrous meaning Flitted through this brain of mine. 148 ON TWO CONTINENTS " There the mingling creatures grunted, Gathered at their daily meal; Some were old, with tushes blunted, Some had hardly learned to squeal. " Some, with stomachs swelled and sated Plethoric and contented lay; Some, with haste exaggerated Rushed to drain their swill away. "One, intent his thirst to smother, Placed his foot within the trough; Jostled one his weaker brother, Trod him down or pushed him off. "In the world s immense arena, In the rails inclosing Life, Man towards man is even meaner, And more gluttonous in his strife. " Gorged and sated with their plunder Some lie down to lives obese, While the weak look on and wonder, And the timid cry for peace. " Some but catch in petty driblets, Food to soothe the hungry sense; Others swell their fattened giblets At their brethren s sad expense. "Life, alas! is such enclosure, Men are but a taller swine: Tis a thought which gives composure To this pensive soul of mine." THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 149 During this and the following winters we kept up an agreeable intercourse with the artists, whom we often visited in their studios. Art was young then in America, but among its pioneers there are names that will not be forgotten. McEntee, who looked like a Van Dyck, charmed us by his autumn and winter landscapes with their elegiac atmosphere. In the studio of Gifford whose head called to mind a Valasquez we basked in the glow of Venetian sunsets. Coleman showed us his beautiful picture of the Alhambra; Eastman Johnson his folk-songs translated into colour; Frederick Church his large picture of Chimborazo and in Kensett s atelier we turned over his portfolios of poetical sketches of mountain and sea. At Launt Thompson s a jolly good fellow, the cast of whose features, pointed beard, and full, curly hair always put us in mind of an antique faun we enjoyed looking at his excellent portrait busts, Bryant s Homeric head, and Booth, whom he represented as the meditating Hamlet. In McEntee s homelike studio his wife Gertrude invited us to appetising lunch eons, where a successful potato salad graced the board, to prove to me that she had made good use of my recipe. In those days the opening receptions of the exhibitions at the Academy of Design were grand social affairs; invitations were extended to men of note, with their womankind, and as New York was not so large then as now, everyone knew everyone else and people enjoyed themselves. There was present at one of these receptions a well-known clergyman, who was said to be so convinced of his own importance that he waited for a vacancy in the Trinity. My husband, mistaking this gentleman from the shape of his shoulders for Launt Thompson, slapped ON TWO CONTINENTS him roundly on the back, with the words, " How are you, old fellow!" The horrified face that met his eyes as the clergyman turned around was wont to excite Taylor s hilarity whenever he recalled it. The happy and animated social life of this and the following winters, although interrupted once in a while by lecture engagements, did not keep my husband from ever-renewed literary activity. Besides working on his new novel, "The Picture of St. John" again claimed the exercise of his poetic imagination. Among other smaller poems he conceived and wrote the one entitled " Harpo- crates," which always seemed to me to be a milestone in the spiritual evolution of my poet, for the time had come when his pleasure in the enjoyment of life, pure and simple, that, conjointly with his thirst for knowledge, had driven him forth into the world, was giving place in his mind to a higher intellectual aspiration. He found a means of advance on this new pathway in his great work, the translation of "Faust" into English, which he now took up in earnest. While he had long cherished this plan, he had hitherto translated only single songs, as "Castles, with lofty Ramparts and towers," and "Margaret at the Spinning Wheel"; but now he could no longer withstand its fascination. "John God frey" was finished, and "Faust" would not be banished. The creative joy that then took possession of him is best portrayed in a letter to Mrs. Stoddard, which I am fortunate in possessing. We had just returned from a visit of several days to the Stoddards at Buzzard s Bay, when Taylor wrote : THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 151 " CEDARCROFT, Sept. 6, 1864. "Tuesday. "Dear Lizzie: " We reached home just in time. This is the third day of the dark, delightful, driving storm which followed us, and God knows how the earth needed its present soaking. Either the sea air or the gritty whetstone of your and Dick s society has put a keener edge on my brain, for in the two past days I have accomplished wonders. On Sunday morning I felt a ravenous hunger for some diffi cult intellectual task, and took up the archangelic chorus in the prologue to Faust, which has been my despair for years. In two hours it was transmuted into English. Marie was in ecstacies, declaring that it was the veritable perfect original. Then I took the wonderful Easter choruses, the hymn to the Virgin, and three other bits of intricate, almost impossible performances, giving measure for measure, line for line, and rhyme for rhyme. I am now satisfied that I can produce a translation of Faust which will take its permanent place in literature, to the exclusion of all other translations. . . . Prob ably I shall not do much more this fall. Last night I took up St. John, and its flowing, narrative heroic ran from my pen like oil, after those hard nuts of Goethe. . . . " I must tell you again what a perfect enjoyment those five days were to both of us. . . . Love to Dick. "Yours equinoctially, "B. T." Poetic production kept pace with the improvement and adornment of our country home. The ground was en riched and cultivated, the orchards were enlarged, a small vineyard was laid out, and a protecting wall built along the north side of the vegetable garden, on the southern face of which figs and pomegranates were to ripen later. A stable was built behind the house, and a i 5 2 ON TWO CONTINENTS small conservatory added, opening directly from the library in which my husband worked. In May the wistaria bloomed enchantingly ; its countless racemes of pale lilac flowers framed the great window of the pro jecting southern bay, while somewhat later the scarlet clusters of the trumpet-creeper opened their flaming beaks on the corner pillars of the verandas; on still days the humming birds with iridescent green and gold plumage were attracted by the brilliant colour, and, poised in midair with wings a-whirr, dipped their long, sharp bills into the trumpet-shaped flowers, sipping their honey. In the hot summer evenings we w r ould sit upon the terrace before the house, welcoming every passing breath of air, and to offset the short twilight of these latitudes the after glow of an orange and vermilion sunset lit up the western sky with gorgeous tints, and the silver light of the crescent moon, paired with the evening star, shed its mild radiance over the dark grey vault of night. Or the great blood-red ball of the harvest moon rose slowly above our grove of "dark Dodonian oak trees," * and the quiet was broken only by the voices of myriad katydids. Those were times when we enjoyed the freedom and the simple pleasures of country life to the utmost, for we were young still, and hopeful, and thought but little of the troubles and obstacles that sometimes opposed us. For my hus band, particularly, there were no difficulties that he did not hope to overcome ; he had heretofore been wonderfully successful in everything he had undertaken, and why should he not continue to be so? This confidence in fected me and rendered me also blind to the practical side of many things. Thus we made mistakes in the arrange- * Epilogue to the "Home Pastorals." From a painting by Bayard Taylor CEDARCROFT" From a painiing by Bayard Taylor CEDARCROFT" AND ITS LAWN THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 153 ment of our life that we were afterward obliged to atone for, as the way of the world demands. And yet, what mattered it in the end! If men and women can be happy we certainly were. Meanwhile the fortunes of war had turned more and more toward the side of the North, so that I was able to write to my mother in the middle of May: 11 We have official news that Grant is advancing daily on Richmond, that Butler is threatening the city from the south, and that Sheridan s cavalry has cut off the railway communication of the rebels. At the same time, battles are raging in Georgia, which result in our favor. General Grant is just the commander whom we need. After his first great battle, when he ordered the troops to advance instead of retreating, as heretofore, the army, accustomed to the latter manoeuvre, was so overjoyed that the men burst into cheers. When the battle had lasted several days, Lee sent an officer with a flag of truce to Grant, to ask for an armistice of forty-eight hours to bury his dead. The former commander of the army had granted a like request under similar circumstances, but instead of burying their dead, the enemy had de camped. Therefore Grant s answer was, I have no time to bury my own dead; tell your General that I shall ad vance immediately! This news fills us with great hope." In spite of the steadily increasing price of everything pertaining to the necessaries of life, in consequence of the long-continued war, commerce and manufacture had picked up wonderfully of late. We also reaped the ad vantage of this. The Tribune paid good dividends again, and the books yielded an ample income. This enabled us to take winter quarters in New York, in the central part of the city, whither we repaired shortly after New i 5 4 ON TWO CONTINENTS Year, 1865. There on January nth we celebrated my husband s fortieth birthday with a jolly party. Without his knowledge, I invited a number of good friends to supper, and the surprise thus prepared for him was entirely successful. In the best of spirits we sat down to a table covered with all sorts of good and delectable dishes, but the real fun did not begin until the dessert was put on the table. R. H. Stoddard introduced him self as Secretary of an imaginary Committee for the Celebration, and read a paper in this character, as well as a number of letters expressing regrets for inability to accept the invitation, from several guests who were nevertheless present. This was followed by the presenta tion of the absurdest gifts that each could invent, ac companied by the recital of witty poems composed and memorised for the occasion. My husband was so touched by all the proofs of friendship he received in the course of the evening that he, on the spot, improvised some verses to express his feelings. As he jotted them down at the time, I am able to quote them: "Should he be glad, above whose head The fourth completed decade s fled? Or grieve, that Time begins to score For youthful three, the ripened four? Who shall decide which season s best Youth, with its warm, believing breast, Its misty glimpse of formless Art, Its lushy green of brain and heart, So quick to trust, so slow to doubt, So kindly loath at finding out Or that mysterious Middle-age Whose term no astronomic sage THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 155 Can fix, for while the young declare It ne er begins, the old ones swear It never ends but this is true, Your friends make known the fact to you. And friends beloved, whom here I see Still lend their fresher youth to me Still make me feel, while Time departs, The grace that dwells in equal hearts. Be to me ever as to-night And I shall know no setting light Of love, and joy in all things fair, And light as thirty, forty wear. Yea, though as bald my head should grow As Lorry Graham s, or white as snow, Like Stoddard s pow, or tho my face Stedman s imposing mien should grace, Or Mac Entee s, severe and grand, Or Barry of the outstretched hand, Or though I speak with Delphic breath Like the august Elizabeth, Or stateliness with grace combine Like Gertrude, Music s nymph divine, Or look on life with eyes serene Like thee, true-hearted Josephine Still shall I keep my youth intact, In feeling, thought, and speech and act, And fast though still the years intrude, I ll meet them now with Forty tude." This celebration ushered in a season of agreeable social gatherings, interrupted at intervals by lectures which Taylor was obliged to deliver in other cities. With the approach of spring, however, we felt drawn again to "Cedarcroft." The country was already beginning to blossom and put forth green leaves when we returned 156 ON TWO CONTINENTS home. Soon afterward, we celebrated the marriage of my husband s youngest sister, who was also about to leave the old home. Her fiance, Charles Lamborn, a very handsome young man of Quaker parentage, had passed through the campaigns in the South in safety, and had been retired from the army with the honourary title of Colonel. He now held an appointment in a railroad office, which enabled him to support a family. He after ward rose step by step to an important position. At last peace was proclaimed throughout the land followed almost immediately by the assassination of President Lincoln. Let me describe these events in the words that I used in a letter to my mother in the middle of April : "How much has happened in these last weeks! First victory after victory, waving banners and triumphant jubilation throughout the whole wide continent; then our beautiful family celebration; and now the dreadful murderous deed in Washington! When we arrived in Philadelphia on April 3d, on our way hither from New York, we soon noticed that something had happened. The old bell of the City Hall was ringing, and crowds were collecting. It must be a fire, said some one near us. It can t be a fire, I said to my husband, just see how pleased the people look. Suddenly a four-horse wagon came thundering along, the horses decked with flags, and a man in shirt sleeves standing upon it, waving a flag in one hand and his cap in the other, and shouting hurrah! The crowd answered with cheers and shouts as the horses galloped past. Other wagons followed, all hastily decorated, till they became a real triumphal pro cession. We had difficulty in getting through the con stantly increasing crowd, and were hardly able to restrain our joy over the taking of Richmond for this was the THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 157 cause of rejoicing. The crowd was a motley throng of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen shoulder to shoulder with labourers and mechanics; strangers fell upon each other s neck, all faces reflected a common joy. A week later came the second grand tidings of victory, Lee s surrender of the Southern army. The Kennett people bought powder enough for one hundred cannon shots. After the ninetieth, the cannon was hauled to the lawn in front of our house, to give us the benefit of the last salvos. As night was falling, the people came with torches, and as soon as we saw what they intended to do, we collected our supply of candles, put them quickly into the necks of empty bottles, and illuminated the tower from top to bottom, as well as the front of the house. Then we lighted a great bonfire of old barrels and chips, and the cannon belched its thunder. The farm houses far and near were illuminated; whoever had bells rang them ; and those who had none hammered on gongs or tin pans. There was joy everywhere, for we knew that now there would be peace. " The dreadful news of the assassination of the President reached Taylor and myself when we were on our way to Philadelphia. When the train stopped at a station, a sudden awe-struck whisper went from one seat of the car to another : * Lincoln is murdered. At first we could not believe it it was too dreadful. But when we came into Philadelphia, and saw the flags everywhere at half mast, we knew that he was dead." The summer brought us welcome guests, the Stedmans, McEntees, Boker and other city friends in succession. George Boker, a man used to the luxuries of life, seemed satisfied with the fame that his earlier dramatic works, his sonnets and patriotic lyrics at the beginning of the war had earned for him. After his first youthful fire had cooled, he let his poetic wings droop more and more. But 158 ON TWO CONTINENTS he remained an attractive man, an agreeable, refined companion, and a very dear and intimate friend of my husband. A visit of several days from him never failed to leave a salutary impression upon Bayard Taylor, to be followed by renewed poetic inspiration. The visit of the Stedmans, who brought their elder boy with them, was an event in our country life. Our friends came in the first days of June. The sky was a deep blue, and " Cedar- croft was never more entrancing. " . . . tulip trees and smooth magnolias hung A million leaves between us and the blue," * and the gentle breeze from the wood was fragrant with " . . . ambrosial musk Of wild grape blossoms." f This exquisite weather tempted us to go forth and spend the day beside the Brandywine Creek, where it winds its gentle course between woods and meadows six miles distant. We started in the morning, and took plenty of provisions for the day. No cloudlet flecked the pure azure of the sky, the warm air was laden with the aromatic breath of blossoming grasses, flowering shrubs, and the fresh foliage of the woods; all nature was in its most vivid and joyous mood. We camped merrily on the banks of the little stream, at a place where a rich green meadow stretches away for some distance, hemmed in on one side by a thickly-wooded ridge, on the other by a grove of mighty oaks. Here *"The Poet s Journal." flbid. THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 159 we unpacked the hampers and enjoyed ourselves. Stedman and Taylor waded barefoot through the cool ripples of the shallow stream, long staffs in their hands, while Laura Stedman and I, with the children, were weaving wreaths and garlands of oak leaves and wildflowers when on a sudden a herd of upward of a hundred head of cattle appeared at the upper end of the meadow, apparently attracted by our presence. Slowly they approached, and drew up in line of battle, so that we began to question if it might not be best to seek safety in flight. But the animals also seemed to be deliberating. They halted, and then a reconnoitring party of about a dozen magnificent steers, fattened upon the richest meadow pasture, slowly advanced toward us. As they did not seem to have any hostile intentions, we quietly allowed them to come up. Taylor, following the sudden merry impulse of the moment^ seized one of our wreaths and wound it around the horns of the largest steer ; then he grasped a branch of oak and offered another to Stedman. The latter sprang upon the steer s back, while Taylor led it by the horns. Mrs. Stedman, I, and the children at once followed in single file, and our negro servant headed the procession, carry ing the pail of milk punch. Thus we marched around in happy mood, like Arcadians of old, bringing an oblation to the god of joy. The victory was assured, the cattle moved peacefully away, and we saw them no more. The poetic result of this beautiful day along the idyllic Brandywine is em bodied in the sonnets published respectively in E. C. Stedman s and Bayard Taylor s collected poems. I call to mind also the friendly visits exchanged with 160 ON TWO CONTINENTS the family of Dr. William H. Furness, the cultured and highly intellectual Unitarian clergyman, who lived in Philadelphia, but spent the summer at the country house of his son, Dr. Horace Furness, "Lindenshade," between the latter city and Kennett. Our friendship with this talented family gave rise to an interchange of pleasant poetical fancies, among them a truly German poem by my husband, which I refrain from quoting, as the charming little episode has been published else where.* But our guests were not all of this mental calibre. Among those from the countryside, many were dear to us because, in spite of a lack of intellectual culture, they possessed an innate culture of the heart, and an open eye and ear for the interests of the day. Others afforded us secret amusement by their unconscious in genuousness. For instance, I remember a dignified Quaker matron, to whom my husband was explaining some pictures on the walls of our sitting-room. She paused before an engraving. "This is Raphael s For- narina, " said Taylor. "Ah," she replied, "is she a friend of thine?" Another guest, who sometimes came early in the day, was a former schoolmate of my husband. He had a certain amount of knowledge and intelligence, but entirely lacked the social ease of manner. He once remained far into the evening, without knowing how to take leave. At last there was nothing left to do but to give him a lighted candle and consign him to a bed room to spend the night, for which he was in no way prepared. *" American Men of Letters": "Bayard Taylor," by Albert H. Smythe, p. 130. THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 161 While guests came and went, and the cultivation and improvement of our property consumed both time and thought, Bayard Taylor continued to write his " Picture of St. John." So industrious was he that toward the close of the poem he once wrote sixteen stanzas at one sitting, a feat that was possible only because his creation had long since assumed definite form in his brain. On September ist he was at last able to write to his friend Stedman : " I have finished my Picture of St. John ! Soon after writing to you last, I found that the leading horse of my tandem was running away with me, so I cut loose from the prose animal in the thills, jumped upon Pegasus just as the wings were growing out of his shoulders and flanks, and off we went!" * Hereupon the poet let his finished work rest until winter, and then gave it another final and se /ere revision before sending it to the publishers. It was one of Bayard Taylor s idiosyncracies that after the completion of a poem, to which he had devoted his entire strength, he continued subject for some time afterward to the domination of his finished task. In order to release himself from the strain, he was obliged to have recourse to some utterly different trend of thought, so he now took refuge in the interrupted task of his novel, and was able to read the third finished chapter to me on September 3d. In the "Story of Kennett" he was treating a favourite theme of his imagination. Even before he wrote his first two novels, the plot of this one was floating through his mind, but he postponed its *"Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor," p. 448. i6 2 ON TWO CONTINENTS execution in order to school himself in " Hannah Thurs- ton" and "John Godfrey," for the intenser action and more imaginative form that " Kennett " required. In this work he raised a monument, as it were, to the neighbour hood of his birth. Truth and fiction are woven into its tissue; descriptions of the idyllic scenery in the midst of which he was born, delineations of typical characters among the old Quaker families, and the traditions of a bold highwayman whom his father remembered, are inter woven with the fortunes of the hero. In the beginning of October, when he had just finished the eleventh chapter, Taylor was regretfully obliged to interrupt his work again in order to travel in the West, where the public wanted to hear him lecture. During his absence of five weeks, I wrote to my mother, describing my lonely days: "The heavenly weather that we enjoy here in autumn is unknown to you across the water. Even in the early morning, when the freshness of the night dew is still perceptible, the air is mild and balmy, and during the day the sun is still powerful enough to make us seek the shade, and to force me to close the shutters of my room. And these autumnal sunsets! I love to watch the even ing glory of the western sky from the large bay-window of the library. Like an immense fiery ball the orb of day sinks to the horizon and disappears. Our ancient chestnuts* are silhouetted almost black against the glow, which gradually turns to dark orange-red, and then fades to a pale, silvery green that lingers until the dark night falls. . . . The gardener is at work dividing the garden into several terraces facing the south. We have * These two trees, distant about two hundred feet from the house, were our special pride. One of them measured twenty-seven feet, the other twenty-four feet in circumference. THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 163 also been digging for an old well; my father-in-law remembered that there used to be one near an old house that stood in our present garden. The well is necessary for the latter, so the gardeners hunted for it, and after having found the foundations of the old house, they soon located it. The well is lined with masonry, and twelve feet have already been cleared out. As it is filled up with stones and rocks, they expect to find a nest of black- snakes * in the depths, and Lilian has strict orders to keep away. " . . . Gold is still very high, and living therefore remarkably expensive. We have to pay $90 a week this year for the furnished floor that we shall soon occupy in New York, and this is said to be cheap in comparison to other lodgings. We shall, however, have fine rooms and more space than last winter. My husband is par ticularly pleased about a little room at the back, in which he can write and paint undisturbed. . . . " We notice the approach of winter in the mass meetings of the blackbirds among the topmost boughs of our tall walnut trees, that stand in a handsome group near the house. Toward the close of the day they consult about their migration with an immense amount of chat tering and clamour, and soon after take wing and are gone. One day a whole flock of dainty blue jays paid us a visit. They fluttered about the American ivy on the veranda, with its profusion of dark blue berries; the following day the birds and the berries had both dis appeared." Early in December, after my husband s return from the West, we moved to New York, where work was at once resumed on the novel, and the author devoted himself so assiduously to his task that the entire manuscript was finished by the end of January. With an easy conscience * This proved to be the case. 164 ON TWO CONTINENTS he could now turn to his brushes and devote himself to social pleasures. Our circle continued to grow ever larger. After the war was over, a season of social gaiety set in, such as we had not known for years. We all felt that now we could enjoy ourselves with a clear conscience. During this winter Edwin Booth, the great tragedian, appeared on the stage again for the first time since the dastardly deed of his infamous brother, the assassin of Lincoln, which had deeply grieved him. I wrote to my mother-in-law : " We saw Booth on his first reappearance. The audience received him splendidly. The clapping, cheering, and waving of handkerchiefs lasted several minutes, and seemed as if it would never end. He responded with quiet dignity, and played superbly." When spring came we were so satiated with gaieties that we were glad to bid farewell to the city. After the amusements of the winter we breathed refreshment in the pure air and the quietude of the country. Before we left New York, however, we had the satisfaction of know ing that 6,000 copies of "Kennett," which had just appeared, had already been sold. From Gotha came the news that my father had received an appointment to go to Berlin as a member of the Academy. He informed us of his reason for declining this honour in a birthday letter that reached me a few weeks later. "If this had come earlier," he wrote, "I would certainly have accepted it, but now I am too old." At the same time I was filled with care and anxiety for my native land and my dear ones in the old home. The war between Prussia and Austria had begun, and the field of battle had suddenly come very near to my native town. The detailed accounts in my dear mother s THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 165 letters kept me informed of the anxious and exciting events of those days. Then followed the great battle of Koniggratz and the treaty of peace, which dissipated the dark clouds that long had threatened Germany, and heralded the victorious beginnings of Bismarck s brilliant career. At this crisis I realised how thoroughly German I had remained after all. The meditative quiet of our life at "Cedarcroft" exerted its influence on my husband. " Faust " was taken up again, and the translation made rapid progress. First the difficulties of the "Dedication" fired his ambition. His earlier translation no longer satisfied him, and he remodelled it until he found nothing more to improve. Then he succeeded in translating some other difficult passages in the same metre and the same order of rhyme as the original, which filled him with courage for the remainder of his task. This concentration of his mind he described his work as "heart-rending, yet intensely fascinating" combined with the demands made upon him by the farm and garden, rendered it advisable after a few weeks that he should break away for a while from these cares. He was therefore glad to join some acquaint ances in a trip to the Rocky Mountains. No railway then crossed the great continental plain, and the danger of an attack of hostile Indians upon the stage-coach made me regard this journey with anxiety. As my husband wrote often during his absence, I quote the principal facts from his letters : "DENVER, Colorado, Monday, June 18, 1866. ". . . Fortunately, you will know of my arrival to-day, as I have just telegraphed ($7), in order to set your mind at rest, if you should hear any alarming reports of Indians. 1 66 ON TWO CONTINENTS ". . . We travelled slowly all Wednesday night, on account of mud, but by 10 o clock on Thursday were at Fort Ellsworth, away from civilization, in the Indian country. Up to this point there had been all sorts of rumors that no Indians were to be seen on the route, which was a bad sign that they had showed themselves within a few days, which was another bad sign that they had just received presents from Gov t, which was bad that they had not received any, which was bad again, etc., etc. . . . The weather was wonderful, the roads fine, and the scenery new, strange, and of great occasional beauty. On Thursday afternoon, we began to see herds of buffaloes and antelopes, wolves, rattle-snakes and skunks. We shot one buffalo on the way. The largest herd had four or five hundred animals. But what a won derful air I breathed and what flowers everywhere! Larkspurs, verbenas, pinks, anemones, poppies, crimson and yellow cactus, yuccas, lupins there was no end to them. There were miles and miles like the richest garden beds. I send you a crimson anemone which I plucked on the way. . . . The meals were rare (two a day) and consisted of heavy dough biscuits and salt bacon. On Friday we passed through the region of chalk bluffs, which form towers, fortresses, old German castles, even entire cities of natural masonry, rising out of the broad valleys of grass and flowers. On Saturday morning we were only 200 miles from Denver. Here commenced 50 miles of Desert, almost like Africa. We had antelope for breakfast, and travelled all day through cities of prairie dogs and owls, which live together in the same holes. We caught one prairie dog and killed one rattle-snake. Saw thousands of antelopes, and many wolves. In the after noon I discovered Pike s Peak, a faint cone of snow rising above the horizon, 130 miles distant. The country became green again, and the flowers reappeared. We travelled very rapidly all Saturday night, but the road was rough and the jolts and bumps so terrible, that I THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 167 couldn t sleep a wink. . . . Yesterday morning we found ourselves in a hilly country, with a few small groves of pine. At sunrise, from the heights we saw not only Pike s Peak, but 150 miles of the Rocky Mountains a dazzling range of snowy peaks. From one point the view was superior to that of the Bernese Oberland. I was charmed, excited, inspired by the magnificent scenery. The air was that of California, but cooler. All day we rode over the hills, watching the great Alpine chain rise higher, taking meals of antelope steak, and drinking from the pure, cold streams. Just before sunset we drove into Denver four days and six hours on the way. . . . I have got Faust, the novel and all other literary plans out of my head. . . . The journey has already done me a great deal of good. . . . There will be seven of us, including Beard and Whittredge." "EMPIRE, foot of the snowy range, "Wednesday, June 27, 1866. u "I am here, 8,500 feet above the sea. It is 9 miles to the top of the pass, which is 1 1 ,000 feet high. Mr. B s, Beard, and two Bostonians are here, our horses are en gaged, and provisions are being prepared for to-morrow, when we shall cross to Pacific waters. I shall not be within reach of mails again for six days, although our mountain trip through the Middle Park will only occupy five. The weather is heavenly one cloudless day after another, cool moonlit nights, delicious mornings, and only a little heat in the afternoon. The fare, so far, is capital, and I am feeling remarkably well. I have again that rugged health which makes the mountain trip seem delightful." " BRECKENRIDGE, "Middle Park of the Rocky Mountains, "Monday, July 2, 1866. "I am so delighted at getting your letter, quite unex- 168 ON TWO CONTINENTS pectedly to-day, that I must write at once, to the neglect of my Tribune correspondence. . . . I ll give you first the merest sketch of the trip thus far. " We left Empire on Thursday last, climbing the moun tains through the most wonderful scenery, and at 2^ in the afternoon stood on the Berthoud Pass, more than 1 1,000 feet above the sea. We were in a world of snow almost as high as the Jungfrau. The field of snow melted both ways, into the Atlantic and the Pacific. We had to descend through immense snow-drifts, in which we sank to our waists, men and horses floundering and tumbling down the steep together. Then for twelve miles through fir- woods full of snow and mud, and furious, ice-cold streams. We slept under the trees, and entered the Middle Park next morning. This is unlike anything I ever saw a region 80 miles in breadth, surrounded by high Alps the plains were beds of flowers, the higher plateaus completely covered with sage and larkspurs, and the hills and mountain meadows precisely like those of the Thuringerwald. On Friday we rode 30 miles, mean ing to stop at the Boiling Springs, but the Grand River was so high we could not cross. Neither could we take the usual trail, but were obliged to strike almost at ran dom across the wilderness for this place, 75 miles distant. On Saturday we travelled about 30 miles, sometimes on the edge of precipices, with rivers hundreds of feet below, sometimes through swamps, great forests where our horses could barely squeeze themselves between the trees, or across icy streams which reached to the saddle, and nearly overturned our horses. At night we camped on the ground, kindled a huge fire of logs and cooked our meal. On Saturday night it rained, and we were tolerably damp when we awoke. We became covered with snow and mud, dried again, got wet again and then dry, dipped our selves in the icy water to take the soreness out of our bones, had tremendous appetites and slept very well after the first night. On Saturday, also, we met Indians, and THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 169 had a little talk with them in Spanish. Yesterday we had a very rough trip, and some of the grandest scenery I ever saw 50 miles of snow peaks as high as Mont Blanc, rocks, forests, deep gorges, and valleys ten miles broad. I can t describe it. When we arose this morn ing, the coffee and water were frozen solid. We tried to cross the Blue River, and had one pack-mule washed away, but hauled him out again. . . . Mr. B s went over head and ears and was washed down some distance. We pulled him and his horse out with ropes, and then kept on this side of the river, although we had to make our own path thro dense forests, swamps and over rocks. This is the first inhabited place we have seen in 125 miles. I never knew what rough travel was, before. I felt as if broken to pieces, the first three days, but am now getting limber again. . . . Poor Beard is used up he can t even sketch. . . . From this point we shall have a miners camp every night, and a well-beaten trail by day. To-night we shall have beds. We met Ute Indians yes terday, and to-day the Chief of the Middle Park, with a face painted scarlet. They were all very friendly. . " Your description of our strawberries makes my mouth water, after five days of pork, crackers and black coffee. But I feel that I am getting physical strength and refresh ment all the time, and therefore don t lament. Your letter cheers and encourages me, in spite of the petites miseres. The work is going on better than I hoped. Your letter was better than a bushel of strawberries to-day. We have still ten days on horseback before we reach Denver. . . . The travel is so rough, and I have so much to do for my horse, bed and meals, that I have only made two or three very rude sketches, and rough notes for my letters." * A letter to his daughter, written about that time, ran thus: * Published first in the Tribune, and afterward in a small volume. 170 ON TWO CONTINENTS DEAR LITTLE GIRL: "Here I am, in the wild country, two thousand miles from you and mamma. I write this letter so that you can read it yourself [in printed letters], I have seen a great many wolves, and snakes, and deer, and little wild dogs, which live in holes in the ground. One day I saw two beautiful deer, chasing a big gray wolf. They had a little deer which was hid in the grass. The big wolf wanted to eat it, and so its father and mother chased the wolf away. I was very glad the wolf did not get the little deer. The wild dogs sat up on their hind legs and barked at us. We ran after one and caught it. It was not so big as a cat. There are brown owls which live in the same holes with the dogs. " In one place I saw a little girl, like you, living in a house dug out of the ground. She had three tame dogs, and she played with them, because there were no other children there. Then one day we killed a snake which had rattles on the end of his tail. There were no houses in the country, and no fences, and no trees, but only grass and flowers and wild animals. " I wish I could bring you one of the little wild dogs, but I am afraid I could not carry it. If you can read this letter, you must write one to me. So good-bye, and don t forget "Your loving father, "BAYARD TAYLOR. "I send you the rattle from the snake s tail." In spite of the physical hardships that my husband had undergone by way of recreation he returned to us in good health and spirits. The depressing heat of the dog-days alone hindered him from at once resuming serious work. Instead, he bought a box of oil colours and began to make a series of attempts at oil-painting, which so took his fancy that for a while his room looked more THREE PROLIFIC YEARS 171 like an artist s studio than like the study of a literary man. The library, with his large rectangular writing table in the centre, had two windows looking toward the south and a great three-windowed bay toward the west. He would not allow any of these to be obscured, even in the hottest weather, for he was a sun worshipper in so far as he always gave the rays of the life-giving orb free access to the room in which he happened to be. To this fervid sun, so enervating to us human beings, was due the wonderful profusion and the ripe lusciousness of our fruit. After the season of the various berries was past, our table was laden with the finest apples, the most juicy pears, the ruddiest of peaches, the sweetest of grapes; with golden cantaloups of the most aromatic flavour, and gigantic watermelons whose rosy interior exuded a delicious nectar. During those hot days we were also maturing our future plans. For some time past I had felt a longing for my home in the Old World, and my husband also expressed a desire for a complete rest in Europe. In the month of May I had written to my mother : " Life in America is so exciting and fatiguing that it is necessary and desirable to provide an interruption once in a while. I believe there is no such thing as absolute rest in this country. We seem to breathe excitement and stimulation with the very air, and the large house hold that I have to superintend wears on my nerves ; so that the leisure, the meditation to which we can give ourselves up when in the Old World, seem to me some thing paradisiac." That my husband felt as I did, may be inferred from a German letter to my father toward the end of the year, 172 ON TWO CONTINENTS in which he said : "I am just as impatient as Marie until we can have some quiet days in Germany. After three years of constant excitement and work, I need rest, and look forward with delight to a summer in the Thuringian Forest." In order to save money for our proposed journey, we remained at " Cedar croft" for the winter; Taylor only was absent at intervals, and with the New Year we began to prepare our house and farm for a lengthy absence, for our plans extended beyond Germany. My husband and I shared an intense love for Italy, and we were filled with delight at the thought of seeing that beautiful country again and learning to know it better. It was therefore with the most agreeable anticipations that we embarked on a Lloyd steamer early in February for our voyage across the ocean. CHAPTER X IN EUROPE WHEN we landed at Southampton, we found snow drops, yellow primroses, and daffodils in bloom upon the fresh green turf. We tarried a few days in this city, while my husband and I paid a visit to Tennyson and his wife at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight, after announcing ourselves and receiving a cordial invitation. The mild climate of the island favours a southern vegetation, so that we saw, for instance, hedges of laurustinus in full bloom. We arrived in the afternoon, and remained at the house of the poet until the following midday. Tenny son s tall, imposing presence, distinguished features and long, dark locks, beside the delicate fairness of his blonde wife, left an indelible impression; nor will the hours that we spent in their company ever be forgotten. In the evening, when we sat together in the drawing-room, Tennyson read portions of " Guinevere " aloud to us in his deep, sonorous tones, and afterward decanted a bottle of old fiery sherry, that he declared worthy of Cleopatra, or Catherine II. Notable as was this beginning of our stay in England, the succeeding week in London contained a series of interesting occurrences and many agreeable hours. My husband s days were fully occupied by various literary lights, among whom we sorely missed our lamented Thackeray. I, too, made some valuable acquaintances 174 ON TWO CONTINENTS on several occasions. One of these was a soiree given by Mrs. Procter, at which her venerable husband, "Barry Cornwall" as fresh as ever intellectually, although his physical vigour had departed received the guests sitting in his arm-chair. At the end of the week I had the great pleasure of meeting the then youngest celebrity of the English Parnassus the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. I was struck by his appearance the moment he entered our room; his slender form, the reddish hair that curled thickly over his head, his fine and mobile features, high forehead, bright brown eyes, and a thin moustache above the sensitive mouth all these combined to give him the air of an unusual personality. He was very excitable, impulsive in speech and gesture. He teased our little daughter, romped with her and hid under the long folds of the tablecloth. He seemed to be pleased that we admired his "Atalanta in Calydon" and his latest drama " Chastelard, " and offered to read us the French chansons occurring in the latter. He asked for a lighted candle, although it was bright daylight; then he held the book in one hand close to the taper, and read, with the index finger of the other hand closing the left eye. This picture was so striking, that it impressed itself indelibly on my memory. We were finally obliged to take our departure from London in order to escape from the increasing number of dinner invitations and other social engagements. And besides, our time was limited. First we made a short stay in my old home, where the inclement Thuringian weather gave us a disagreeable aftertaste of winter. All the warmer and more hearty seemed the reception accorded us by parents, relatives, and friends. We were IN EUROPE 175 dined by all in succession ; we were toasted in prose and verse; delicacies such as only the cuisine of Gotha can supply were set before us ; the finest brands of " Marco- brunner," " Liebfrauenmilch " ("the milk of Our Dear Lady"), and champagne were uncorked in our honour. We enjoyed the performances of the Court Theatre, which was open for the season from New Year to Easter the period when the Court resides at Gotha. The Duke and Duchess again invited us to dinner. The table was set in the lovely winter garden of the little residential villa and we dined among palms and other exotic plants, in a small but all the more enjoyable company. Never theless, after three weeks of this delectable life, we were longing to escape from the rugged North. Our thoughts turned to the Lake of Geneva, where we visited Taylor s elder sister. We found her living with her husband and little boy in a house surrounded by orchards and vine yards, outside the city of Lausanne. From a broad terrace hedged with laurel and cypress in front of the low dwelling-house we could overlook the deep blue expanse of Lake Leman, on whose opposite shore rise the majestic peaks of the Savoy an Alps. During the several quiet weeks that we spent there, we learned to know the glorious lake under varying aspects in sunlit beauty, in wind and storm, illumined by the rising and the setting sun, flecked with dark cloud shadows, ruffled by a light breeze, or when "Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder!" Closed in on all sides by its beautiful shores, the lake impresses itself on the memory as one of the ideal spots i 7 6 ON TWO CONTINENTS of the earth, as a picture that not even the glorious Gulf of Naples can outshine. My husband s tireless hand and brain were fully occupied in this period of pleasant rest. When he laid aside his leisurely pen, he took up the brush. The ever- varying hues of mountain, lake, and shore invited him to paint a series of sketches, while his pen found abundant material for the " Random Letters" that he had promised to write for the Tribune, and for the more lengthy con tributions published in the Atlantic. The latter he after ward collected in book form, as "By-ways of Europe." His obligations in respect to these articles led him to make short trips, first to Appenzell, and then to the Balearic Islands. In the interval he went with me for a flying visit of a week to Paris to see the Exposition. There we met old friends and spent some pleasant days. A catch word that we heard on the lips of everyone afforded us much amusement. Everywhere in the street, in the cafes, in the theatre acquaintances as well as strangers greeted one another with the words : "As-tu vu Lambert?" Even the Emperor was hailed with the same cry when he was seen in an open carriage in the streets of Paris. At last we received the explanation. An aged peasant by the name of Lambert and his old wife had come to Paris to see the sights, and when they were about to start home again, the old woman became separated from her husband in the crowded railway station. Frantically she rushed from one end of the building to the other, asking every person whom she met, "As-tu vu Lambert?" (Have you seen Lambert?) The common people at once took up the words and repeated them ad infinitum, thereby presenting all Paris with a catchword. IN EUROPE 177 During my husband s four-weeks trip for the collection of new material for his pen, I received a number of letters, from which I quote some extracts : " PERPIGNAN, foot of the Pyrenees, May 3oth. "It is now one o clock, and I imagine that you are approaching Eisenach; while I, in this old, Moorish- looking town, am waiting for the diligence into Spain. " Yesterday I had but a glimpse of Lyons, which I had not seen since those doleful days of 1846,* but I found that I knew every house. Going down the Rhone it was the same thing : my memory was astonishingly correct. Before reaching Avignon, I struck the olive, the box-tree and the ilex near Montpelier I saw an orange tree, and at Cette touched the shores of the Mediterranean. " . . . There is still snow on the Pyrenees, but all around here the country is covered with olives and vines. The wine (Roussillon) is excellent; cherries are almost over, and figs are nearly ripe. The people seem to be talkative and friendly all speak a little French, though the language is Provencal." "PALMA, MAJORCA, Saturday eve, June ist. "All day I have been wandering about this queer old city, enjoying the Moorish architecture, the palms, bananas, pepper-trees, and blossoming pomegranates and oleanders. Here the palms bear dates, which are sold in the market. Everything is as picturesque as it can well be but there are no guides or helps of any kind, and I must find out my way, myself. The people seem to be very obliging and friendly, and are always willing to give me guidance when I can make them understand. * Taylor refers to his earlier visit to Lyons, when he and his travelling companion were anxiously waiting for money, as described in "Views Afoot." 1 78 ON TWO CONTINENTS The Majorcan dialect is something between Catalonian and Provencal, and puzzles me not a little, because it sounds as if I knew it and yet I don t. "This afternoon I walked into the country, turning off the road into fields of wheat and maize, between hedges of cactus and aloe, and among enormous olive and almond trees. The dust is two inches deep in the roads, and white as flour; but the heat is tempered by a delicious sea-breeze. I must have walked six or seven miles to-day, and with less fatigue than I anticipated. There are glimpses of old Moorish court-yards in every street and any quantity of subjects to paint, if I could do it in public. Strangers are so rare that the people look at me sufficiently as it is. l l can get no guide to go with me, and am therefore obliged to make an excursion to Valdemosa (9 miles distant) and return to this place. Then I shall take the main road across the island to Alcudia, whence I shall sail on Thursday to Port Mahon in Minorca. I shall have two days in that island, and return thence to Barcelona." " Sunday, June 2 evening. "I have just returned from Valdemosa, high in the mountains, and a lovelier place I never saw. A torn and rugged wilderness of rocks, which are crowned with hanging gardens of olive, orange and palm-trees a tropical splendor of vegetation, framed by precipices and savage mountains. All Italy has nothing equal to it. How I wished for you! This alone has repaid me for coming so far, for I know nothing similar to it any where. The road is good, but there are no inns, or I would have staid all night. I made two sketches not the best, but such as I could get. The people crowded about me so that it was nearly impossible to see or work. But it is a wonderful place for a painter. "I have made arrangements with a man to take me across the island in two days, in a two-horse carriage, IN EUROPE 179 for $5, he to pay all his own expenses. This is quite cheap, and I don t think I could do better. Yesterday, the loss of Spanish (which, try as I might, would not come back) tormented me greatly: this morning, to my astonishment, I found that I could say all I wanted, without the least trouble. The forgotten words came all at once. "My impression of the people is not changed they are a very honest and friendly race. But the scenery of Valdemosa will not out of my head: I still see those magnificent palms, shooting up from the brinks of preci pices, and those huge orange-trees, perfectly golden with fruit, nestled among the gray rocks." " BARCELONA, Monday, June 10. " I reached here this morning at 7, in the steamer from Minorca, and an hour afterwards had your letter of the 3rd. I am glad you got along so well, and are so com fortable in Gotha. . . . "On Thursday morning I embarked for Minorca, and landed at Port Mahon in the evening. This is a charming place. Built on a high rock, overlooking a splendid harbor, it is bright, clean, cheerful, full of pictures, and altogether delightful. I spent two days rambling about the country, which is one immense rock, covered with fields and gardens. It is quite different from Majorca, and the people pleased me even better. You can travel alone anywhere, day or night robbery is unknown. The Am. Consul was very attentive and went about with me as guide. There was not a single foreign traveller on either island: they come very seldom. I should like to have spent two weeks in Minorca, had you been along. . . . "Foix, Tuesday, June i8th. "I reached here at noon to-day, after a wonderfully interesting, wild and fatiguing journey. I can only give you the outline of it now. Last Tuesday I slept at i8o ON TWO CONTINENTS the foot of Montserrat, spent Wednesday on that extraor dinary mountain, and reached the town of Mauresa late at night. The heat was truly African. On Thursday, I went by a sort of country omnibus to Cardona, where there is an immense hill of pure salt. Here I engaged a horse and man for Urgel, in the Pyrenees, two days journey nothing but bridle-roads, often rocky ladders, nearly impassable. A frightfully rough country, made up of precipices, chasms, valleys of olive and vine, and huge mountains, the people primitive, ignorant and dirty, but kindly and honest. Reached Urgel Saturday, after two very hard days. As I drew nearer Andorra, I found it easier to get there at Barcelona they told me it was hardly possible. Took a fresh horse and man, started at sunrise on Sunday, and reached the town of Andorra by noon. I stayed there all day, and the time went only too fast. It is one of the most beautiful mountain valleys in Europe. I was astonished, delighted for I had not anticipated such wonderful scenery. Then I had left the heat behind me: the mountain air was heavenly, the water cold and sweet, the people kind and friendly in short, everything was charming. All my fatigue left me : I should have been repaid for ten times as much. . . . "Yesterday I left the capital of the little republic, travelled through the whole length of it, scaled the crest of the Pyrenees (7,500 feet high) and came down to the first French village, or rather, collection of huts. There I spent last night most uncomfortably, got up at 4 this morning, and drove in a butcher s cart to Ax, where I caught the diligence for Foix. I have here had the first good meal in a week, and expect to sleep in a bed without 10,000 fleas. It is a most picturesque place. . . . "I shall not have time for Auvergne, but shall go to Grenoble, where I shall probably arrive on Thursday evening. It will take until Sunday night to see the Grande Chartreuse and Chateau Bayard. ... I IN EUROPE 181 don t regret missing Auvergne so much, because I can make an article on the Bridle-roads of Catalonia. During the whole journey I felt perfectly safe, and was most kindly treated everywhere. Most of the Andorrans spoke some Spanish, so I could talk with them. I shall always be glad that I made this trip it has given me a great deal of fresh and good material." For the months of July and August we had rented a villa in Friedrichroda jointly with our friends, Mr. and Mrs. James Lorimer Graham. The little town, situated snugly in a valley at the foot of the Thuringian Hills, had long been a favourite and much frequented summer resort. Its great attractions were the broad shady paths through beautiful forests of spruce and beech, the many resting-places, and the easy ascents of the surrounding summits. The owners of our villa, Dr. Keil and his wife (the latter a cousin of my mother), were friends of mine of long standing, and they had thoughtfully provided an American flag that greeted us from on high when we arrived at the cottage near the edge of the forest. We soon introduced our friends to the family circle in Gotha, and a frequent interchange of visits went on between the villa in Friedrichroda and the relatives in the town. Graham, whose active mind quickly assimilated everything that interested him, and his amiable wife who shared his tastes, soon made themselves beloved in my old home; my father alone, who laboured so assiduously for his science, was unable to comprehend how it was possible for an intelligent young man to live without engaging in some serious occupation. In August my husband was summoned to a dinner i.82 ON TWO CONTINENTS at Reinhardsbrunn. The Duchess had not joined her husband in their summer residence this year, so that gentlemen only were invited, and Taylor was surprised to find that all, including the Duke, wore frock coats and grey felt hats. One of the few guests was the author Gustav Freytag. He lived a portion of the year in Siebleben, a little village near Gotha, where he owned a modest country house. He had long been familiar to me by sight, al though I was not personally acquainted with him. I had often seen him at Gotha in the ducal box of the theatre. He was not handsome; his features were irregular, his hair, pointed beard, and moustache were sandy, his figure of normal height, but his eyes were brilliant and his carriage distinguished, expressive of his noble char acter. Such a man, at once intellectually gifted and courtly, was eminently fitted to be persona grata with Duke Ernest. In gratitude for the favours shown him by his "knightly Prince," Freytag has left a lasting tribute to the latter in the dedication of his novel, " Debit and Credit." One of the happiest events of that summer in Friedrich- roda was a picnic on the Heuberg, which my uncle, Staatsrath (Councillor of State) Leopold Braun, had arranged. Some of the party went in carriages by the broad highway, others of us on foot along a shady path through a cool dell the children on donkey-back till we all met on the summit of the mountain. Here we found our host and his three stalwart sons waiting to lead us to the trysting place. We threaded our way through the mazes of a beech wood by a tiny foot-path for half a mile or so, till we emerged on a grassy slope commanding IN EUROPE 183 a wide view of the southern spurs of the Thuringian Forest. The rest of the party, some twenty in number, were already assembled in this idyllic spot, and we all rejoiced over the wonderfully beautiful day, the bright blue sky, and the clearness of the distant panorama. As if to add to the charms of the landscape, the rhythmic tinkle of bells from a herd of cows grazing in the distance was borne to our ears. My uncle proudly showed us his improvised wine cellar, in a hollow under the sod ; close by, a cask of beer was propped between two trees and cooling under a packing of ice. In an open space a fire built of branches of fir crackled merrily; when it was reduced to a bed of coals, the forester who was looking after this part of the programme produced a gridiron and proceeded to boil the far-famed bratwurste of Gotha, whose odour soon brought the vagrant company strolling up to the spot. The plethoric hampers were emptied of their store of good things, among which figured a juicy roast of venison whose like I have never tasted outside the confines of my native Duchy. After the repast had been consumed to the accompaniment of merry quip and jest, and had been washed down with copious draughts of John Barleycorn and noble Rhenish, the hours fled swiftly amid pleasant talk and song. German melodies and Tyrolese jodlers, with their carols, and plaintive cadences, alternated with Negro plantation songs until the shades of night descended, the fire was out, and the hampers re-packed. On our way home a herd of deer bounded away into the dark forest at the approach of our carriages, and as we drove along under the twinkling stars the drivers post-horns woke the echoes with the Thuringian melodies: 184 ON TWO CONTINENTS "Steh ich in fins tier Mitternacht So einsam auf der stillen Wacht, So denk ich an mein femes Lieb, Ob mir s auch treu und redlich blieb." * and: "Ach, wie war s moglich dann, Dass ich Dich lassen kann; Hab Dich von Herzen lieb, Das glaube mir!" f So we bowled along down hill, and at a late hour were once more in our pleasant summer cottage. After a short month in the home of my parents, we set our faces toward the south, to our beautiful and beloved Italy. Our first stopping place was Venice, where we stayed for a month in quarters on the Riva de i Schiavoni. I saw the peerless city again after a lapse of fourteen years, and found it much changed and not to its advan tage. It was still a wondrous creation, risen as if by enchantment from the bosom of the sea, but more than ever desolate in its downfall. The square of St. Mark s was no longer thronged with a motley crowd, few were the gondolas gliding to and fro upon the Canal Grande that most glorious waterway the Piazetta and the Rialto were deserted. The people were in a transition stage that is always hard to bear. When the hated Austrian yoke had been cast off, they were left to shift for themselves as free Italians, and were the veriest chil- *When midnight dark is o er the land, And I on lonely sentry stand, I think where may my true-love be, And keeps she faith and troth with me. t Ah, sweet, how can it be That I must part from thee, Whom I so fondly love, Believe me, dear! L. B. T. K. IN EUROPE 185 dren in politics. The common folk alone would not allow themselves to be disturbed in their dolce far niente. The broad expanse of the Riva before our windows was their playground. Every afternoon the booths of the Punch- and-Judy shows were set up to attract the crowd. Women, children, facchini, gondoliers, and soldiers composed the enthusiastic audiences at these popular performances. Pedlars of all sorts circulated freely, vo ciferously offering for sale roasted chestnuts, baked slices of pumpkin, and the dried seeds of the same fruit, the latter being a dainty which is consumed in great quan tities by the common people. For several days after our instalment in our rooms we were puzzled by one of these street venders, whose insistent refrain exactly counter feited the English words, " Do you see me? do you see me?" in endless reiteration. We finally identified him as the pedlar of this particular tid-bit, and his cry as "Chi voul seme?" (Who wants seeds?) Another sun- browned boy praised his baked pumpkins to the tune of "Che son belli, belli, belli!" and thus the lively throng amused itself far into the night. My husband concurred in the opinion, " that they only half see Venice who see it from the water," and guided us here and there through the narrow streets and alleys of the city, where we were often rewarded by the unex pected sight of striking bits of Byzantine or Gothic archi tecture, that filled us with delight. In addition, we feasted our eyes upon the rich treasures with which the old masters have rendered beautiful the churches, palaces, and galleries of Venice. I recalled much that I had seen before, other masterpieces were unknown to me, and a new light dawned upon me in regard to the greatness of 1 86 ON TWO CONTINENTS Tintoretto, which I had not been able to grasp in my younger years. Just as youth is not fit to cope with Goethe, so it had been with this great master of com position; his genius was only now manifest to my eyes. Taylor gave himself up to still another pleasurable employment. He often took a gondola, and, threading his way through unfrequented canals, made water- colour sketches either from the boat or from some little deserted piazzetta pictures that we brought home as precious mementos of our trip. Unfortunately these hours in the sunless waterways exposed him to the miasma that always lurks there, and we had hardly said farewell to Venice and were on our way to Florence, when the premonitory symptoms showed themselves of the illness that soon threatened his very life. With almost titanic strength he fought against his sickness until at last he was obliged to succumb to the fever. For he considered disease (in others as well as in himself) unnatural, and therefore disagreeable and repulsive. On our arrival in Florence I immediately looked for lodgings. After climbing innumerable stairs in a vain search for suitable quarters, I chanced to notice a marble tablet above a gate with an inscription stating that in this house, the Casa Guidi, Elizabeth Barrett Browning had lived and died! As my eye travelled downward, it fell upon a notice of furnished rooms to let on the second floor. Full of hope I went in, and to my surprise found the name of "Mrs. Baranowsky" on the door-plate. She was the same woman in whose house, farther up the Via Maggio, Ottilie von Goethe was living fourteen years ago, when my uncle Emil Braun recommended me to her care, and I had been able to secure quarters in the IN EUROPE 187 house during my stay in Florence on my way to Rome. She was an Englishwoman of little education, but great kindness of heart; and as the widow of the sacristan of the Greek chapel in Florence, she was obliged to work hard to support herself and her daughter. She did not remember me, of course; but that mattered little. The important point was that she had three rooms vacant that just suited us, and into which we moved at once. When my husband s illness afterward reached its dangerous stage, I was able to secure the services of the eminent English physician, Dr. Wilson, who had just returned from a vacation, and who took the most assiduous care of my poor patient. Heaven knows how my husband would ever have recovered from his illness without this excellent physician and friend! But he did recover. The turning point of the disease was marked by a strange dream, which I will let him relate in his own words. On December 4th he wrote to Mrs. Stoddard: "I left Venice in a singular condition, composed of equal parts of over-excitement and apathy, but still suspected nothing. At Bologna, while looking at a church, I suddenly sank down on the steps of the altar, overcome by weakness. Chills and violent fever suc ceeded, and I had just time to reach Florence and get into quarters in the Casa Guidi, when I was thrown on my back. For one whole month I have been lost to the outside world, have been nigh unto death, and have only recovered enough to write to you, by what seems a miracle. " I had a physician at the start who mistook my case, and would have killed me in a few days more, if he had not left for Rome. . . . Finally, in the nick of time, the English physician here, who had been absent, returned. i88 ON TWO CONTINENTS . . . I pass over the days of prostration and nights of delirium poor Marie, my only nurse, can tell about them. In a week more I began to rally, but so very slowly that I was discouraged: there seemed no prospect of health before January. All at once, I seemed to turn a corner, and from one day to another I shot into health and strength by seven-league leaps. It is wonderful, and astonishes everybody. Ten days ago I was in bed, unable to do anything for myself: now, I get up at the usual hour, eat voraciously, read, write, walk out in the streets, take my cigar after dinner, and only lack a little more strength to be perfectly my old self. . . . " I must tell you one curious feature of my illness. . . . At first, my brain was in a state of excitement which made my nights tortures. For instance, I was under a spell to work: the first night I was forced to copy all of Giotto s frescoes from the chapel at Padua; the second night, all the pictures in the Academy at Bologna; the third night, to draw vistas of every street in Florence, and so on, for about eight nights, till I was nearly insane from imagined fatigue. On the eighth or ninth night, no task was set me, but I saw a number of pale, shadowy Italian women. Then Mrs. Browning (who lived and died in this very Casa Guidi) rose up, a thin, faint spectre, and said to the women : He is to work no more : he must rest now: make everything smooth and soft for him. Then the women made a sort of couch of planks, but their touch made it soft and refreshing, and I lay upon it and rested with an indescribable sense of peace, and the fever- tasks ceased from that night. Was it not a little strange? " This mystic vision was embodied by Bayard Taylor in his poem, "Casa Guidi Windows," which he afterward sent to Browning. Passing by Rome my dearly beloved Rome on the steel rails that seemed to me like a profanation, we IN EUROPE 189 reached Naples, which neither of us had ever seen before, about January ist. We established ourselves in some rooms on the Quai Santa Lucia, in a house whose windows looked out upon the beautiful bay. To the right, projecting into the blue waters, loomed the Castello dell* Uovo, whose gloomy battlements recall to the Ger mans sombre memories of the fate of the Hohenstauffens.* Directly across the bay rose the massive summit of Vesuvius, whose eruptive forces were just then in activity. At night, after we had sought our beds and without moving from the pillow, we could see the bursts of fiery rain, the dull red glow of the smoke, and the stream of incandescent lava flowing down the mountain side. Like so many others, we also made the ascent of Vesuvius as far as the observatory, and looked upon the wild devasta tion the mountain had wrought. But much more enjoy able and richer in beautiful memories were our excursions from Posilippo to Cape Misenum, and along the Bay of Parthenopis to Herculaneum and Pompeii. He who cannot here drink deep of the imperishable fount of beauty was surely never a favourite of Pan and Apollo. We left Naples sooner than we had intended. Even there the east wind was raw, and caused my husband, who still needed to take care of himself, unpleasant sensa tions in the lungs, so we migrated to Sorrento, on the shel tered side of the bay. Its stone houses, built upon the sunny bluff, and embedded in the dark foliage of orange trees, command a panoramic view that has not its equal in the world, and at their feet the waters of the bay ripple * "After the disastrous battle of Beneventum, in which King Manfred lost his life (i 266), his wife and young daughter Beatrix were imprisoned in this fortress. The latter languished there for eighteen years, until she was liberated after the Sicilian Vespers, 1284." Ferdinand Gregorovius. 1 90 ON TWO CONTINENTS in wonderful blue and purple tones. In the Piano di Sorrento we found an out-of-the-way, quiet inn called the Cocumella," the "Melon," where we occupied sev eral rooms that opened upon a large stone terrace built high above the sea. We were so well taken care of in this inn that we remained there at our ease till toward the middle of March. We explored the country round about, where Nature has scattered her fairest gifts with lavish hand; our hours of rest were passed upon the terrace, overlooking a paradise of beauty, in quiet meditation that was most beneficial to my husband, inasmuch as he had not yet recovered his full measure of health. Our little daugh ter, who had been without a playmate since we left Florence, enlivened the loneliness of her life in an original fashion. Leaning over the parapet of the terrace (which was constructed at the level of our second-story rooms) she struck up an acquaintance with the children of a neighbouring contadino, who played beneath the high wall, with the result that a trade of playthings was ar ranged ; she let down her dolls at the end of a string, and received in exchange the toy pitchers and dishes of the peasant ragozzette below. When we climbed down through the rock passage from our bluff three hundred feet in height to the little beach, that was accessible only from the "Cocumella," she hunted for shells and bright- coloured pebbles washed by the waves upon the shingle. The latter afterward turned out to be bits of precious marbles and porphyry, the broken remnants of princely Roman villas that once had graced these shores, and which had been the playthings of the waves for upward of fifteen hundred years. Their varied tints pleased the IN EUROPE 191 child s fancy, and she built with them a structure upon the terrace that roused my curiosity. "It is an altar to the Madonna," was her answer to my question. "A Chris tian edifice at all events," thought I, for I remembered that no longer ago than the spring before, when she received her first lessons in ancient Greek history, she had built a similar altar to Jupiter on the shores of Lake Leman. From Sorrento we journeyed to Rome. But it was no longer my Rome, that I had left twelve years before. The temporal power of the Pope had fallen into the sere and yellow leaf. Italy had arisen south and north, and the effect of the change was unmistakable. In spite of the still existing power of the priesthood, foreign elements had crept in; a greater number of visitors from other countries was evident and the classical character of the city had disappeared more and more. To add to the discrepancy, our present lodging was not in the ancient Rome, but far removed from the Capitol and the Casa Tarpeia. Our rooms were in the foreign quarter near the Spanish Stairs, and shut in by houses on all sides. I visited the Casa Tarpeia but once, where Herr and Frau Henzen had occupied these many years the apartments in which I had formerly been at home. I showed my husband the glorious view that delights the eye from its loggia, and which elicited his admiration in the fullest measure. My acquaintances of earlier days had almost all departed. On the other hand, we were soon drawn against our wish into a vortex of social engagements by the presence in Rome of numerous Americans, so that Taylor, in jest, regretted that he could no longer use his convalescence as an excuse for avoiding the many invita tions extended to us. Simultaneously the art life that 192 ON TWO CONTINENTS is so evident everywhere in Rome seemed to infect my husband, for one day he informed me that he had rented a studio next door to that of his friend, the painter Yewell, and that he intended to attempt the human figure. In a letter to a friend he thus expressed himself : " Here, where models are plentiful and color is part of the atmosphere, I have taken a little studio for two months, and paint three or four hours every day from the living figure. The studio is strictly private ; I tell nobody where it is, and hence many would like to know. My beginnings were in the style of the early Christian mosaics, but I have already advanced about five centuries since then, and am now painting in the style of the Venetian generation before Titian. I don t presume to hope that I could ever be mistaken for one of the contemporaries of the latter, but, with time, I might skip over the inter vening centuries and emulate such moderns as ... and . . ."* Crude as these studies were, the hours that he thus passed were a source of decided enjoyment to Taylor. Two water-colour sketches of female figures in the beauti ful costume of Albano were quite successful, but as regards the nude his characterisation and ridicule of his own work in that letter were justified. Although my husband, like myself, felt inspired by and joined me in admiration of the superabundant treas ures of Rome, yet he was far from falling under the spell of the enchantress. Sometimes it almost seemed to me as if he did not give the Eternal City her full due; but our little discussions on this point failed to convince him. And from his point of view he was correct. He wrote to his friend Stedman : *"Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor," page 491. IN EUROPE 193 " I want to work, I am bursting with fresh plans, and this delightful atmosphere is like a narcotic which be numbs one s executive faculties while stimulating the imagination. The past is too powerful here: it draws us constantly away from the work intended for us. A singular indifference to the movements of this present and grand world creeps over us, and we end by becoming idle, Epicurean dreamers. I am satisfied that Rome is no place for a poet, however it may be with artists." * At the end of May we returned to Florence, whence I accompanied my husband on the trip to Corsica and the little isle of Maddalena, opposite Caprera, which he described in " By-ways of Europe." Vexatious as was Garibaldi s refusal to receive Bayard Taylor, who came with letters of recommendation from our Minister, Mr. Marsh and Madame Mario both friends of long standing yet our enforced stay on the barren islet was of a char acter so unique that we would not willingly have missed the experience. After we had passed several days of exile among the fisher folk and in the most primitive of inns, the steamer, returning from Sardinia, cast anchor and took us aboard. Taylor s two sponsors to Garibaldi were very much annoyed when they learned of the result of our trip. Some time after he received the following letter from Madame Mario, an Englishwoman by birth : " LENDINARA, Provincia di Rovigo, Veneto, August ipth. "My dear Mr. Taylor: You will have wondered at my silence. First I have been ill, then I awaited some satis factory explanation from G (of justification no chance, of course). * "Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor," page 491. 194 ON TWO CONTINENTS "I wrote to him here is his reply: "Dearest sister: With a dose of misanthropy that unfortunately grows with years and disenchantments, do you believe that a man can spend his life receiving visits every day, and the remainder of his time answering letters from people whom he does not know? Add to this that I was suffering damnably on the day of Mr. Taylor s arrival at the Maddalena. " This will explain to you, dear sister, the reason why I did not receive the gentleman recommended by you and Mr. Marsh two recommendations that could not be surpassed by anyone. "To that I replied, If you had informed your friends of this new and laudable resolve you would have spared them considerable mortification and their friends con siderable loss of time and fatigue. " I find that he acted in a similar manner to a German professor who had come from Vienna to see him ! Aspro- monte lamed him, Mentana has broken his heart. Mea col pa is a bitter lesson. Had he listened to his true friends he might have entered Rome have died there at least. I am grieved to my soul for him. . . . "Present our best regards to Mrs. Taylor, and " Believe me, "Very truly yours, "JESSIE WHITE MARIO." And so the matter ended. We spent the summer, with some short interruptions, in my parents home, where my sister from Russia and her five children had arrived some time before ourselves. My self-sacrificing mother, in spite of her continued deli cate health, could not be prevailed upon to forego her hospitable inclinations, and harboured the many guests who celebrated a reunion in the old home during that summer. My father, on the contrary, abated nothing IN EUROPE 195 of his incessant work, although in his short hours of rest he openly displayed his pleasure in the vivacity that chil dren and grandchildren brought into his quiet daily life. During these summer months my husband had not failed to make further studies for the continuation of his translation of "Faust," and for the short commentary which he projected. The poem, "An Goethe," with which he dedicated his translation to the memory of the great master, was also conceived about this time. After he had written down the German poem he submitted it to Gustav Freytag for criticism, and the latter pronounced that it had been cast in a single mould of true German spirit and German feeling and needed no improvement. The "Dedication" was, however, not the only fruit that his poetic powers had brought forth since his re covery from illness. In the winter, among other short poems, he had written two Corsican ballads, based on the traditions of the people. The first, "Orso s Vendetta/* gave him much trouble. Twice he wrote it in different metre, and then, as the form did not satisfy him, cast it aside. The other ballad also, "Fidelio," was not included in his collected poems. A third poem of this half -convalescent period, "The Ruined Garden," found favour in his eyes only after he had completely rewritten it, and this he published under the title "Run Wild." But in June, when he returned to Gotha, visibly refreshed from an excursion to the Teutoburger Forest, the full strength of his creative faculty again manifested itself, and as " the result of a mood the poem " The Sunshine of the Gods " irradiated his imagination. After quickly com mitting it to paper, the poet later revised it repeatedly, but he altered it very little, as he did not venture to 1 96 ON TWO CONTINENTS touch it in a cooler mood a procedure of which James T. Fields, his friend and publisher, approved. The latter declared the poem too good to need any after-filing. He wrote also another poem, bearing an intimate relation to the preceding one "Notus Ignoto." He called it "one of the very darlings of my brain." It saw light on the last evening of the old year, and the first day of the new, 1868-69. The poet liked it better than its predecessor, but Fields disagreed with him, and it was probably owing to the stern criticism of this friend that Taylor, before placing it among his collected poems, rewrote it in another metre, and thus gave it the melodious swift-footed dithyrambic cadence in which the inward thought and the outward form are gracefully blended. It is not improbable that he conceived the idea of the poem while reading Goethe s " Seasons," for in later years I found the following stanzas marked in his volume of Goethe s poems, given him in 1868 by Berthold Auerbach: "Selbst erfinden ist schon; doch glucklich von Andern Gefundenes Frohlich erkannt und geschatzt, nennst Du das weniger dein? i "Wer ist der gliicklichste Mensch? Der fremdes Ver- dienst zu empfinden Weiss und am fremden Genuss sich wie am eignen zu freuen." * * To invent is grand ; but happy inventions of others Grasped and esteemed at their worth, are these not equally thine? Which is the happiest mortal? He that another man s merit Sees and another man s joy feels as though twere his own. L. B. T. K. IN EUROPE 197 It seemed as if a new spirit was animating Bayard Taylor in those days. In later years, toward the end of his life, he said to me one day that after his illness in Florence he had felt as if a board had been suddenly removed from his brain, and that thenceforth thoughts had been vouchsafed to his mind as never before. This progress in his spiritual growth had, however, been going forward unheeded for several years past. It became apparent to him only upon his complete recovery from serious illness, when his long withheld strength returned to him. In the previous year Taylor had already touched upon this phase of his intellectual career in a letter to an old friend: "My studies now are changed from what they once were. I read first of all Goethe, then Montaigne, Burton, Mill, Buckle, Matthew Arnold, and the old English poets ; of the modern chiefly Wordsworth, Tennyson and Clough. Ruskin and Carlyle serve as entrees. I abhor everything spasmodic and sensational and aim at the purest, sim plest, quietest style in whatever I write." * But the time had come when the fruit was ready for the harvest. * "Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor," page 459. CHAPTER XI THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" WHEN we settled down again in "Cedarcroft" in the early part of September Taylor brought home some fifty oil and water-colour sketches, and a large number of books that he needed for his study of Goethe. He had besides the joyful prospect of being able to devote himself during the coming year to the work that lay nearest his heart. This was first and foremost the inter rupted translation of Goethe s masterpiece "Faust. * Consequently we arranged to spend the winter in " Cedar- croft," and I took particular care that my husband s immediate surroundings should be as pleasing and com fortable as possible. The library where he worked was a large, high-ceiled room papered with a dark crimson velvet wall paper. In a capacious fireplace, with a mantel of black, yellow-veined marble, bright brass andirons supported the great logs that were lighted on cool evenings or cold days, giving forth a grateful warmth. The walls were lined with book shelves of black walnut, in accordance with the heavy doors and window frames constructed of the same wood. Two high south windows and a three-sided bay, toward the west, let in an abun dance of light. Near the centre of the room stood my husband s spacious black walnut, flat-topped writing desk, a present from his friend Lorimer Graham. Plaster casts of antique busts and figurines, as well as a few real 198 THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 199 antiques, crowned the book shelves or rested on pro jecting ledges. In one corner the Venus of Melos stood upon a pedestal, and opposite that was a copy of Trippel s bust of Goethe. Several generous armchairs and a yielding couch invited the inmates to rest or lounge at ease; books, magazines and photographs were placed on convenient tables. When the poet looked up from his work his eye rested upon plants and flowers blooming in the small conservatory connected with the library by a glass door ; did he direct his gaze westward at evening, he saw the golden setting sun sink in fiery splendour behind our "immemorial chestnuts." During the day the peacock was wont to sit upon the window ledge behind my husband s back, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of his master, but in reality enjoying the reflection of his own image in the mirror of the window pane. A short, unavoidable interruption of my husband s work occurred when we celebrated the golden wedding of his parents, in which not only all the branches of the large family, with the exception of the Swiss contingent, but also a number of friends from far and near took part. My husband composed a little masque for the occasion as a surprise for the aged bride and groom, the third successive couple in the family to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. We entertained over two hundred guests on this occasion, and those who came from a distance stayed with us for a longer period. After this pause "Faust" took possession of my husband s mind more and more. The infinite pains with which he endeavoured to do justice to the work of the great master may be inferred from the fact, for in- 200 ON TWO CONTINENTS stance, that he made innumerable drafts of the "Song of the Spirits," "Vanish, ye darkling Arches above him!" before he was satisfied with the English rendering. In his note he says it was " a head and heart breaking task." According to my memoranda he read the beginning of the "Walpurgis Night" to me on December i4th, and the remainder on Christmas day. The following day he translated the "Intermezzo," and on January 4th he was able to show me the translation of the whole first scene of the Second Part. Thenceforward he continued without interruption to the end. In the evening, when his task was done, he read to me what he had translated during the day, and I followed with the original before my eyes. When he was occupied toward the end of March with the third act, the rendering of which fascinated him extremely, he remarked in a letter to E. C. Stedman: " I am deep in the Helena, and the one-toothed Phorkyas looks over my shoulder as I write. My translation gets more literal, and yet more perfectly rythmical as I advance. I begin to see daylight glimmering through the further end of the tunnel." On May i3th I made a note: "Taylor has now reached the mystic portion of the Second Part, which gives him much trouble." By the middle of the month he read the final scene to me, and the great work was accomplished, exclusive of the last revision and the explanatory Notes. Although the great task now rested for a while, there was no respite for the man of the pen. While he trans- THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 201 scribed the immortal poetry and high thoughts of the German poet into his native tongue, his mind was open to the whispers of his own Muse, and to her commands. I have already mentioned the fact that he wrote a poem, "Notus Ignoto," at the turn of the year, in the midst of his work on "Faust"; it was followed by two of the "Pennsylvania Ballads,"* the first of which, "The Quaker Widow," he had written years before. The ballad "Napoleon at Gotha"f also saw the light during January. Then, in the middle of summer, when the ener vating heat of the dog days sapped the poet s strength for concentrated work, Taylor composed the beautiful "August Pastoral" in imaginative mood, where he sang: "Dead is the air, and still! the leaves of the locust and walnut Lazily hang from the boughs, inlaying their intri cate outlines Rather on space than the sky, on a tideless ex pansion of slumber. Faintly afar in the depths of the duskily withering grasses Katydids chirp, and I hear the monotonous rattle of crickets. Dead is the air, and ah! the breath that was wont to refresh me Out of the volumes I love, the heartful, whispering pages, Dies on the type, and I see but wearisome characters only. Therefore be still, thou yearning voice from the garden in Jena, *"The Pennsylvania Farmer" and "The Holly Tree." fThis incident actually occurred. The youth was my great-uncle, Wilhelm Xaver von Braun. 202 ON TWO CONTINENTS Still, thou answering voice from the park-side cot tage in Weimar, Still, sentimental echo from chambers of office in Dresden, Ye, and the feebler and farther voices that sound in the pauses! Each and all to the shelves I return : for vain is your commerce Now, when the world and the brain are numb in the torpor of August." This idyll was followed later (not intentionally at first) by two others " May" and " November." Two years afterward, when Taylor collected his poems of the last decade, he added a Prologue and an Epilogue and called the cycle "Home Pastorals." For the trilogy sang of his native heath, of its character and of the atmosphere that he had created there. In 1875, when the volume was to be published, the poet changed the close of the "November Pastoral* by embodying in the last stanza the subject idea of another poem. The latter has never been published. It reads thus: THE HAND The lingering winter in the woodland roars, And o er its edge the yellow evening light Is chill and sad : come, feed the dying flame ! Pile splintered hickory on the embers ; draw The cork that prisons summer s liquid soul, And while, defying Nature s threat, we quaff Her pilfered sunshine, lay your hand in mine! Thus have I warmth that from without me sends A glow within, and wakes that life too dull, Too slack from weary days, to feed itself THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 203 As once, from superfluities of youth. But from the touch of other hands I take A soft mysterious quickening of the blood, The thrill of delicate currents freshly loosed, That seem as if the body yet awake The fancy s play, and lift the lids of dreams. And yours is of the south ; your pulse on mine, Here, in the twilight, calls Pompeiian forms, The floating Hours, Medea s trance of wrath, And Chiron with the plectrum and the lyre ; Or sunburnt marbles, drums of Doric shafts, And broken triglyphs, such as heap the floor To Pallas sacred ; or the shimmering walls Of desert by the warm Arabian sea. All these I summon, while the frost without Stiffens the spongy soil, and April moans From some dim place of exile in the air. Still further let me dream ; beyond the shores We know, beyond that dark-blue, dimpled sea, Lie sands and palms, the Nile s wide wealth of corn, And dark-red pylons, granite roofs upheld By old Osirid columns : there the sun Sheds broader peace in all his aged beams, And hoary splendor on uncrumbled stone. Who breathes that air returns not as he went, dipt in the scant horizon of his day, The slave of Time ; but, stretching back thro all The thousand cycles of victorious growth To primal powers and passions, plants his life At the warm world-beat of the heart of Man, And makes his home in all humanity. Yet in this freedom we detach ourselves From keener interests, closer sympathies, That shape the narrow features of our time, Save, grasping both with double arms of life, And setting one firm foot in either world, We stand, as stood the Masters. This your hope, 204 ON TWO CONTINENTS Though voiceless, reaches me, whose office is To give it voice ; and now the swifter pulse In all my frame proclaims the soul awake, And lithe again the muscles of my thought. So, let the darkness fall ; the season holds No power to seal the fountains of our strength ; The nerves that tremble to the wilful air And make us vassals to the Moment, crouch At the calm bidding of the sovereign mind. Shortly before Bayard Taylor wrote the first of his idylls he made the assertion that American poets and artists did not need to draw their themes and motives from abroad, as there was a wealth of material ready for them at home in their own country. In the "Home Pastorals" he furnished a proof of this assertion by elevating every-day matters into the realm of poesy. As Taylor read " Hermann und Dorothea" anew in the summer of 1869, while preparing his Notes for "Faust," it is probable that the poem influenced him in the choice of the hexametre for the measure of the "Pastorals"; Gregorovius * " Euphorion" and the "Amours de Voyage" of Cloughf had prepossessed him in its favour; the smooth and melodious verses of the latter had shown him the capabilities of the English tongue in this respect. His friends of the literary guild did not share his taste for the classic metre. Emerson alone "wondered whether Clough had risen again and was pouring rich English hexametres " until he " guessed the singer without external hint of any kind, only by the wide travel." These idylls never caught the popular fancy, however a fact that * Ferdinand Gregorovius, the German author. f Arthur Hugh Clough, the English poet, 1819-1861. THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 205 mattered little to the author. He felt that since a new epoch of his creative faculty had dawned he had lost his former audience, and that it was necessary for him to win a different class of readers. He therefore did not suffer himself to doubt his ideals, but rather followed his higher aspiration more assiduously. I return to the spring of 1869. On Easter Sunday I wrote to my mother: " The birds have come back; blue birds, robins, yellow piroles, brown thrushes, and scarlet finches are here in flocks, singing and warbling all day long. The woodpeckers are hammering in the old walnut trees, and to-day I heard the wild dove s plaintive note in our wood. The frogs, too, are piping merrily." It was a beautiful spring that set in earlier than usual, and covered the country with a garment of the freshest green. A laburnum that we had planted as a reminder of Germany bore its first blossoms, the ma gnolias below the terrace were bedecked with snowy flowers, and the most luxuriant foliage gave a dense shade. In May we could sit upon the veranda till nine o clock at night enjoying the balmy moonlight, and in June we armed ourselves with fans, fleeing to the terrace after supper in search of cooling breezes. As soon as we had established our selves upon the steps leading to the lower level, an old acquaintance of ours, an enormous toad who lived under the granite foundation-stone of the bay window, joined us. It was so tame that it came up close, and loved to hop upon my husband s foot, who scratched its back with a dry twig. It instinctively knew that he was partial to every living thing ; for in the same measure as with warm hearted tolerance, he honoured the individual belief of every man, whether Christian or not, so his fond sym- 206 ON TWO CONTINENTS pathy for animals was great. The dogs, Tasso, Picket, Bonnino, and Puck, were our dear companions, and the horses, Bill, Guy, and Ben, were treated like comrades. The last of these served the family forty years before shuffling off his mortal coil, although during the last five he had outlived his usefulness. The summer as usual brought us many guests, among the number some unasked and undesirable the reverse side of our hospitable house and happy family life. Friends like George Boker and the Stoddards were always welcome. The latter s little son Lorry was six years old, a pale, delicate child, a hothouse plant who filled me with pity when the time came for him to go back with his parents to the stifling heat of the city. So he stayed with us until his cheeks were ruddy with health. Although several years younger than my daughter, the two were playmates. His lively imagination was always inventing new games, while our tomboy was the leader in mischief, a tendency inherited from her father and grandfather. Knowing this propensity I was not very much surprised one day to find that the children had raided the hen house, "scrambled" some eggs with sand, and had fed this "omelette" to the pigs. Accustomed to the freedom of American country life, my daughter naturally found it hard to submit to the rule of a German governess, whose sense of humour was almost nil; and the latter had a difficult task. When she called her charge after the recess both children were usually hidden in the branches of some tree, and when she finally succeeded in catching her truant scholar, and resuming the interrupted lessons. Lorry would exclaim crossly, " I wish governesses hadn t been born!" THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 207 A longer time elapsed than Taylor had intended ere he was able to put the finishing touches to the " Faust" translation. July of the following year brought him his first days of leisure, which he devoted to the revision of his manuscript and to writing the critical Notes for the First Part. The interval had been consumed in un remitting literary activity, accompanied by a growing worry which the increasing expense of our thriving and beautiful property thrust upon him. He had written his fourth and last novel, " Joseph and His Friend," and a course of lectures on the heroes of the later classical period of German literature, which he delivered in Ithaca. Cornell University had appointed him non-resident Pro fessor of German, with the sole obligation of reading six lectures annually on the literature of Germany. This first course was followed later by others, which dealt with the earlier classical period, the literary productions of the Reformation, and those of the seventeenth century. After the author s death the whole series was published under the title " Studies in German Literature." Most reluctantly, and yielding to the stress of circum stances, my husband finally decided to comply with the many requests of the so-called Lyceums all over the coun try, again to deliver popular lectures during the course of the winter. His physical vigour was no longer that of his earlier years, but although he may have realised it at times he refused to admit this fact, and braved fatigue and hardship with the whole strength of his in domitable will. In the spring he was attacked by a severe illness whooping cough, contracted by infection while travelling which stubbornly refused to subside. A complete change of air was recommended as a cure, and 208 ON TWO CONTINENTS he determined upon a plan that he had been considering for some time past. He had received invitations from San Francisco to deliver his lectures in that city, and remembering his former success in 1859, he at last gave his consent, being moved by two considerations his health and the probable remuneration. The sequel showed how much he had miscalculated in respect to the latter. The report from Des Moines was encouraging : " I feel my cough going, day by day, since I left home. I am scarcely fatigued this morning, and feel unusually well and happy. There is no Joseph or other delayed work hanging over me, and I feel free to loaf and invite my soul. From Salt Lake City, May 2ist, he wrote: "The cultivation of the Mormons is more like that of Europe than America: the fields, farms and villages are pictures of neatness and industry. This morning I have been walking around the city, which has one of the most magnificent situations in the world. It is almost equal to Granada or Damascus. The buildings, even, have a semi-Oriental character. There is something wonderful in finding this oasis of civilization in the heart of the wilderness. ... I send a flower from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, 8,200 feet above the sea." As my husband wrote daily, I received the following soon after: "I had a very interesting day yesterday. I met Cannon and Smith, two of the Apostles, who went with me to Brigham Young s house. The old Sultan was THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 209 exceedingly courteous and agreeable. I talked about three-quarters of an hour with him and the others. He is a man of great power and shrewdness, and not without culture. His oldest son is a bright, wide-awake man, very agreeable in manners. "In the evening I met with the leaders of the new sect, who are opposed to Br. Young s rule. It was a secret conference: they told me their creed, their plans, the history of the movement, their views about polyg amy, etc., and there were a great many points about which I agreed with them. They are advanced liberals in religion, earnest intelligent men, who are better than most of those in the orthodox churches. ... I have already acquired a new insight into the whole Mormon movement, and do not find much except the manifestation usual in sects which have been prosecuted. In fact, Mormonism is nothing but Orthodoxy carried a little further." On May 23d, while crossing the Great Basin Taylor sent me these few lines, written on the train, in the Humboldt Valley: " This is still Asia. Great dry plains, mountain ranges of the loveliest colors and snowy peaks in the distance. Weather heavenly, no dust, but fragrance of wild sage everywhere, cars the perfection of comfort. I send a flower I picked up this morning. Shall reach Sacra mento by noon tomorrow." Arrived in San Francisco, Taylor found nothing to remind him of the town of 1859, except its incompar able situation. "All is rebuilt, changed, and beauti fied," he wrote on May 24th. My husband s letters were eight days en route. In the interval, however, I had received a telegram announcing his arrival in San 210 ON TWO CONTINENTS Francisco : " Well and in the best of spirits." Then, dur ing the night of the 2Qth, I had a most singular dream: I dreamt that my husband came home suddenly and told me that he had made a mistake, three of his lectures in San Francisco had been successful, but the others were a failure. He seemed depressed, and we deliberated in what way the loss could be made good. The dream was so vivid and made such an impression upon me that I told it at the breakfast table to Taylor s parents and sister, Mrs. Lamborn, who was visiting us. A few days later the chambermaid knocked at my door: "A tele gram, ma am." I opened the envelope and read: " Send no more letters ; I shall start homeward very soon. Bayard Taylor." Thus I knew that my dream had come true. In due time I learned the details. On May 3oth my husband wrote: " I confess to being regularly homesick this morning. You were in my thoughts all day, yesterday, and I half made up my mind, by night, to cut off some of my proposed lectures and hurry back again. . . . The lecture at Oakland, on Saturday night, was a dead failure. I did not make a cent." The following letter ran: "I should start home on Tuesday were it not that I want, at least, to earn enough to pay my expenses, and one more lecture in San Francisco will bring me some thing. . . . The complete intellectual apathy of the Calif ornians is something marvellous. . . . The very people that seemed so bright and intelligent in 1859, are now equally demoralized, and no better than the rest." But nothing could daunt his courage: "Meantime," he THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 211 wrote, " I am growing strong and in good spirits for work. . . . Perhaps I needed the present disappoint ment and disillusion. The loss of my expected $3,000 here is only a temporary inconvenience. ... I am really (believe me!) about as cheerful as if I had been successful. There is no use in whining over the in evitable." His last letter was dated June loth; then he hurried home as fast as steam could bear him. Early in July the old parents started upon a voyage across the ocean in the company of friends, to visit their elder daughter for the space of a year, and I was left alone with my husband and child for the first time since our house had been built. We were lonely the first few days, but this close family life had its charming aspects, and we might have given ourselves up to the unrestricted enjoyment of its peace and outward quiet had not our hearts been filled with anxiety by the news from Germany. The Franco-German War had suddenly broken out, and we followed the news with doubt and anxious expectancy. It was not easy for me to remain so far away from my fatherland at a time when the patriotism of every German heart was deeply moved. How gladly would I have stood in the midst of the enthusiasm that seized upon all parts of Germany when victory after victory was achieved by the united troops of the Northern and Southern armies. It was Saturday evening, September 3d, when the news reached us of the glorious victory at Sedan and Napoleon s capture. A neighbour in Kennett Square had been in Wilmington and read the despatch in an evening paper. We did not dare to trust the news 212 ON TWO CONTINENTS which might be a canard it was too glorious to be true; but the possibility was ever present in our minds, and Taylor and I lamented all the next forenoon that this was Sunday when there was neither mail nor newspaper. Toward noon a visitor came from the village and corrobo rated the report; so-and-so had read the despatch the night before it emanated from the Legation in London. This made it more probable, yet our desire was for cer tainty. After dinner I had the horse harnessed and drove into the village, where I was able to obtain a Sunday paper that someone had brought to Kennett from Phila delphia, and there the victory was set down in black and white! I carried it home in triumph, and wrote to my mother the same evening, "Taylor and I are so excited that we can hardly contain ourselves. It seems as if my mind has room but for one thought the gigantic, glorious fight of our German people." Next morning I added: "What do you think my husband did last night? He wrote a German poem : Jubellied eines Amerikaners, * of which I enclose a copy. The paper this morning con tained a graphic description of the battle of last Thursday at Sedan. And the mail brought us a few hasty lines from our friend Whitelaw Reid, managing editor of the Tribune, that I must translate for you. He writes: Great news extra Tribunes, Sunday issue to-morrow, English and German, your Napoleon to be used, Schem f holding hard to restrain himself from lager beer enough to keep in working trim, the Bowery gently and peace fully drunk, and the Tribune waving the North German flag." *" Paean of an American." f A German on the Tribune staff. THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 213 In the meantime the final work on " Faust" progressed rapidly. The First Part was to appear late in the autumn, the Second in the following spring. The time for revision and writing the explanatory Notes was therefore short, and if my husband had not already gone over the ground thoroughly before writing his commentary, and drawn his own conclusions, he would not have been able to com plete the immense task that still remained in the remark ably brief period of eight months. In regard to the Notes he wrote to a friend that he had given in them the essence of fifty volumes of criticism, besides many things of his own. The critical memoranda to the Second Part of "Faust" entailed the greatest amount of study, as the latter presented many a riddle to solve, many a Gordian knot to untangle. Taylor said that they contained a great deal more of his own independent criticism. At last the hour of deliverance approached. On February 25th Bayard Taylor wrote the last word of the " Faust manuscript. It was well that such was the case ; for he had several times come near to the point of ex haustion. "The conclusion of the Second Part," he wrote to a friend, " so exhausted my strength, that now, ten days after finishing the work, I am only just begin ning to recover my ordinary vitality." Side by side with the higher growth of the poet that showed forth more and more prominently, a subtle change took place gradually in regard to old habits and associations. Heretofore Taylor s inherited affection for his birthplace and his love of nature had influenced him in the choice of his home, but lately the consciousness had forced itself upon him that he was "not so dependent upon nature, as formerly"; and that it was a mistake 2i 4 ON TWO CONTINENTS to try to be at once farmer and author. He gradually realised that he lived in a sort of servitude to his property, and that his proper sphere was not the narrow circle of a country village, but the intellectual arena of a great city. The experiences of the past year were such as to ripen a decision in his mind that had lain dormant in his thoughts for some time past. The early summer of 1870 was inaugurated with torrents of rain. The wet season spoiled the hay harvest, ruined the wheat, and rendered the fruit watery. There was a complete failure of farm and garden crops. In addition, at a time when my hus band was most deeply engaged in the toilsome work of " Faust," the coming and going of visitors became an almost intolerable burden to him, and he longed to get away from the country into the city, where interruptions at all hours of the day were impossible. Under the sum of these discouragements even his sanguine tempera ment gave way, and he became convinced that it would not do "to keep Cedarcroft for a sentiment." In a long letter to his parents, dated November loth, he wrote in part as follows: "I care much less about farming and gardening, and much more for my literary work, than I did four or five years ago. . . . My old attachment to the soil would lead me to remain; but my reason and common sense tell me I ought to make a complete change. I have been meditating this for four or five years past ; but have been postponing the decision, partly on Lilian s account, and partly because it was so hard to make." A few weeks later Taylor touched upon the same subject in a German letter to my father, in which he said : THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 215 "It is my intention so to dispose of my affairs that I can be independent and without anxiety and go wherever I choose; I would then remain at least two years in Europe. I have new literary plans that necessitate a variety of studies, and if Heaven is gracious to me, I shall so arrange my time and business that I can carry them out." The plans to which he alluded had reference to nothing less than a combined biography of Goethe and Schiller. He had conceived the idea of this twin biography during the past years, while intimately studying the two poets and gaining a deep insight into their nature and spirit. They were complementary, he said, because, during an impor tant period in the lives of both, they had been closely associated and had reacted one upon the other. In his later letters to friends in New York, published in his own biography, he dealt with this idea more in detail. In the meantime my husband continued his studies with reference to the plan as often as his other literary work permitted. In his talks with me he gave utterance to many of the thoughts that passed through his mind at that time. Thus, for instance: "A poet alone can pene trate the inmost life of a poet." Another time he spoke of the discord that arose between Goethe and his Weimar friends after his return from Italy, particularly as re garded the circle of which Frau von Stein was the centre. " During Goethe s absence Schiller had come to Weimar," he explained ; " the latter was feted and admired, partly to gratify petty jealousies that the former had given rise to, and to throw him into the shade. In Italy Goethe had lived in absolute freedom, only for himself and his art, and had attained to the highest development of his 2i6 ON TWO CONTINENTS own individuality he had progressed, while those whom he had left behind remained stationary." Goethe s "Naturliche Tochter"* he considered "a singularly neglected masterpiece," and "Pandora" a wonderfully beautiful poem. He was also of the opinion that Goethe s "love of allegorical representation in later years" was a "natural reaction against the strong realistic tendencies" that characterised his creative methods. "The informing imagination by which he elevated reality grew weaker, especially after so much scientific research, and allegory became an easy substi tute for it." As regards "Goethe s often too minute, almost painful motivirung (as in Tasso)," Taylor believed that the latter " belongs to Art, but it was in him also in creased by Science. He retained, however, the clearest vision of what was requisite, even after his prime power of achieving it had passed." The autumn of 1870 almost compensated us for the unpleasant summer. The fair, bright, warm days lasted far into December. Early in the month I plucked a rose that had blossomed out of doors, and my husband brought me a bunch of verbenas and gilliflowers. But our longing for congenial society led us into the city, where we spent three months, and Taylor was able to finish his great work with fewer interruptions. Toward the end of March, when the Second Part was published in Boston, we spent several days in that city as the guests of our friends, Mr. and Mrs. T. B. Aldrich, dined with Longfellow in Cambridge and renewed a number of acquaintances in both cities. .The publication of the Second Part was celebrated at the house of the publisher, James T. Fields *"The Natural Daughter." THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 217 and his talented wife. Professor Agassiz and E. P. Whipple came in later and added their congratulations. The latter, with "his protuberant eyes" (as D. G. Mitchell said), talked with me about "Faust." "It is not only the best translation we have," he said, "it is also a proof of Taylor s high-minded patriotism. He has spent ten years in completing the task, while he might have been earning thousands of dollars with other work. Why, the translation is as long as the Trojan War!" Although 1,500 copies of the first volume of the hand some and expensive edition were sold within a few days of publication, my husband did not venture to hope for an equal sale of the more abstruse Second Part. Never theless, the latter did not fall much short of the above- mentioned figure. In the summer Taylor s parents returned from their European travel in a refreshed and stimulated frame of mind. Their homecoming again enlarged the family circle at "Cedarcroft," and brought us an increased influx of visitors. Meanwhile we felt more and more that our attachment for this beautiful property was on the wane its disadvantages seemed to grow more prominent, its bright aspects lost their glamour. Perhaps in conse quence of this fact, or was it because my future fate cast its shadow before? I was sometimes seized with the pre sentiment of the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. And not I alone, my husband also had moments of clear prophetic vision. Years before he had told me that he should die first, and in the middle of the sixties he suddenly declared that he foresaw it would come to pass that he would be sent as Minister to Berlin, the only diplomatic post which he would care to accept. I was 2i8 ON TWO CONTINENTS frightened at this supposition, without knowing why, and exclaimed: "Oh, I hope you are mistaken!" An in comprehensible coincidence in the dream habits of my husband was the absurd fact that before every illness from which he suffered he dreamed of the King of Hol land, whom he had never seen and in regard to whom he was absolutely indifferent. "And is it not strange," he said to me in his last illness, " that now, since I have actu ally seen the King, I am sicker than ever before ? It was in September, a month after the dear old people had come home. The melancholy note of the rain dove sounded from a distant grove, and soon after the first great drops fell upon the thirsty soil. The dripping of the long-expected rain made welcome music and content filled the spirits of all. In this mood my husband sat down at his desk and took up his pen; in a little while he showed me, chuckling inwardly, as was his wont when ever anything struck him as particularly funny, several short comic poems, imitations of the style of Walt Whitman, Bret Harte, John Hay, and Joaquin Miller. These parodies, which he joined to a connected whole by an imaginary dialogue, were published in the Tribune under the caption "The Battle of the Bards." They received so much applause that my husband thereupon conceived the idea of making use of the jeu $ esprit of our Sunday evenings in a similar manner. Thus the little volume, "The Diversions of the Echo Club," was sug gested, in which much half -concealed criticism and literary wisdom is interwoven with its absurd and witty imitations. Of an utterly different character was a lengthy poem in dramatic form that he composed in a short space of time during the following winter, in response to a sudden THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 219 return of the creative impulse. About the middle of February, when my husband returned from a short lecturing tour in the West that had been accompanied by great physical hardship, he wished to pay a flying visit to Kennett on the way back to New York, and had arranged that I should meet him there. When my daughter and I stepped out of the railway car at the station we found Taylor waiting for us, and our two speedy horses, Guy and Lady Ellen, carried us quickly through rnud and slush to "Cedarcroft," where the dogs were foremost in welcoming us with barking and canine marks of joy. The dear old parents came out into the por tico with welcome in their happy faces. Becky, the house keeper, had a delicious supper ready, consisting, among other dishes of Chester County dainties, of barbecued chicken; and a bright fire burned cheerily on the hearth.* The two days of rural restfulness that he there enjoyed refreshed Taylor to such an extent that, after his return to the city, he at once retired into his little study and delivered his brain of "a vast and daring conception," as Mr. Stedman says. This poem, written in three days, in a state of intense exaltation, and entitled " The Masque t of the Gods," was so completely after my own heart that its creation rendered me extremely happy. This production of my husband s pen marked the barrier that henceforth separated him from his former reading public. There were few now who understood him. * From a letter to my mother. fPeacham, an older English author, says: Masque is a dramatic performance written in a tragic style, without attention to rules or possibilities. The old dramatists wrote their Masques for the closet or for the stage. Milton s Masque of "Comus" was composed for the former purpose, while Ben Jonson s Masques were acted. 220 ON TWO CONTINENTS Even among his colleagues several shook their heads and deplored Taylor s tendency to allow his poetry to be influenced by his metaphysical reflections. In reality metaphysics were as abhorrent to him as pure mathe matics. Taylor characterised as psychological what his critics styled metaphysical. In "The Masque of the Gods" he represented the great evolution of the Divine Idea, as it manifests itself in the succeeding epochs of History, beginning with the adoration of elementary deities and progressing in the course of ages, until it culminates in the supplication of the Godhead: " We dare not name Thee, scarce dare pray to Thee." When Taylor several years later had finished his last drama, "Prince Deukalion," I recognised in the earlier poem the prologue to the more voluminous work. Al though not intended as such, yet it stands in the same relation to the latter that an overture bears to a greater musical composition. The fundamental idea or motif of the earlier work is amplified in the later drama, and swells to a choral harmony, through which the chord of the original melody runs from the first tone to the last. Shortly before we left the city we made (according to my memoranda) the acquaintance of Bret Harte, who had lately come to the eastern states and was much feted. My husband brought him in one day and intro duced him to me. "He makes an agreeable and, to speak with Seume,* a humane impression upon me/ I wrote in my diary; "he is handsome, with the easy manners of a man of the world; he likes to hear himself *I had just been reading Seume s "Spaziergang nach Syrakus." ("A Walk to Syracuse.") THE TRANSLATION OF "FAUST" 221 talk, is not tolerant of interruptions, and is very enter taining. Before he left the room he looked at himself in the mirror." We invited him to dinner soon after; he accepted and did not come. This was his usual habit, and numerous complaints were rife in consequence. After my husband s death, however, he wrote such a letter to me as to make me truly grateful to him. In the spring we spent two months in preparing for another sojourn in Europe. My husband collected and revised his shorter poems of the last decade, casting much aside, and getting them ready to be published later in a volume. He put our property in order, so that he could leave it and be free from pecuniary worries in regard to its management. The house was rented and a cottage in Kennett Square secured for the old people; the farm and garden were let to a tenant; and my husband, who had never had a talent for farming, whom aesthetic motives alone had influenced in his acquisition of land, felt himself suddenly relieved of a heavy burden, and was able to indite with a light heart the latter portion of his Epilogue to the " Home Pastorals " : "Now, if the tree I planted for mine must shadow another, If the uncounted tender memories, sown with the seasons, Filling the webs of ivy, the grove, the terrace of roses, Clothing the lawns with unwithering green, the orchard with blossoms, Singing a finer song to the exquisite motion of waters, Breathing profounder calm from the dark Dodonian oak-trees, 222 ON TWO CONTINENTS Now must be lost, till, haply, the hearts of others renew them Yet we have had and enjoyed, we have and enjoy them forever." CHAPTER XII IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN MORE than three years had elapsed since I had last seen my parents a separation long enough to have lent wings to my longing, and to cloud the joy of our re union by enabling me to observe the signs of age that the advancing years had left upon my dear ones. These were much more pronounced in my father than in my mother. In spite of her delicate health the latter bore her sixty-one years well and looked comparatively young; her carriage was as erect as ever, for her strong will enabled her to overcome her increasing feebleness and to simulate the activity of former days. My father, on the contrary, who was many years her senior, appeared painfully changed to my eyes his body emaciated, his complexion pallid, his eyesight dulled, and his mood unusually gentle and easily affected. My mother s letters had in some measure prepared me for these changes, but I was filled with deep sorrow to witness them with my own eyes. We arrived at Gotha in the early summer of 1872. From this date on the grandparents lived as in a bee hive. In addition to the grandchild that we brought, there were six that came from Russia and two from Westphalia. These little people and their respective parents filled all the rooms of the great house without inconvenience to anyone. The Saal and my mother s 223 224 ON TWO CONTINENTS sitting-room in the second story were usually deserted, as our large family preferred to congregate in the "Garden- room/* the summer dining-room that opened upon the vine-embowered veranda. Thence a few stone steps led down to the little flower garden with its wealth of rose trees, and into the berry patch behind the Observatory, the children s delight. It was a real pleasure for Taylor, after so much work and fatigue, to give himself up completely to the relaxa tion of this family reunion, and to live only for the passing hour. After weeks of rest he started out again to make local studies for the biography, and took me with him. In an open carriage, and under a smiling sky, we drove toward the hills and valleys of my beloved Thuringian Forest, and finally came to Ilmenau, "Delightful vale! Thou ever-verdant grove." * How beautiful it was even now! And, as if an enchanter had willed, there was but one room vacant in the Lion Inn the room in which Goethe had spent his last birth day in 1831. Another surprise awaited us, for Berthold Auerbach suddenly entered the room, and thus agreeably we renewed our acquaintance with him. The conversation at once turned upon the master, and he told us of an old lady, who before her death had imitated for his benefit the way in which Goethe read his poetry. Then Auer bach picked up our volume of Goethe s Poems, that we had brought with us, and began declaiming, in a deep solemn tone and measured accents: *Anmuthig Thai! Du immer griiner Hain! (See Goethe s poem, "Ilmenau.") IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 225 "Feiger Gedanken Bangliches Schwanken, Weibisches Zagen, Aengstliches Klagen, Macht Dich nicht frei." Then, raising his voice, with greater emphasis: " Allen Gewalten Zum Trutz sich erhalten, Nimmer sich beugen, Kraftig sich zeigen, Rufet die Arme Der Gotter herbei." * It was almost as if Goethe were actually among us, especially as we were in his very room. On the following day we drove from Ilmenau through the romantic valley of the Schwarza and along the idyllic banks of the Saale to Volkstedt, where Schiller once spent some happy months, and where he wrote " Die Kiinstler." We left our carriage to proceed without us, and visited the room in which the poet lived. Then, while the sun was sinking in the west, we followed the same path he had so often trod, led by the magnet of his * Cowardly faltering, Hesitant paltering, Womanish quailing, Terrified wailing, Turns not misfortune, Nor gives you the odds. Proving the master In spite of disaster, Yielding him never, Combating ever, Thus man invoketh The arms of the gods. L. B. T. K. 226 ON TWO CONTINENTS heart s desire to the neighbouring town of Rudolstadt * the walk to which we owe his glorious poem, "Der Spaziergang." After a short rest in this little out-of-the- way place, we ended our pilgrimage and returned to the paternal roof. The following month found us at Bormio, in the Val Tellina, where my husband took the baths celebrated from ancient times, and drank the water of Tarasp. In addition to this cure, he was benefited perhaps even more by the three weeks rest in this glorious Alpine nook, surrounded by rocky pinnacles, dark evergreen forests, grassy slopes, snow-capped peaks and glaciers, whence the air came down to us pure and bracing. The baths were off the beaten path of travel, and in the lonely hotel, 4,500 feet above the level of the sea, we found only some Italians of the higher classes and a few cultured English and Germans, a company whose equal is not often met with. Among my own compatriots I will mention only the noted translater and student of Dante, Karl Witte, and the eldest son of the poet Riickert. Another interesting acquaintance was a Scotchman, Lieutenant-Colonel Ram say, a well-educated man and an agreeable companion, whom we met again later in Florence. Our acquaintance began at the table d hote where I sat beside him, and he made a few remarks in German. Being at a loss for a word, he said, " But very likely you speak English better than I do German ; what is the German expression for ? (The word has escaped my memory.) " My husband can tell you better than I," was my answer. Thus the latter was drawn into the conversation, and a mutual liking * He was courting his future wife, Charlotte von Lengefeld, whose home was in Rudolstadt. IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 227 sprang up between the two men. In his memoirs,* published in 1882, he speaks thus of Bayard Taylor: "I complimented him upon the excellent manner in which he spoke English, which was surprising for a for eigner. But I am not a foreigner, he said. Well, a German, then. But I am not a German. I tried various nationalities, but without success, when he said Is there no other nation but that small island of yours that talks English? I said, How stupid I am! of course you are an American, and you are Bayard Taylor, to which he confessed. The purity with which he spoke English, and the careful grammatical construction of his sentences, along with the total absence of any accent, led me at first to think that he was neither English nor American. He was a most charming companion. I never met a man with more versatile talent or greater powers of fascination. As a conversationalist, I should say he was almost unrivalled. His powers of memory were also prodigious. He used often to recite to us whole poems in the Norse language. With every dialect he seemed to be familiar, in German especially so." The weeks passed quickly and pleasantly in intercourse with such intellectual people, varied by short trips into the valleys adjacent to Bormio, until a fall of fresh snow upon the surrounding peaks warned us that cooler weather was approaching; and the number of guests at the hotel began to dwindle perceptibly. On September 2d we also departed, and made our way southward to the Italian Lakes and over the Simplon to Lausanne. It was a delightful trip of a week s duration. During all * "Rough Recollections of Military Service and Society," by Lieuten ant-Colonel Balcarres D. Wardlow Ramsay. Balcarres D. Wardlow was the surname of his grandfather, Earl Balcarres. Colonel Ramsay was a younger son. 228 ON TWO CONTINENTS this time we did not hear the scream of a locomotive, we did not see a railway train. We enjoyed the true poetry of travel in an open carriage, feasting our eyes upon the deep blue sky and the beautiful scenery. Twice only we abandoned the carriage and embarked upon a steamer, to cross the azure expanse of the Lake of Como and the Lago Maggiore, while a rowboat took us from Porlezza, in its quiet bay hemmed in by dark hills, to the villa city of Lugano. On the trip across the Lago Maggiore to Pallanza we recognised a view, looking backward across the lake toward Baveno, as the original of one of Sanford R. Gifford s most beautiful landscapes; but the mystic veil of rain through which he looked at the scene and which he fixed upon his canvas had long been dissipated, and the last rays of the setting sun were gilding the green slopes above the little town. In Pallanza, opposite the twin enchanted isles, we met the stream of travellers who come down from the Alps and overrun Italy at this season of the year, and we, on our northward journey, reaped the advantage of this migration. The driver of a capacious six-horse carriage, who had just come over the Simplon and deposited his party, was anxious to return quickly for other passengers, and was willing to take us over the pass, a trip of two days, for a moderate sum rather than return entirely empty. Travellers of the present generation have no conception of the beauty of such a journey without steam over an Alpine pass, and thus miss one of the most glorious enjoyments upon God s earth. They can have no idea of the exhilaration that one feels amid the realm of Alpine summits, glaciers and snow-capped peaks, or of the views that delight the eye when some green pasture IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 229 or peaceful meadow bottom spreads out amid the lonely grandeur of these crags and mountain fastnesses they know not the true joy and poesy of travel. We were favoured by perfect weather. Upon the summit of the pass the sun shone warm, and a slight breeze blew, so that it seemed like summer come again. We spent the night in the valley of the Rhone, and the next day were obliged to resort to steam again at Siere; dust and heat accompanied us to the shores of Lake Leman, the sight of which evoked Voltaire s enthusiastic " Mon lac est le premier! " When we returned to Gotha the guests at the Observa tory had departed, and we were therefore doubly welcome. We took up our abode on the ground floor, where Taylor could work undisturbed, while my parents, at the ap proach of autumn, retired to the rooms of the upper story. My father s health had not improved of late, and since his eyesight had suffered as well, it was a satis faction to us to be able to amuse the dear old man during the long evenings by reading aloud and talking with him, and at the same time to relieve my mother in her arduous task. In the past winter my father had taught her to play chess with him, and they had played daily from five to seven o clock. " It often fatigued me very much," said my valiant little mother, "but I was glad to give him this pleasure." And she accomplished even more. Just as she had formerly mastered the rudiments of Latin, in order to help my brothers with their lessons, so she learned in the course of time to read mathematical formulae to her almost blind husband, and under his supervision corrected the proof sheets of the scientific works that he published in his last years. 2 30 ON TWO CONTINENTS During the course of this sojourn in Germany my husband received many marks of distinction. He had become endeared to my compatriots, particularly since he had rendered "Faust" comprehensible to English- speaking people in the very spirit of the great poet. In consequence of this feat, the Grand Duke of Weimar invited him one day in autumn to dinner in the Wartburg, where the ducal family were hunting the mountain cock.* On this occasion was established the entente cordiale, that continued between the grand ducal family of Weimar r and Taylor until the latter s death. The Grand Duke even then promised him every assistance in regard to his plan of the double biography, which filled my husband with encouragement. While he was in Germany he seized every opportunity that opened before him to collect material for this task, and he might have begun work at once if poetic conceptions had not filled his brain and left him no peace until he had rid himself of them. Thus, during this autumn at Gotha the "half dramatic, half idyllic" tale entitled "Lars" was written in rhymeless iambic verse. During October the poem, which had taken six years to ripen in his mind, flowed from his pen. "It returned upon my indolence this summer," he wrote to a friend, "and would take no denial." And later, in the midst of his work, he wrote : "It has been maturing in my head for so many years that all the inci dents are complete in advance. " The action of the poem, the scene of which is laid partly in the fields and fjords of Norway, partly in the idyllic neighbourhood of Hockessin (near Kennett), reaches its climax in the conflict between the peaceful, forgiving spirit of the Quaker and the *Auerhahn (Tetrao urogallus). IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 231 Berserker rage of the Norseman, in which the former is victorious. The author dedicated the rythmically beau tiful, picturesque tale to his old friend, the Quaker poet John G. Whittier. Besides this product of his creative faculty, and a number of shorter lyric poems, another poetic work saw the light while he remained in Germany. Even while he was at work on " Lars," he had mentioned in a letter to his friend T. B. Aldrich that the latter had covered or overlaid another idea, which now stood clear before his mind. But fate intervened to prevent him, for the present, from realising this last-mentioned conception. Greeley s sudden death at the beginning of December was an event of far-reaching tragic importance to Bayard Taylor. The unexpected news was communicated to him in the midst of the good fellowship of a dinner with the family of a friend. One of the guests casually remarked that Greeley s death had been announced by cable that morning. No one present was aware how profound a shock this occurrence was to my husband. For Taylor not only lost in him an old and tried friend, proved in word and deed, but the future of the Tribune as well, the paper in which his entire capital was invested, was rendered most precarious by this catastrophe. As soon as we had risen from dinner he whispered to me: "We must go, I cannot stay here any longer! " Anxious weeks followed. The fatality that he was not at home and on the spot, but was doomed to wait many days for detailed news to reach him, depressed him during this period of uncertainty to a degree unusual with him, whose courage had never failed before. He had 232 ON TWO CONTINENTS counted upon a continuance of the large profits that the paper had hitherto yielded. After curtailing the expenses of his property, this income was to enable him to devote himself in future without hindrance to his creative work, and especially to allow him to carry out his plans in regard to the biography of Goethe and Schiller. This hope now seemed suddenly shattered, the ground was slipping beneath his feet; for Greeley, the founder of the great newspaper, was also its preserver the soul of the under taking. Weeks passed before Taylor heard that the paper did not fall with its founder s death, but rather was re-established upon a sure foundation by its former assistant editor, Whitelaw Reid. A feature of this re organisation was the erection of a new, very expensive building, entailing a burden of debt, that precluded the payment of any interest for ten years to come upon the capital invested by the shareholders. My husband was therefore obliged to look for remunera tive work, and this was the only consideration that induced him to undertake a "History of Germany" for schools, in one volume. This task, including the neces sary study of authorities, accompanied him upon his wanderings until its completion the following summer. For the rigorous climate of the plateau of Gotha drove us south again early in 1873. On the way we left our daughter at an excellent boarding school in Baden- Baden, and went to Florence, where we spent two months among old and new acquaintances. One evening in the Palazzo Orsini, where our old friends Mr. and Mrs. James Lorimer Graham had established themselves, we met the Sage of Concord and his daughter, who were on their way back from Egypt. After dinner the gentlemen IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 233 were smoking in the library and we ladies sat in the drawing-room around a fire and talked. Suddenly the chairs upon which we sat began to rock, the entire room seemed to sway to and fro "An earthquake!" we exclaimed, springing to our feet. We rushed into the library, where the gentlemen had also started from their seats, with the exception of one, who remained quietly in his place. It was Emerson, who preserved his equa nimity as a true philosopher, and gave absolutely no outward sign of excitement. As every person with a claim to distinction possessed the entree of the Palazzo Orsini, "Ouida" * was one of the guests at an afternoon reception. Mrs. Graham told me: "She wore a white cashmere dress with an ex traordinarily long train. After greeting me she went into the middle of the room and turned herself around a number of times, so that her train formed a sort of hassock, upon which she sat down." At the end of April we returned to Gotha. Thence Taylor repaired to Vienna in the interests of the Tribune, in order to report the International Exposition. During this separation of a month we kept up an almost daily correspondence, from which I quote the following ex tracts : "HOTEL TAUBER. "Thursday evening, "April 24, 1873. "I reached here about four o clock, tired enough of the journey. . . .. There was no trouble at Boden- bach, the frontier; no passport required. . . . Got a cup of coffee at Prague, and some soup at Briinn ; but I was hungry, tired and dirty when I arrived. * Louise de la Rame e, the well-known authoress. 234 ON TWO CONTINENTS " What ! no soap ? * No ! But he didn t die of it ; only he couldn t get his hands quite clean before dinner, and afterwards he went out and bought a cake for 35 kreuzers." In my answer to this letter I was able to exculpate myself. I replied, "What! no soap? Yes! but though he did not die of it, he might have found it in his trunk, rosy and round, wrapped in a clean piece of paper, and he might have washed his hands clean, quite clean before dinner, and thereby saved 35 kreuzers!" Taylor, writing on April 25th, complained of an icy wind that blew down from the Alps, and then continued : "To-day Stillman made arrangements for the tele graphing to England and we agreed on our plan for the Opening. We are certainly stronger than any other N. Y. paper now, and hope to beat them all. . . ." "Tuesday morning, April 29. "Yesterday Young, of the Herald, Professor Hart for the World, and E. V. Smalley of the Tribune arrived. In the evening we had the grand banquet given by the Press. There were about 200 persons present. Strauss was there with his band, the dinner was gorgeous, the atmosphere gemuthlich, but there was no arrangement and no order, from first to last. After the President s speech, Edmund Yates, the English novelist, was an nounced as an American, coolly got up and spoke for the American Press. This made us Americans furious, and I insisted on being heard. Finally, when Julius Roden- berg mentioned me very handsomely as an Erzamerikaner a hint which Yates and the others understood, I spoke for fifteen minutes, constantly interrupted with cheers * Bayard Taylor prided himself upon the fact that he learned Foote s celebrated nonsense, which is too well known to need quotation, by heart in the space of seven minutes. IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 235 and bravos! and when I ceased the Viennese editors crowded around me, shaking hands, and thanking me for having said the best words spoken during the evening. It was a complete triumph. . . . The Germans were delighted with a word which they said I invented Weltgemuthlichkeit. "HOTEL TAUBER, "Thursday evening, May i. " This has been a busy and rather hard day for me ; but it is now happily over. ... I had a great deal of running to get the official speeches this morning, and to translate them before going to the Expos, then I had to wait nearly two hours, in the cold Rotunda, writing all the time, before the Imperial party came. The Feierlichkeiten were simple and sensible, but only imposing from the space, in which all details were swallowed up. About 12,000 people were on hand. "I got out and back to the Tribune Agency by 2 o clock, and went on writing until 3^, when I drove to the telegraph office with the completed MS. to give it into Stillman s hands. We got the first use of the telegraph and shall keep it until 4 columns (2 of which I wrote) are sent to Queenstown for tomorrow s steamer. The Herald, London News, etc. are all behind us. I feel sure we have beaten everybody. I must stop. It is nearly 6, when Stillman will return, and neither he nor I have had anything since a cup of coffee at 7 this morning." " VIENNA, Saturday evening, "May 17, 1873. "My time is getting short, and I must hurry up with my remaining work. I have now begun with my ninth letter to the Trib. and have only one more to write. That will make ten letters and two translations which I have 236 ON TWO CONTINENTS sent, besides doing all the public speaking for the United States. I think I have fairly accomplished all that could be expected of me. This morning the Neue Freie Presse contains a long original article on the Tribune, which / wrote for it, and which the Tribune now can, and probably will, use to its own glory. I shall leave moreover, with the knowledge that the hardest work is over, and I can easily be spared. . . . How I shall rejoice to get back to my quiet, steady work! It seems to me it will be easier and pleasanter than ever, after this wear and tear." During the summer we lived partly with my parents and partly in the pleasant little mountain town of Friedrichroda, where we felt almost as much at home as in my native place. Side by side with the " History of Germany," at which my husband worked diligently, the collection of material for the biography of Goethe and Schiller occupied him continuously; but for the present this was stored away in his wonderfully retentive memory. Fate had decreed that a great sorrow was to befall my aged parents during this summer. On June 26th my dearly beloved sister, Ida Repsold, died suddenly in Hamburg, whither she had followed her husband when a bride, in her thirtieth year. Even my father, who formerly preserved a stoical calm on similar occasions, lost his composure at this exceptionally heavy blow. For many days he was inconsolable in his grief, then, suddenly, his spirit seemed to be at peace. He was enigmatical when asked for an explanation of the change. "You would not believe me," he said, "if I should tell you how it came about." This from my father, who was surely not inclined to mysticism, filled us with wonder and left a deep impression. In August the business of the Commission for the Transit of Venus, of which my IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 237 father was the president, called him to Hannover, and my mother accompanied him. During my parents absence, while we were left behind to care for their house, my husband s imagination began to stir again after a long period of inaction, and to spur him on to renewed poetic expression. He began to write his drama, " The Prophet, and composed the poem " Summer Night," with the sub title " Variations of Certain Melodies." The latter points to the lyrical suggestions he received from the impassioned strains of Beethoven s immortal setting of "Adelaida" and other verses of Matthison,* combined with echoes from EichendorfFs f enchanting, dreamy "Sehnsucht," and his verses: * F. von Matthison was a poet of the elegiac-sentimental school of German poetry, which flourished about the end of the eighteenth century. The translation of his poem "Adelaida" is as follows: Lonely wanders thy friend in the vernal garden, Softly streams the magic light around him, Sifting thro the swaying leaves and blossoms, Adelaida! In the mirrored lake, in snows eternal, In the golden clouds of Day departing, In the starry heaven shines thine image, Adelaida ! Twilight zephyrs in tender foliage rustle, Lilies of the valley softly tinkle, Wavelets whisper and nightingales warble Adelaida! On my grave one day shall bloom, oh! wonder, From the ashes of my heart a flower On whose every purple leaf thou shinest, Adelaida! L. B. T. K. f A noted poet of the romantic school. He lived in the first half of the last century, and is famed principally for his songs and lyrics. The first stanza of "Sehnsucht" runs thus: In the glimmer of golden starlight I stood at the casement alone, And heard thro the silent far night A postilion s bugle tone. My heart in my bosom was burning And longing o erpowered me quite: "Ah! would that I could be journeying In the glorious summer night!" L. B. T. K. 238 ON TWO CONTINENTS "Sind s Nachtigallen Wieder was ruft, Lerchen die schallen Aus warmer Luft?"* The mingling of these melodies furnish the theme of Bayard Taylor s "Summer Night," which he clothed in the form of a Sonatina. In October Taylor repaired to Weimar for the purpose of making local studies for the biography, while I went to Leipzig for treatment by a celebrated specialist. As the two cities are not very far apart, my husband fre quently visited me and in the intervals we exchanged letters, from which I quote: "RUSSISCHER HOP, Weimar, " Monday morning, Oct. 13, 1873. "There came a letter of 8 or 10 pages from Stedman. He assures me that a letter about Lars must have miscarried; says the poem is genuine and will last. Then he pours out his disgust at the sensational taste of the day, and says everything which I have been saying for two years past. Finally he writes / strongly advise you to try a dramatic poem on a strictly American subject III f . . . Weimar is wonderfully improved, and I know I shall like the place more and more. It is now 10 o clock and this must go to the post. I hope I shall hear from you this evening." * Nightingales, are they Calling there, Or larks high soaring In sunlit air? L. B. T. K. t Taylor had already resumed work upon "The Prophet," which treats of just such a theme. Q E IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 239 "WEIMAR, "Monday night, 10 P. M. "Oct. 13, 1873. " I called on Scholl * this afternoon, and found him cheery and chatty. . . . The first thing S. did was to introduce me to Dr. Kohler, and then we three walked to Ober- Weimar and took coffee. . . . The day has been heavenly, and the park along the Ilm is enchanting. I have done three hours walking, and something else, which I enclose, f You will see that the air of Weimar is favorable. The poem has been in my head for three months, but I could not find the proper measure for it. This morning, in bed, I dreamed it, and on waking re membered part of the first verse and the character of the whole. I am curious to know what impression it makes on you. Now, I shall revise the Summer Night a little, and send both to the Atlantic." % "Wednesday morning. "Oct. 15, 1873. "Yesterday, I revised the Summer Night, and sent off both poems. ... I inclose the principal changes. The first passage follows the lines about the postillion s horn in the Andante, which (as you will see) it closes, and then begins a new Adagio, the end of which is the former end of the Andante. The third part (the former Adagio) is now called Appassionato. There are a few changes here and there, and also in the concluding Capriccioso, which now ends differently, as you will see. The original ending was a little too effeminate, even for a fancy; but now, by forgetting the part, that reproach is taken away. I hope you will understand all this: I can t make it any clearer. * Adolph SchSll, at the head of the Grand Ducal Library, f "The Two Homes." JThe editor did not accept "Summer Night," probably because in his opinion it was too impassioned. It was published later in the Galaxy. 24 o ON TWO CONTINENTS " As for the Two Homes the idea is as old as the hills that people mutually crave each other s lot in life. But the way in which I tell it seems to me entirely original, and the measure quite satisfies my ear. "Getting off these poems and writing several letters occupied me a good part of yesterday; but I took a long walk towards evening. Graf Beust left a card for me, and I made the acquaintance of Director Ruland (for merly Prince Albert s secretary), who is a very genial and agreeable man. . . . This morning is dull and cloudy, but not cold. I have my window open all day, without being too cold as I write. Over the trees of the Karls- platz I see the whole spire of Herder s church, and a little bit of the wood on the way to Tieffurt. Yesterday I found some by-streets with walled gardens, looking quite Italian. As I passed Goethe s Gartenhaus, and looked through the gate, I found myself wondering whether he had planted the bed of marigolds under the window. " "Thursday morning. "Oct. 16, 1873. "In the afternoon I walked to Belvedere (f Stunde) with Dr. Kohler. . . . When I came back to the hotel, I found that Hofrath Marshall (English Vorleser for the Princesses) had called upon me. I shall try to see him to-day. Yesterday I saw Herr von Gleichen * at the table an eccentric looking man, with nothing of either Schiller or Lotte in his face. I shall make his acquaintance by degrees. Director Ruland sits at the head of the table d h6te, and the others have their stamm-plsices near him. . . . The young Goethes are in Jena just now. I ve read Scholl s review of Lewes, which is very severe. S. s explanation of the Frederike episode is exactly my own. *Schiller s grandson (the son of his daughter Emilie), a painter of landscapes. In a letter to his daughter Taylor said, "They are all grandsons here, and not poets." L. B. T. K. IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 241 "Well after my running about yesterday, I wrote two pages of the Prophet in the evening, and mean to do a little every day. By the bye I had already changed the 5th stanza of the Two Homes. It now ends thus: "And over the orchards, near at hand, The gable shone on the quiet land, And far away was the mountain! " Every day I like Weimar more. From all I hear, the Hof is the reverse of exclusive, and the Adel are no stiffer then anywhere else. . . . When shall I visit you? Saturday, Sunday or Monday?" Friday morning. "Oct. 17, 1873. "Another wonderful day. I am getting on rapidly. Yesterday I called on Geh: Hofrath Marshall, a gentle man and scholar, with the soul of a poet. He thinks Emerson is nearer what Plato was than any other man in the world. In the evening I went to the theatre to see Die letzte Hexe a Comedy. It was capitally played. After, while drinking Vienna beer in the Gastzimmer, Herr von Gleichen came and sat opposite, in company with an intelligent, heavy-bearded man, who proved to be Baron v. Loen, a relative of Goethe on the Textor side, and Director of the Theatre here. I came gradually into conversation with both, and liked Gleichen more, the more I saw of him. ... He was so simple in his manners, so kind and cordial, that I think we shall be friends. I told him I might call upon him for some as sistance (not saying in what form). He gave me his hand at once, and said: I will do everything I can. This morning I made the acquaintance of the Scotchman Hamilton, the only friend of the Goethes, and the only individual who has any influence with them. He said to me, among other things: As you are not a 242 ON TWO CONTINENTS German, I think Wolf would be willing to show you the Nachlass. Wolf is expected every day, and as Hamilton seems to be a good-hearted fellow, and says he is glad I am undertaking the biography, I think I may reach the Goethes from the right side. "Moreover, I called on Gerard Rohlf yesterday. After this I wrote three more pages of the Prophet. You see my time is pretty well filled up." "Saturday morning, Oct. 18, 1873. " . . . I can t tell you how much it encourages me to find every one of my leading impressions and conclu sions in regard to Goethe, Schiller, and their intercourse, confirmed by everything I hear and by every competent person I meet. , . . I have nothing more to send you, for I shall bring the new scenes with me. I write something, whether much or little, every day, and find it the only way to prevent the Goethe interests from interrupting me. I want to go on with the main action while I am possessed with it. The scenes can afterwards be shifted or rewritten, if necessary, when I have the drama before me as a whole. It requires a different mode of work from such a poem as Lars, for instance, and I am agreeably surprised to find how readily my mind adapts itself to the new requirements put upon it." "Tuesday 4^ p. M. "Oct. 21, 1873. "What shall I tell you? That the day is raw and gusty, you know ; that I reached here punctually, you can easily imagine. My room looked rather bare and cold, coming from yours ; but I have a fire, and shall soon get used to it. There s a storm brewing, I think, and I must take a walk this evening because I may have no chance to-morrow. The circle at the end of the table took me back like an old member." IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 243 "Thursday morning, Oct. 23, 1873. "I spent two hours with Marshall on Tuesday evening: we talked Goethe, Shakespeare and Coleridge and drank a bottle of Burgundy. Yesterday he paid me a long visit. He has been unwell for weeks, but says the talk and the wine together restored him more than all the medicine he has taken. In the afternoon Gleichen paid me a visit, and after the opera Euryanthe, which I heard he talked with me until near midnight. Also I took a long walk yesterday, and broke ground on Act III." "Friday morning, Oct. 24, 1873. " I get on slowly with Act III. It is full of difficulties yet, if I am lucky to-day and to-morrow, I shall have three scenes finished by Sunday. There are some things in it which require very careful management. . . . "This is all I have to report, to-day. It is so dark and windy outside that I expect to work well in my room; but the Park will probably draw me out before evening." "Saturday, Oct. 25, 1873. " I found Preller in his atelier yesterday, a short stumpy man of 70. He was very polite and kind: to-night I am to call at his house. I plagued my head a great deal with The Prophet yesterday, but the knot came loose while I walked in the Park, and now I have but one more rough place in this Act. . . . "Gleichen, Schennis and Loen are excellent company, but I still like the first best. He has something of Schiller s temperament both the strong and weak points, and that honest goodness of heart which all who stood near to Schiller found in him." "Monday morning, Oct. 27, 1873. "I had a quiet but pleasant day in Gotha. . . . 244 ON TWO CONTINENTS Your father . . . went out with Fritz to walk, but was driven back by the rain. He has given up some technical business connected with the Venus, which is a good thing. . . . I ve unravelled all the tangles in my 3rd Act, and fully expect to finish it this week. The 4th Act will give me some bother, but the 5th not a great deal." "Tuesday morning, "Oct. 28, 1873. " Yesterday ... in the evening I went to Preller s house, and was received most cordially by him and his wife. In the course of an hour such an understanding was established, that he offered to tell me everything he knew, brought out his drawing of the dead Goethe . . . and voluntarily promised to trace me a copy! He has a cast of Trippe! s bust of G. and when I told him that I had it, with the Venus of Milo in the other corner, as man and woman, he got up without a word, took hold of my arm and led me to the Venus of Milo in the opposite corner of his room! He is a vigorous original character, talks a very broad Eisenach dialect, brings out now and then a strong word that has the force of an oath, yet is brimful of sense and intelligence. " . . . One or two of the younger men here seemed to be doubtful whether I would get anything out of Preller : this is my first experience ! I like him hugely. "Act III. moves forwards. I am in the 5th scene there will be 7 or 8, I m not certain which. I puzzle myself, wondering whether you ll like this or that pas sage, but am never quite sure." "Thursday, Weimar. Oct. 30, 73. " I am on the 7th and last scene, which will be finished to-morrow, so I can give you the whole act when I come. "To-night I go to Preller again. Wolf. v. Goethe has returned, as I learned yesterday, and I must try to make his acquaintance. ... IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 245 " To-day is very dull, but less raw and cold than yester day. I am in good condition, not the least (apparently) ange griff en by the tragedy; but then I have gone over the passionate scenes many times in advance. Adios, mi buen amada!" " Friday morning, Oct. 31, 1873. " I will, after all, write two lines to repeat that I am coming to-morrow evening. Act III. is finished, and I am tolerably satisfied with it. I had another hour and a half with Preller last night, hearing many interesting little particulars. . . . und so auf M or gen!" "Monday, 3! Nov. 3. "I had a lovely trip such soft, pure sunshine, the willow, alder and oak trees green, and the meadows so fresh! It is a heavenly day. Reached the table before most of the others. Hamilton arrived 3 hours before me. He has just gone to call on Wolf. v. Goethe, and will go with me to Maltzahn, to-morrow (M. is the editor of Lessing s works). . . . Hamilton saw Bancroft and H. Grimm in Berlin. That s all the news. As for me, I feel fresh and fine: am going out now for a walk, before sunset, the sky and air are so tempting. To-night I hope to plant the first spade in Act IV." " Wednesday morning, "Nov. 5, 1873. "My time is more filled up than before, but I keep enough for work, besides, I shall finish the ist scene this morning, and it is not an easy one. "Yesterday I found Frl. Frommann at home an elegant, refined, intelligent and most agreeable little old lady of 73. I talked with her for more than an hour, and heard many particulars. She promised to show me Minna Herzlieb s portrait, when I come again. Is much disappointed with Lewes. To me she is really an acquisi tion. Then I went to the Goethe house and asked for 246 ON TWO CONTINENTS Herr v. Goethe. He was out . . . I wrote nearly all the afternoon, and in the evening went again to Preller, whom I found surrounded, as usual, by artistic girls. He told me many unimportant anecdotes of Goethe, but all illustrative. I had to stay for supper, which was very simple, but cheerful. One of the artistic ladies waited on the table. " Hamilton gave me three anecdotes of Goethe yester day, which he had from Ottilie. Frl. Frommann said that Lewes had evidently taken many things from com mon, vulgar sources in Weimar. . . . You see I m getting along very well. The Prophet is a great deal of society for me at hours when I would otherwise be lonely; and my staying here is a great advantage to him" "Friday morning, "Nov. 7, 1873. ". . . About 5, I went to Goethe s, and was ad mitted at once. Going up the famous staircase (nothing like as stately as I expected to find it) I was taken to the very top of the house, under the roof. The old woman ushered me into a very little sitting-room, where were two oldish ladies. I bowed and they did; then G. ap peared at a side door and took me into a larger sitting- room beyond. I was amazed to find him so handsome and looking so much like a weaker and more fantastic Goethe. He remembered you, and the fact that you knew and liked his mother evidently made him more cordial to me. But Frl. Frommann, I found, had already been saying a word for me. He talked for an hour, hardly stopping to take breath about his relation to Goethe, the Nachlass, his and his brother s position, etc. I let him state his views, without contradiction or comment, which he seemed to like; for he said at last: It s a satisfaction to me, to hear my grandfather spoken of, without being forced to keep silence or to oppose what I hear/ He is full of singular intellectual twists, and it IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 247 is wonderful how they are nearly all perversions of Goethe s qualities. I was brought very near the latter, through him. "Well a n we nt off favorably. He invited me to come again in the day-time, and see Stieler s portrait, Hackert s and Tischbein s pictures, etc. "I shall finish scene II. to-day. Farewell for 24 hours!" "Saturday morning, Nov. 8, 1873. " . . . Yesterday Gleichen introduced me to Herr v. D , who . . . was in Egypt and the Orient with the young G. D. They were both delighted with Boker, but very much astonished to learn that he was a poet! . . . Scholl, Marshall and the others who know Wolf. Goethe, cannot conceal from me their sincere relief that we have met and established a footing of cordial intercourse. I now see that they were all un certain, though they did not say so. I must call on Frommann again this afternoon: . . . Then I ll go to Pirch,* having found where he lives, and that he s Excellenz, and really Prussian Minister a sort of family- polite position, of no consequence since the Empire is begun. ... I expect to be half-way through with Act IV. by to-night, and in time to see Wallenstein s Lager and the Piccolomini" "Sunday morning, Nov. 9, 1873. "Yesterday I saw Frl. Frommann. She said Wolf. Goethe is rather astonished at himself, yet very much satisfied, that he was so frank and communicative towards me! She has known him all his life, yet she says: I never know beforehand how I shall find him, and how he will receive what I say. *Baron von Pirch, who was attached to the Prussian Legation at the time Taylor was in charge of the American Legation at St. Peters burg. 248 ON TWO CONTINENTS "I afterwards went to Pirch s, and was received with great cordiality. She . . . remembered nearly all our intercourse how you and Mrs. Locock were presented at the same time, and her little girl came to play with Lilian, etc. . . . They greet you and hope to see you here. " Wallenstein s Lager was one of the most perfect representations I ever saw on any stage. How I enjoyed it! The theatre was so crammed that I barely succeeded in getting the last seat. ... " I finished Scene IV. yesterday. There will be three more in the Act, but they are selected and arranged in my mind, so I shall have the Act done by Thursday, at the latest. Scene IV. (what it should be) puzzled me until the last moment, but I m quite satisfied with what it is." "Thursday, Nov. 13, 1873. ". . . To-day I go to Wolf. Goethe, who expects me, at 1 2 ; in the afternoon, to Pirch s. I hear of opinions in circulation, which undoubtedly help me in every way. For instance, Scholl told Marshall that his showing me the MSS. in the library convinced him at once that I knew the material and had the truest instinct for what was valuable and what was not. ... I am half through with the yth and last scene, which I shall finish to-day. . . . I feel quite sure I can write Act V. next week, as all the threads of the plot are now drawn together. Then I ll go to Leipzig for a week. . . . But I will come this Saturday also for I must read you Act IV. before I write Act V." "WEIMAR, Nov. 13. "I finished Act IV. just before 12, and then went to Goethe, with whom I stayed an hour and a half. He was thoroughly gemutklich and agreeable, showed me many things, and offered to show me all the rooms, collections, etc., but begged me to wait until next spring for the latter, since they were now so cold and dreary. IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 249 Of course I agreed but I hope nothing will come between, to interfere. Then he took me into the garden, and we walked up and down Goethe s walk for a while, under his study window. I pulled a rose-leaf, saying I must have something, whereupon he said you must have something too, and gave me the ivy-leaf, which I enclose." "Thursday, Nov. 18, 1873. " I am invited to a soiree at the Erbgrossherzog s this evening. . . . The G. D. has determined to keep away, on account of the row in the Kunstschule. Began Act V. last evening couldn t help it. To-day, D. V. I shall finish Scene II. There s no use of waiting, while I m in the humor to write. I shall pay two or three adieu visits this afternoon, and so get comfortably through by Friday morning." "Nov. 21, 1873. "The Erb G. Duchess was very agreeable: . . . Frl. v. S was also charming and the Countess Y . Gleichen was there, but not Goethe : We had croquettes, venison and jelly on silver plates, and there was no stiff ceremony, except on the part of the Excellenz v. W , whom I offended by talking just 5 seconds too long with Herr v. W before I saluted her. However, I sought her out afterward, old and dragon-like as she is, and miselte recht ordentlich. . . . The Prophet calls me, and I ll stop here." Next morning in Leipzig my husband finished his drama, and before we went to dinner he read the entire fifth act to me. This conception had never presented itself to him in other than the dramatic form ; but he was fully conscious that it was not adapted to the stage. The motives and action are borrowed from the home life of America. The farm, the camp meeting, the religious element that stirs the country population so deeply, 250 ON TWO CONTINENTS the evolution of a new sect, for which the unbounded and uninhabited West offered the most favourable soil all this could belong only to the United States. The history of the Mormons served him as a background, but the characters, as well as the plot and development of the drama, were the author s own invention, and, as he expressly stated, have nothing to do with the Mor mons. To unprejudiced readers of the Bible the drama and what the author intended to convey are easily com prehensible, as the tragedy of the action is based upon the belief in the divine inspiration of the scriptures that precludes any other than the literal interpretation. When the drama was finished the author s poetic energy began to flag, and a reaction set in that could not fail to succeed such intense mental labour mingled with numerous social engagements. A period of relaxa tion in my parent s home was therefore very grateful to my husband. The month of December passed in cheerful leisure. We lived, as Taylor expressed himself, "like the early Christians, not taking much thought of the morrow, yet reasonably happy and hopeful." . One circumstance only aside from the frequent indis positions of my father, which caused much anxiety on his account filled us with dismay. This was the rigorous winter climate of my native town, that began to manifest itself in a disagreeable way about the solstice. My husband s health as well as my own required that we should avoid extreme cold and take refuge in the South; and in order to reap the full benefit of those sunny climes our intention this time was to proceed to Egypt. The expense of the trip and of the sojourn by the Nile was to be furnished by letters to the Tribune that Taylor had IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 251 promised to write. With heavy hearts we bade adieu to the dear old folks, and with slight delays we travelled by way of Naples and Messina to Alexandria, and thence to Cairo. As the season was too far advanced for a trip up the Nile, we were perforce obliged to content ourselves with the excursion to the Pyramids of Gizeh, while Taylor went alone to the Fayoum, which was then almost terra incognita. An unusually cold, rainy winter had descended upon the shores of the Mediterranean. In Cairo the temper ature was several times so low that we longed for a fire. On March ist snow fell in Suez, and not till toward the end of the month did the weather improve, when the Khamsin * began to blow and brought us hot, sunny days. In Naples I learned of the death of my beloved father on March 28th. The sad news was first communicated to me by a newspaper notice, and letters with more detailed information reached me in Rome, whither we hastened without delay. My father had died peacefully after a short illness. His bier had been made in the upper hall of the Observatory, and a wreath of laurel crowned his snowy hair. With short interruptions we continued our journey Gothaward till we arrived in the orphaned Observatory and greeted my sorrowing mother a most painful home coming ! While my husband again tarried a short time in Weimar, I helped my mother vacate the house, which belonged to the ducal government. My father s numerous manu- * Khamsin (pronounced Kamse en) is the Arabic word for fifty, a designation of the southwest wind, which blows fifty days without interruption from the Sahara Desert. L. B. T. K. 252 ON TWO CONTINENTS scripts, the products of an enormous industry, were given by his widow to the Academy of Science in Leipzig. The decorations of the departed, seven in number, were returned according to the rule to the governments which had conferred them, and she distributed among her children most of the valuable heirlooms that had de scended to her from her parents and grandparents. In Weimar Taylor made the acquaintance of Walther von Goethe, Wolf, being absent, who accorded him a reception equally friendly as his brother had done, and fulfilling the latter s promise, showed him the rooms of his grandfather and various articles of the inheritance. Describing a tea at Belvedere, with the grand ducal family, my husband wrote to me: " They were as amiable and agreeable as possible. The two Princesses were delighted with Lars, and had sent to England for more of my works. I sat beside the Grand Duchess. There were only two Hofdamen and two Kammerherren no servants during tea. The Princess Marie handed me cream, sandwiches, etc. I really enjoyed the evening very well, and managed to tell the Herrschaften various things they didn t know. They are all thoroughly good-hearted, and so unceremonious that I can t understand how the Weimar court has been misrepresented. "* At the end of the summer we bade farewell to Germany, in whose soil we now left three freshly made graves. t esting and Putnam s Sons in a volume with several other papers under the title: "Critical Essays and Literary Notes." fMy uncle, August Bufleb, the friend and Nile companion of Bayard Taylor, had also died in the summer of 1874. IN THE OLD WORLD AGAIN 253 On the other side also we found changes; beside Horace Greeley, another friend of old standing, George P. Put nam, Taylor s faithful New York publisher, had un expectedly departed this world, and our beautiful " Cedar- croft" was in a state of deterioration under the careless management of unprincipled tenants. As my husband was not only determined to live in New York henceforth, but was even forced to do so at present by the necessity of earning money, he gave the property into the care of his family, and thenceforward we did not enter its doors except as guests. CHAPTER XIII SUNSET IT was the fall of the year when we arrived in " Cedar- croft" on our return from Europe. A pleasant surprise awaited us. The people had planned to celebrate the homecoming of the poet of "Lars," and in consequence an invitation was tendered to Bayard Taylor and his family to attend a basket picnic at "Mount Cuba," near Hockessin, Delaware. When the appointed day arrived a radiant sun shone in the deep azure sky, gilding the brilliant hues of the autumn landscape and illuminating the country, which shimmered in a faint blue haze. An hour s drive brought us to the place, where a large rectangular pavilion had been erected on the banks of a stream that brawled in its rocky bed, surrounded by wooded hills. The walls of the structure were draped with flags and garlanded with wreaths of autumn leaves, between which tablets were suspended, bearing quota tions from Taylor s poems, framed in ivy. A large con course of friends from far and near awaited us. Many of them were old friends and acquaintances of Taylor s youth Quakers or the descendants of Quakers. We were warmly welcomed and greeted with handshaking, and then all turned their attention to the long richly laden tables. The latter were set with the best that the fertile soil of Chester County and Delaware, the poultry yards and larders of the efficient housewives, could 254 SUNSET 255 furnish. The appetising viands were diversified by baskets of luscious grapes and great nosegays of beautiful autumn flowers blue gentians and lobelias from the meadows, asters and goldenrod from the hillsides, mingled with the crimson leaves of the maple and the pale gold of the sassafras, of which the poet sings in "Lars." To him was given the seat of honour, with his mother and his wife on either hand. After a while the first speech was made by the chairman of the com mittee of arrangements, who expressed the thanks of Hockessin to the author of "Lars," because he had not only immortalised the idyllic beauty of the valley, but had also given poetic expression to the spirit of Quaker thought and principle. Similar speeches, interspersed with poems written for the occasion, followed, and the hours passed without our taking note of them. When the setting sun touched the tops of the encircling woods the poet arose and in a voice vibrating with emotion gave expression to his heartfelt gratitude for "a day which will stand in my memory bathed in its own solemn and sacred light. * It was indeed an hour that compensated for much that he had borne in the past. With renewed courage he again turned to the laborious work with which he was forced by the exigencies of life to burden himself. While my husband was in the West, whither numerous lecturing calls had summoned him, I moved our belong ings to New York and put our quarters in order, which the head of the house did not see till Christmas. Before his return he wrote: *From Bayard Taylor s address at Mount Cuba, published in Dela ware State Journal, October 17, 1874. 256 ON TWO CONTINENTS "When you get the boxes, etc., from the storage, let Lilian put up my Ersch and Gruber, and the other books, so that I may have a little library on coming home. I d like to have my colors, etc., in readiness, and perhaps you could get me one or two little canvases at Schaus s. I shall paint on Sundays this winter instead of writing." In the latter portions of the winter Taylor was also more or less en route. He thought it advisable to make hay while the sun shone, and, in fact, the proceeds from his lectures were not to be disdained. His letters from the West, however, gave me some insight into the dis comforts and hardships that he had to endure. " It was plain to me," I wrote to my husband, "from your first letter in Omaha, that these fatiguing journeys use you up. Even if you say in the next : I was not so much fatigued after lecturing as on previous Saturdays (caro mio, you write thus every Sunday), the question is: how dreadfully tired were you at first? " At intervals he had pleasant experiences to relate. In Mankato, Minn., Freiligrath s son, Wolfgang, paid him a visit. " He is settled here as a fur-trader," Taylor wrote, "and seems to be doing well. He is quite hand some, remarkably like his father." In Illinois he was the guest of a German, Doctor S , and his "highly well-born wife nee Princessin von B . I couldn t help thinking of Spielhagen s novels." Another time he wrote: "I heard a funny newspaper expression on the train this morning. Two men were talking about a third, and one said : He lives at Harper s down on the bottom, doesn t he? The other answered: He did live there, but he s married now, and gone to himself to live!" In April, 1875, Taylor wrote to me from the West: SUNSET 257 "You ll be surprised to hear that I occasionally write a few lines of poetry! But I ll not tell you what they are, until I return." When he arrived home he produced a manuscript, and read the Shepherd s monologue to me, which forms the opening scene of his last important poetical work. But according to his wont, he would not disclose the plan and scope of his creation. When I expressed my surprise and liking of the opening passage, however, he went so far as to tell me the title of the drama: it was to be called " Eos." Not long after he dis carded this name, and gave preference to " Prince Deuka- lion." When I asked him: " Why Prince?" he replied, "Because this Deukalion is a type far superior to all other men." This, his last drama, was later characterised by him as "the poem of my life." It sprang from his inmost spiritual thought, and contains the sum of his ripest views of life and the world, of his religious and social beliefs, of his rich and varied knowledge and insight. If much is veiled and only comprehensible to the initiated, this is in accordance with the spirit of poetry. Taylor expressed himself in regard to such manifestations in one of his notes to the Second Part of "Faust," where he says: "We find traces of that truth which reaches the poet by a deeper intuition, having the involuntary nature, yet also the distinctness, of a dream; and which always con tains more than its utter er can explain. What to the common mind would be guesses are to the poetic mind prophetic glimpses, which may not be verified during the poet s life. He cannot reject them, for they come to him with an irresistible authority : he must therefore be 258 ON TWO CONTINENTS silent and suffer them to stand as mysteries for his con temporaries." * The idea of the poem had long been present in embryo in his mind, but it was not till now, in his riper years, that he felt equal to the task of calling it into existence. Even his dearly beloved plan of the twin biography of Goethe and Schiller was for the present driven into the background by the promptings of the Muse. The summer passed amid a number of short trips hither and thither. During a visit to Mr. and Mrs. James T. Fields at their picturesque cottage in Manchester- by-the-Sea, we met the aged poet Whittier, whose peculiar placidity always seemed to shed an atmosphere of peace upon everyone who came in contact with him. The great dark eyes alone, that shone in the pale oval of his face, gave evidence of the poetic fire that burned in his soul. Whenever I saw him he seemed to me the ideal manly type of a handsome Quaker. Toward the end of August, while I was still in the country, Taylor made the acquaintance of the Southern poet, Sidney Lanier, then a rising star in the constellation of American poets. The two men were mutally delighted with one another at their very first meeting. Next day my husband wrote: " Lanier, the Georgia poet, came, and is a very refined, agreeable man. I expect him every minute to dine with me on a single chicken." Lanier s personality was such as to attract attention anywhere. His noble features were framed in thick, dark curling * The sentences quoted above will be found in a somewhat abbrevi ated form in Note 45, to the second volume of the Translation of "Faust." The full text cited by me is in a manuscript book, which I gave to Harvard University Library, along with a number of others, after the poet s death. . SUNSET 259 locks; his full, long beard concealed the pallor of his cheeks, and his dark eyes had a look as if he dwelt in another world than ours. In him two sister arts were wedded music and poetry; and one needed first to recognise the musician in order fully to appreciate the Doet. His young wife, whom we learned to know a year later, is likewise a Southerner. Her delicate beauty and large, dreamy dark eyes made her seem specially created to be the helpmate of a poet. Lanier was then in the midst of his fight for existence, which he heroically continued to wage until his untimely death. Bayard Taylor was also engaged in a manful struggle for the necessaries of life. Lacking any fixed income since the failure of the Tribune to pay dividends, he was obliged when autumn approached to look again to a lecturing tour for his principal source of revenue. At the same time the lyrical drama upon which he was writing was continuously present to his mind. At the end of the summer he wrote a part of the Second Act, encountering some difficulties with the second scene. After rewriting it several times, he laid it aside, and at the turn of the year the whole act was revised and fairly copied out. How it was possible for him to foster and produce a poetic work requiring as much profound reflection as " Prince Deukalion," during a period of great physical exertions and hardships, such as his lecturing tours forced upon him, is more than I can say. On January 26th he wrote to me from Fort Wayne, "I am trying to write a little on Scene i, Act III, to-day"; and on the 3oth, while resting over Sunday in Chicago, he said, " I have had little chance to write anything Scene i is not finished. But I keep fresh and vigorous, 2 6o ON TWO .CONTINENTS and do a good [deal] of head-work on the poem, as I go along." After his return home in March he wrote the second scene of the Third Act; but after its conclusion the poem remained at a standstill until the autumn of the following year. Not only did external obstacles intervene, but he was also hindered for the time being by a serious difficulty in the further development of the fun damental idea of the poem. As far as externals were concerned there were two circumstances that directed his thoughts into other channels. On March 2yth Taylor again joined the editorial staff of the Tribune, after more than twenty years of absence a step to which he was forced because during the non-payment of dividends to the stockholders of the paper this was the only way to secure himself a regular income. He hoped, at the same time, to find leisure at home for the furtherance of his own creative work. The sequel shows how vain this expectation was. Shortly after this decisive step my husband was appointed the poet of the Centennial Celebration of American Independence, after the honour had been declined by the older poets. His patriotic conscience would not permit him to do likewise, and so he "stepped into the breach at the eleventh hour," as he expressed himself. The Ode was accomplished after weeks of mental exertion, in which he strained every nerve to the utmost. At the same time he fulfilled even the most trivial of his duties at the Tribune office. He bent his neck to a yoke that weighed upon him more and more heavily as time progressed. The arrangement at first was that he should undertake the literary part of the paper, particularly the critical reviews, which were germane to his profession. But additional work was SUNSET 261 soon put upon him. He was sent as correspondent to the opening ceremonies of the International Exposition at Philadelphia on May loth, and later was required to visit the fair in the same capacity, especially to report upon the art exhibit. How arduous these different tasks proved to the man of fifty may be seen from an entry in my diary on May nth: "B. T. did not come back till midnight; after returning from Philadelphia he went straight to the Tribune office and finished his report there. He has had no time to eat anything since two o clock in the afternoon." That summer, the first in which duty kept him in the city, was, moreover, the hottest on record. His wife and daughter went to "Cedarcroft," but he could only snatch an occasional Sunday there for rest. A letter of June 1 4th says, "All goes well here. I wrote two edi torials yesterday ... I called on Stedman s last night; they were in grief about their banana-bird, which had been eaten by a rat." On the 23d of the same month he wrote: "I shall write on Weimar to-morrow and Sunday, to keep off longing for you and Cedarcroft/" About the same time I wrote to my mother : We suffer a great deal from the heat, and still the temperature rises from day to day. ... I am filled with anxiety for my poor husband, who swelters in the hot city. His newspaper work did not permit him to come out last Sunday, but we hope to see him next Saturday. Then we are all three going to Phila delphia on Monday to be ready for Independence Day Celebration next morning." The Fourth of July was illuminated by a burning sun. 262 ON TWO CONTINENTS But in order to describe the events of that day exactly as they happened I must again have recourse to the words in which I related them to my mother : " At an early hour we repaired to a parlour in the Conti nental Hotel, where the Governors of several states were assembled, and the members of the committee received us. Then we proceeded in couples to Independence Square. My husband gave me his arm and Lilian had the honour of walking with the Governor of New Mexico. The platform was erected just behind Independence Hall, and was large enough to accommodate the invited guests with seats. In front, overlooking Independence Square, was the speakers stand ; we were shown to seats close by. Awnings were stretched in sections over the platform, to shield the thousands of guests from the fiery rays of the sun, but the countless multitude that thronged the square, shoulder to shoulder, had no protection beyond the scanty shade of some old trees, and sheltered itself with umbrellas and sunshades as best it might. And yet this immense concourse stood for five whole hours without losing patience or parting with its holiday humour. "The last guest to arrive upon the platform was Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. He came in plain clothing and alone; after he had taken his seat a march announced the beginning of the ceremonies. Then the Mayor of Philadelphia advanced to the edge of the platform, and held up to the view of the people a document yellow with age the Declaration of Independence. Thousands upon thousands of voices joined in wild cheering, and when the hurrahs at last ceased the Mayor handed the parchment to Mr. Lee, of Virginia, the grandson of one of the signers, who read the priceless scroll aloud. The National Ode followed. The poet advanced to the edge of the platform, facing the vast audience, and declaimed by heart, without a manuscript, the rythmical Pindaric SUNSET 263 strophes of his Ode in his own sonorous, far-reaching tones. After the first few lines a hush settled down upon the throng that up to the present moment had been more or less restless and noisy, and this continued broken only here and there by applause until the final stanza, when the air was rent with a storm of shouts and cheers. You can imagine how proud we, his wife and daughter, felt. " The Ode was followed by the oration, which William M. Evarts read from his manuscript, and the celebration was concluded by singing the hundredth psalm: Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands, in which the populace joined. "Taylor felt so exhausted by the excitement of the day and the cruel heat that we hastened to evade the crowd by leaving immediately after the singing. We were fortunate in being able to follow in the wake of General Sheridan and his staff, for whose exit a lane was being made. But before we reached Independence Hall, through which our path lay, we experienced some moments which can never be forgotten. A large number of the common people had crowded upon the platform, and stood like a wall on both sides of the narrow passageway through which we were obliged to pass. As soon as they caught sight of Taylor cries resounded on all sides: That s Bayard Taylor! That s him! There he comes, our Centennial Poet! Hurrah for our Poet! and hands were stretched out from either side eager to grasp his. Words cannot express how our hearts were moved by this ovation from the people. It was the fairest tribute that the poet could desire." The following morning duty called my husband back to New York, and I accompanied him for a visit of a week. There a number of tasks awaited him, which he accomplished only with the most strenuous exertion in an atmosphere of 100. One evening, when he was 264 ON TWO CONTINENTS entitled to a period of rest after an exhausting day s work in the office, he was recalled on account of an important contribution, and did not return till after midnight. Unremitting, inexorable work was his portion. In the latter part of July he wrote to me: Yesterday I wrote an article on Stanley and translated two columns of Schurz s letter." Then he mentioned his editorials on the Orient and Mexico ; and a review of Lord Houghton s Poems, that he had written, and on August gth he in quired: "Have you read my two editorials on Author ship, and Brain-work?" These were all articles that merited a better fate than to be consigned to oblivion as ephemeral newspaper hackwork, for he expended his best mental powers upon everything that he wrote. Four weeks later we were together again in New York, but soon after parted with our daughter, who went to Vassar College to finish her education. Meanwhile our circle had become more extended than ever and our social intercourse was stimulating alike to mind and heart. Friends frequently came to see us of an evening, and talked for an hour or so. Receptions did not entail large expenditure of money, and people still enjoyed the divine gift of true friendship, the cultivation of which is rendered impossible nowadays by the vast extent of the city s limits. Our Sunday evenings were gatherings which many people gladly attended, so that our modest, but cosy, little home was hardly able to hold them all. At our frequent small dinners the courses were few, but the spirits of the participants ran high. Friends often dropped in uninvited to luncheon, where an extra place was always ready. This informal friendly intercourse was the preserving element for Taylor in that period of SUNSET 265 arduous work and bitter disappointment. His natural inclination was social, and he was able to throw off his yoke in his hours of leisure and to give himself up completely to the enjoyment of the hour. He was then a cheerful, entertaining companion, who had the gift of diffusing life and spirits throughout the company, and of awakening mirth and laughter by his inextinguishable humour and the witty observations that never lapsed into biting sarcasm. He sometimes indulged in punning. One evening he returned late from a gentlemen s dinner, and told me of a joke that he had perpetrated. One of the guests had bored him by talking continually of sun myths. After a while Taylor grew tired of this, and said: "Have you ever thought of the reason why the name Smith occurs so frequently?" When no one had an answer ready he continued, "Smith is evidently a contracted form of sun myth ; thus : Sun myth Sumyth Smith." The whole company burst out laughing, and the subject of sun myth was no longer broached. Con cerning an attack of indigestion he one day remarked to a friend that he had been obliged to resort to "Pere A. Gorick, the curate of St. Omac" for relief. Whether the expression "cherub s toes" for pink radishes was his own or not I do not know, but I am inclined to believe it was original. Among the memoranda from Taylor s own pen is an entry, descriptive of a dinner at which we were present about this time. I quote it almost entire. "January ist, 1877. "On Monday last, Dec. 25th, 1876, my review of Tapper s Drama (?) of Washington appeared in The 266 ON TWO CONTINENTS Tribune. Coming home from the office on Tuesday evening, I was quite surprised to find an invitation for us from Bryant to dine with him next day, to meet Mr. Martin F. Tupper. Marie had already accepted, as the messenger waited for an answer: moreover, never before in my life had Bryant invited me to his house, and I was a little curious to meet him once as host. " On arriving, we found Bryant, his daughter Julia, and the dapper Tupper in the parlor. The last had changed considerably since I saw him here in 1851 ; but he looked better, for age had given him something which is not dignity, but might pass for it. I noticed that his right hand is shrunken, either from gout or natural deformity; that his legs are spindly and his patent-leather feet small. He was a little effusive on being introduced, and I could not make much of a reply, for I really did not know what to say. Almost immediately entered Dr. Holland and wife, and I soon saw that we were the whole dinner party. Dr. H. with all his sincere amiability is a little unready or unflexible on such occasions: he has not learned how to unbend and take society sportively. I began to suspect that Bryant had invited me with a purpose ; and I at once decided to fulfil the purpose. " The dinner was good and abundant, with all the con ventional wines. The Hollands, of course did not drink, but everybody else made free. It was not long before Tupper betrayed his nature. I think the first evidence was his complacent assertion that most of the American names we suppose to be Indian are really corrupted European names. Give an instance! I said. He was a little disconcerted, but presently answered: Mobile. That is certainly French. It sounds so, I said; but perhaps you don t know how it came that the settle ment was founded, not long ago, by Northern men, who quarrelled about the appointment of the land. A fight was imminent, when somebody opened a barrel of petro leum which he found among the stores, threw it over SUNSET 267 them, and thus restored peace. Therefore they decided to call the place Mob-ile? I looked furtively at Bryant, whose upper face was stolid; but his gray mustache will conceal a large smile, and I noticed a slight quivering about the edges of his beard, which induced me to go on. Tupper was evidently mystified. Presently, some thing led him to talk about Greek sculpture, It s a great mistake, he said, to suppose that the Greeks knew any thing of the human form. Their proportions were all wrong. Give an instance! I exclaimed. He stam mered: Ah well there s the Milo of Venus the head is a great deal too small. I looked at Marie, who sat opposite, between him and Holland, and came near bursting into a shriek. " After dinner he turned the conversation upon dreams, and said that his chapter on Ambition in Proverbial Philosophy was a dream. He proposed reading it which of course could not be avoided, but was a positive infliction. His reading was that of a school-boy, monot onous and wearisome in the highest degree. As soon afterward as possible, I asked Bryant: Have you ever read the fragment of an epic poem on Sennacherib, written by Cabot, of Boston? Never. There are only four lines, I said ; he couldn t get any further. I tried to continue it, but only added two more. Let us have them, by all means! said Bryant. Then I recited Cabot s four lines: There was a king, Sennacherib, Who said that he could crack a rib With any but Jehosaphat He couldn t his, he was too fat! 1 Now what were the two you added? said Bryant. Then came an angry Moabite, Who gave his little toe a bite, 268 ON TWO CONTINENTS said I. Tapper s face was a study. I cannot guess what he thought, and did not try to discover. In the course of the dinner he told a story as having been given to him by Tennyson, of a damned Yankee (he pro fessed to quote Tennyson s words) having climbed into a tree at Farringford, to overhear Tennyson s talk with his wife, on the garden-seat below. Now, it chanced that Tennyson had told the same story to me, at Farringford, in February, 1867, soon after the thing happened. I said to him : I hope the man was not an American. No/ he answered, * I am sorry to say it was an Englishman.* So I felt justified in relating my side of the story. " Such specimens of men, I think, are impossible in this country. At least I have never seen them." When I recall to mind all those dear people to whom we were closely united by the bonds of a friendship of many years, or of few, I am filled with deep sorrow. The intimates who then belonged to the living present, and helped to render the golden hours more beautiful, have joined the silent majority. And he the centre of the noble circle of friends gone, too, all of them scattered and strewn like dead leaves when the cold breath of the autumn wind has passed. But "Warte nur, balde Ruhest Du auch." Was the Preacher right when he taught the vanity of all earthly things? Sometimes, in periods of depression, it almost seems to me as if he was. Looking through my daily memoranda during the last years of my husband s life, I am painfully impressed with the conviction of a truth that may be read between the lines how his great capacity for work, his healthy SUNSET 269 exuberant life was gradually undermined by exorbitant demands from without and by the constant goading of his own creative impulse from within. One of these notes in my diary, dated February 28, 1877, reads thus: "Now Bayard has been made art critic in addition to everything else. The result is, that when we came home last night from Ole Bull s concert, he found an order to attend the private view of the exhibition at the Academy of Art, and write a notice to appear in the morning s Tribune" In the middle of March he performed a wonderful feat in the way of rapid work, when writing a review of Victor Hugo s "La Legende des Siecles" for the Tribune. The time allowed him was short, and the perusal of the two thick volumes alone was no small matter. In spite of this he undertook the task at once, and after mastering the contents, wrote a long critical review,* including the translation of six lyrical poems, in the incredibly short time of a few afternoon and even ing hours. In spite of all this the Muse visited him at intervals in a favourable hour, and her pinions bore his overbur dened brain aloft into the realms of poetry. Among the poems which were thus conceived were "Youth," "Peach Blossoms," and "Assyrian Night" lyrics that are num bered among the most beautiful products of his pen. But these moments of poetic inspiration were rare. When the spring of 1877 approached it became evident that a period of rest was absolutely necessary to my husband. But he was not able to leave New York before July, when he sought refreshment and renewed vigour * Published after the author s death in a volume entitled "Critical Essays and Literary Notes." 270 ON TWO CONTINENTS among the Sulphur Springs of West Virginia. There he seemed to recuperate in the delightful mountain air and complete repose of the baths. One circumstance alone gave him uneasiness during this vacation. Rumours that President Hayes had selected him for a ministerial post began to be circulated. Russia was first mentioned, and then Belgium. Neither of these places possessed attraction for him; he declared that he would accept no other post than Berlin; there he might find leisure to write the twin Biography, which had hitherto been forced to stand back so many years. But as he declined to ask for the appointment, the matter rested for the time being. Not only the Biography his lyrical drama also had been forced into the background. "Like the peri for paradise,"* he longed once more to take up the thread of the poem, a wish which was soon to be fulfilled. At the end of August, after two months rest, as he was sail ing past Minot s Ledge in a small boat, on the way to Cohasset, Mass., in the company of his friend James R. Osgood, the "Vision of Deukalion" was suddenly revealed to his inner eye in the flash of an inspiration. Thus was solved the problem which had hitherto hindered him in the poetic development of the drama. Immediately after his return home to his library, he employed every leisure moment to finish the Third Act, that had given him so much trouble. The Fourth and last Act, which had long stood clear and distinct before his mind, followed rapidly, and on October ;th he wrote the final stanza of the poem. In an exhilarated mood he read to me the melodious songs of the shepherd *Bayard Taylor s own words. SUNSET 271 and shepherdess, which occur near the end, while I stood behind his chair and looked over his shoulder at the manu script. During the reading, while I was intently listen ing to his voice, something suddenly whispered within me: "Swan-song! his swan-song !"- Whence this pre monition? I know not, for although I was often anxious of late about my husband s health, the thought that I might lose him had never seriously entered my mind. Once only during that autumn I was seized with a deeper feeling of anxiety. He sat at his desk, at work on some article for the Tribune, when he stopped sud denly, and exclaimed in a tone of desperation: "If I don t succeed in writing the Biography soon, I shall never do it! It is impossible to carry around such a mass of material in my head much longer : it must escape me ! " This was the only time when he expressed a doubt of his memory. In addition, a sort of preoccupation had grown upon him of late. At times he seemed utterly absent-minded, did not hear what I said to him, and yet gave answer mechanically. I used to joke about this habit, and warned him not to let it grow, citing the example of the learned Neander,* who came home one day and complained to his sister that he had suddenly grown lame, having limped all the way. The explanation was furnished by an acquaintance, who had seen him walking with one foot on the curbstone and the other in the gutter. Taylor s work, however, did not suffer from his absence of mind. Concentration of thought had always been one of his eminent characteristics, of which he reaped the benefits at the present time, when he undertook, in addition to the many and varied tasks *A German theologian of note. 272 ON TWO CONTINENTS with which he was burdened, to translate Schiller s "Don Carlos" and adapt it to the American stage. The suggestion came from Lawrence Barrett, who believed himself peculiarly fitted to impersonate the hero, and succeeded in persuading Taylor to furnish the English version of the tragedy. Thus the few leisure hours that were at his disposal must be devoted to the accomplish ment of this great task. The poetic character and the sublimity of the subject, however, excited his interest to such a degree that he scarcely noticed the strain upon his intellectual faculties. It was an easy task, more over, for the translator of "Faust" to render Schiller s smooth iambic verse into his native tongue he even enjoyed doing so. Only the circumstance that he was required to shorten the idealistic work of the German poet and to adapt it to the stage representation in such a fashion as the actor wished, was an irksome condition which caused him considerable difficulty. Many were the deliberations we held with German friends upon the knotty points before Taylor was able to steer safely to port, avoiding both Scylla and Charybdis. New Year s Day came around once more, and in the evening it was the last time we spent a few pleasant hours with Rhine wine and German lebkuchen in the company of the intimate friends who came to wish us "a happy New Year." One evening, a few weeks later, when a small poem saw the light at my instigation, stands most vividly in my memory. We were members of a semi-literary club, the "Fraternity," for whose February meeting another member and I had been elected co-editors of the monthly manuscript magazine. The contributions were all to be SUNSET 273 original, and furnished or collected by the editors; so I made up my mind to beg a poem from my husband as a special favour. I was well aware that I was asking a great deal of him, who came home from the Tribune office late and weary. Nevertheless, as we sat before the open fire after dinner and the smoke wreaths ascended from his cigar, I ventured to proffer my request: "Only a little thing! You shake them so easily out of your sleeve!" A sigh was the answer. But later, when he sat down to his desk, he soon reappeared with a sheet of paper in his hand, saying, "There, take what I have written!" It was that little poem, bubbling over with a sportive fancy, "The Imp of Springtime," which may be found in his collected poems. Thus the first weeks of the year 1878 passed amid alter nate pleasures, pastimes, and severe drudgery, to which was superadded the uneasiness caused by the continued rumours of a ministerial appointment for Taylor. Late in January there was even a definite report that the Presi dent intended to send him to Berlin, but still the slightest intimation addressed to himself was lacking. The result ing uncertainty as to the near future exerted a disturbing influence upon my husband s spirits , until the suspense was at last ended, late at night on February i5th, by a message from the Tribune office. A telegram from Washington had just brought the news that the President had sent Taylor s name to the Senate as his choice for Minister to the German Empire. Thus the die was finally cast. And although the heavy burden of journalistic slavery dropped from his shoulders, other demands were made upon my husband s strength, which were by no means salutary. As soon as 274 ON TWO CONTINENTS his nomination and its ratification by the Senate appeared in the papers, we were overwhelmed with congratulations, and innumerable invitations to private receptions and dinners in honour of the new Minister began to pour in upon us. Each additional banquet, each successive festivity, gave me cause for more and more anxiety for my husband, already taxed so far beyond his strength and when a kind-hearted friend exclaimed to me : " What happy people you are!" I was rilled with a secret shud dering fear : her words rang in my ears like a sinister fore boding ! One of the last days before we sailed was devoted to taking leave of Taylor s aged parents, who, proud of their son s distinction, heroically subdued their sorrow over his departure. We all concealed our sadness under a cheerful mask and gave voice to happy auguries for the future. When the hour struck for saying farewell the aged mother raised her glass and drank to our safe voyage, with the German words: " Wir sitzen so frohlich beisammen, Wir haben uns alle so lieb, Wir heitern einander das Leben, Ach wenn es doch immer so blieb!"* Thus we parted how different was our return! When we had at last boarded the steamer that was to transport us to Europe, and my weary husband thought that a period of rest would be vouchsafed to him, he found *" We re sitting together so happy, We love one another so true, We gladden each other s existence, Ah, would that we always so do." L. B. T. K. SUNSET 275 it impossible to sleep. Feverish fantasies haunted him, dreams in which he was obliged to make speeches and deliver addresses, until the ship s doctor finally resorted to narcotics in order to quiet his overwrought brain. But the traces of what he had been obliged to undergo during the last few weeks did not vanish. They showed so plainly in his face that old acquaintances who met him in London and Paris were shocked at his appearance. It was not till after his arrival in Berlin that a certain degree of restfulness took possession of him. He found the conditions and surroundings which awaited him to his liking, and his health improved in consequence. During the summer, one after another, followed those events which raised the mind of the whole German nation to a high pitch of excitement and suspense. People had hardly begun to recover from the shock of the first unsuccessful attempt on the Emperor s life, when the dreadful news overwhelmed them: "Another attempt to assassinate the Emperor has been made he is wounded perhaps fatally!" Thus the representative of the United States was plunged from the very first into the midst of the public excitement of a very significant period of German history, a time, moreover, during which another event of European importance occurred. On July 1 3th the International Congress met in Berlin, to establish peace between Russia and Turkey, according to the terms agreed upon at San Stefano, and thus to satisfy not only England, but also the demands of Austria. Bismarck, as the "honest broker,"* was the presiding member of the Congress, which met in the Imperial Chancellor s palace in the Wilhelm Strasse. *His own designation in a speech before the Reichstag. 276 ON TWO CONTINENTS A few days before the opening session Bayard Taylor succeeded in being admitted to an audience with the Prince, a favour accorded to but few of the Envoys Extraordinary. Bismarck, who received Taylor without any ceremony, led the way at once into the park-like garden behind the palace, and there the two men walked up and down for over an hour, talking together, while the "dog of the Empire," an immense great Dane, called Tyras, fol lowed his master s footsteps. Taylor returned home charmed with Bismarck s personality, and related to us that the great statesman was evidently glad to eschew politics, and had talked exclusively of the cultivating of flowers, of laying out gardens, of the peculiarities of animals, and kindred topics. As we arrived in Berlin in May, and could not move into permanent quarters until the autumn, we lived meanwhile in an apartment that Mr. Sidney Everett, First Secretary of our Legation, put at our disposal during the temporary absence of his family. As a sum mer abode, however, we preferred the little town of Friedrichroda, in my native Thuringian Forest, whither I repaired with my daughter about the middle of June, while my husband for the time being remained in Berlin. As he came in contact with the more distinguished mem bers of the Congress although as a spectator merely the letters that I received from him contained many interest ing items which he related with his customary humour. On the opening day, and on succeeding days, he wrote: AMERICAN LEGATION, BERLIN, June 13, 1878. " It has been a busy day for me, after all. I telegraphed at the Potsdamer Thor, then left the carriage and walked for more than two miles hither and yon, before reaching SUNSET 277 home. I found cards from Becky and Sally (Beacons- field and Salisbury!) and soon after came those of Count Corti and the whole special Embassy. Letters from the Consul at Manheim, from an oppressed naturalized citizen, and from the Foreign Ministry all relating to nearly the same affair came in a bunch. The result is that I am compelled to write a strong note to the German Government and a strong dispatch to Washing ton. It requires thought and care, and the general effect is (as Mark Twain says of climbing to the Konig- stuhl) "invigorating but devilish." When I came back to the empty rooms this morning, I felt rather wretched ; so now I am inclined to look upon this diplomatic bother as rather a god-send, since it will possess much of my thought until the two important papers are written. "I left return cards on Becky and Sally, made quite a lot of calls. ... I met the Crown Prince and Princess on the way: he recognized me, and made a very cordial greeting. Baron and Baroness von der Heydt called to-day, for special reasons. They invited me to dine with them any day. . . . The Baroness says she will be glad to assist you in your housekeeping troubles. I got another butcher s address from them. (Am I not practical?) My two lonely meals have been very nice, and it is hardly complimentary to you to say that I have had an excellent appetite. . . . The Bunsens have invited me to dinner on Saturday, and I have accepted. To-day I drove past Bismarck s Palace, and it was a sight to notice the crowds, held back by policemen, who waited to see the high personages come out. ... I shall finish the list of necessary calls by Saturday, besides all the returns of cards." "AMERICAN LEGATION, BERLIN, Friday evening, June 14, 1878. " I have been hard at work all day, new cases* coming *These were complaints by naturalised German-American citizens. 278 ON TWO CONTINENTS in. ... Cards from Corti, Andrassy and many others, which I have returned besides called on Prince GortchakofI, who was just summoned to dinner but sent down word that he would be very glad to see me. . . . The sudden influx of business is really a good thing, for it keeps my mind busy, and I therefore feel my loneliness less. I am learning rapidly to use my eyes in driving out, and to recognize people quickly, since I haven t you to help me." " AMERICAN LEGATION, BERLIN, "Sunday, June 16, 1878. " I burst into a laugh over your misgiving with regard to the dinner at Bunsen s. If you go on, you will finally be as bad as Neander s sister, and will telegraph to me every morning to put on my trousers before going into the streets! As if I could forget it! No: and I shall long remember it. I like Bunsen more and more ; I was first there, met his wife and both daughters, and then came Helmholz! While I was telling him that I counted on his aid for material for my Biography of Goethe, the door opened, and Lepsius appeared. Hardly had I greeted him, when there was a new arrival Minis ter Waddington, of the Republic of France, and one of the most simple, genial and agreeable of men. Then Herr v. Norman, Adjutant (or something else) of the Crown Princess, whom I recognized, at once, having met him years ago at HoltzendorfFs in Gotha; next Curtius, and finally Mommsen ! "We had a beautiful, delightful dinner. I sat between Frau and Fraulein v. Bunsen, with Curtius next on my right, and Lepsius and Helmholz opposite. I think I knitted the ends of friendly intercourse around all three. Curtius promised to send me photographs of the Olympia statues ; and when I said that you would also be delighted to see them, he asked whether you had a special interest for classic art. So I spoke of your residence in Rome with your uncle, and when I mentioned his name there SUNSET 279 was a general outburst of enthusiasm. All three had known him personally, loved him, and were full of pietdt for his character and knowledge. ... I had afterwards, a long talk with Waddington, and a short one with Mommsen. The evening was perfectly inspiring to me. . . . To-morrow evening I am invited to meet the Congress at Lord Odo s, and Wednesday evening at Count Carolyi s. Cards come in by the dozen, and I scatter mine punctually in return." "AMERICAN LEGATION, BERLIN, "Monday, June 17, 1878. "Lady Odo must have quite forgotten your p. p. c. She called to-day in person, while I was out, with the Marquis of Salisbury, and not finding you, wrote on her card that she expected us and Miss Bayard Taylor at the grand reception this evening. I ll explain it to her. I take Everett and Coleman with me, so that the whole Legation will be represented at once to the High and Mighty Embassies. "Graf Nesselrode (Oberhofmarshall) has written me a very pleasant note saying that the Grafin Perponcher is absent, that the Empress is sehr geruhrt by my letter to the latter, and will receive me as soon as the Emperor s condition will allow her to do so. . . . I am only owing four calls this evening. I use my slate constantly, and keep things spinning. The bag is off, all the dis patches sent, and only some fag-ends of business left. . . . A correspondent of the Belletristische, who brought a card from B , writes to ask me to pay his passage back to N. Y. ! And W , of W- - s Theatre, wants to be thought an American citizen, to escape military duty, and gives us no end of trouble. Wer nie sein Brod mit Thrdnen ass * der ist nie Amerik. Gesandter gewesen ! And the B cooly informs me that she will, next fall, renew her request to be presented. * Quotation from "Wittielm Meister." 2 8o ON TWO CONTINENTS . . . I have also an appeal from the Jews in N. Y. to try and move Congress to give them religious liberty in Bulgaria! I think that is all that has happened since yesterday; but isn t it enough? I forgot Schlozer* called this morning to say that the Hotel du Nord (where he stays) will do its best to make Grant and party com fortable. The landlord has heard that G. is to be here on the 2oth, and that I had been trying to get him into the Kaiserhof . But this afternoon comes a Paris Register, which says that G. left on the i4th, for Brussels, (I con gratulate Goodloe!) and will go to Copenhagen via Amsterdam and Hamburg. I ardently hope it is true." "AMERICAN LEGATION, BERLIN, Tuesday, June 18, 1878. "It is one p. M. and no letter from you yet! But I must at least write and let you know that I didn t forget Bunsen s on Saturday. Nor the English Embassy last evening. The reception was very pleasant, but no crowd only a few ladies, all in black silk and tarleton mixed, and few ornaments. The gentlemen don t wear mourning, except black gloves when they visit any K. K. person. Do you think I would wear crape for George V. of Hanover ? At any rate, nobody else does. Beacons- field was there, looking old, bent and ugly; Salisbury unusually handsome and pleasant to behold; Andrassy, older and more gipsy-chief-like than when I saw him in Vienna; Waddington, fair and smiling; and finally Mehemet AH Pasha, the Turk from Magdeburg, whom everybody was anxious to see. He was simple, dignified, and with a face full of character. Lady Odo was very gracious, apologized for forgetting your absence, and said, I have so many things to think of these days, that I get quite bewildered. Helmholz was there, and Gneist, who remembered me. All the Legations . . . were represented, and many of the Imperial Officials. Princess * Kurt von Schlozer, then German Minister at Washington. EMPEROR WILLIAM I. AND PKlNCE BISMARCK SUNSET 281 Bismarck and daughter came, but not the Prince. . . . Tea and ices were handed around, and there was a cold supper in the dining hall, at which all the ladies took seats. About n Beaconsfield slowly hobbled out, with out looking to the right or left, or taking leave, so far as I could see. I had a long and delightful chat with v. Philipsborn, ass t Minister to Bulow, about Goethe, and also some talk again with Helmholz. They had all heard, somehow, of Bunsen s dinner to me on Saturday. (By the bye, I forgot to tell you that I didn t forget it!) Even Comte de St. Vallier told me that Waddington was delighted." As indicated in one of the foregoing letters, it was General Grant s intention to visit Berlin on his trip around the world. This plan was a source of no small embarrassment to the Minister of the United States. He was still new in his office, and under the peculiar cir cumstances prevailing just at that time the question of etiquette was a very difficult one. The Emperor s ill- health did not permit him to receive General Grant, while the presence at Berlin of the distinguished repre sentatives of the European Powers, who possessed the right of official precedence, required an extraordinary amount of tact, in order to avoid any occasion for offense. Bayard Taylor had been presented to all the Princes of the Imperial House before the second attempt on the Emperor s life. But he had not yet been received by the Empress, who was at Baden-Baden in May, and con sequently not by the Crown Princess. So that neither could I be presented at Court, which made it impossible for me to introduce Mrs. Grant, who accompanied the General. In what manner the American Minister, my husband, succeeded in solving these complicated diffi- 282 ON TWO CONTINENTS culties may be seen from the following letters, which begin with a wail: " Wednesday evening, June 19, 1878. "Alas! and alas! and alas! No letter from you since Monday morning, and to-day but how can I tell everything at once? This morning there came a letter from Minister Welch, in London, saying that he had given to a family whom he don t know very well a letter of introduction to me, and asking for all sorts of statistical information which his own Secretaries might just as well get for him ; but that isn t it! Then came another German naturalization case, not hard to manage; and that isn t it, either! Then a letter from the U. S. Legation at the Hague, with the notice, that but let me pause and recover myself! that (I really don t know how to break the news to you gradually) that, yet how can I say it? that, well, I suppose it must be said that that that General and Mrs. Grant will arrive here early next week, probably on Wednesday evening. I telegraphed at once to the Hague, asking if I should secure quarters, Berlin being so crowded, and how long the Ex-Pres t. would stay. The answer has just come : Gen. Grant s courier will secure quarters; thanks for your dispatch. So I am no wiser than I was before; and now, with Congress in session, the Emperor evidently worse than reported, and all sorts of things going on, what am I to do ? . Of course I can t think of going to Friedrichroda now, and the question is, whether it wouldn t be well for you to come here and help Mrs. G. Pray think it over, and I ll write or telegraph to you by Saturday, if I learn anything more." "AMERICAN LEGATION, BERLIN, "Thursday evening, June 20, 1878. " I called this morning on Ceremonienmeister v. Roder, who was out; but he returned the call in an hour. He leaves to-morrow, and could only give me good advice SUNSET 283 about Gen. Grant. He thinks the Empress will not receive, and that the official presentations will be con fined to the Crown-Prince, Pr. Fr. Carl, and Bismarck. . . . This afternoon Everett and I drove in the Thier- garten. We passed an empty Royal equipage, and soon afterward came the Empress, walking with an Adjutant, alone. She moved very slowly and feebly, and kept her eyes fixed on the ground. There was some thing inexpressibly sad and dejected in her appearance, and it touched me profoundly. "Last night, we went together to Count Carolyi s. It was really delightful ; and I cannot yet explain the dif ference of atmosphere and spirit between his reception and Lord Odo s, since the company was nearly the same. I made a slight faux pas in following Everett s advice to ask Waddington to introduce me to Beaconsfield (since Lord Odo had not arrived). Waddington, in the gentlest and politest way, said that he would do it with pleasure, a little later, if no one better authorized should be present. So I went to Carolyi, who presented me at once, as he had the right to do, and Beaconsfield received me in a conventionally friendly way. I said to him : It is the author, not less than the statesman, whom I desire to know/ He looked at me, and asked Why? I answered : Because I am much more an author than a statesman. Then he suddenly said : Are you Bayard Taylor? * Yes. * Shake hands again ! he exclaimed, with something almost like enthusiasm in so old an Israelite ; I have known you for years through your works! He was excessively cordial thenceforth, but oh! how fear fully ugly he has become! Red-edged, watery eyes (one blind, they say), protruding under-lip, hooked nose, sallow, puffy skin, and the general aspect of a hungry vulture, it amazes me to think of this man s history. I spoke to him about his works and we got on capitally together ; then I presented Everett and Coleman. " Lord Odo, at my request, introduced me to the Mar- 284 ON TWO CONTINENTS quis of Salisbury. He is tall, large and rather handsome, but none too intellectual. I spoke of the pleasant tem perature prevailing, and hoped he liked it It s getting to be altogether too hot, he said; and something in his tone made me remark : I speak of the external air, not of the temperature inside certain walls. He looked startled a moment, and then we both burst into hearty laughter. Then I told him that, as the representative of a power nowise concerned in the Congress, I was neither curious nor impatient. He began to protest : Oh, I assure you we are all cool, oh, very cool indeed. Are you? said I ; he roared again, and somebody came up and interrupted the conversation. Then I met Countess Marie v. Bis marck, who said : * I have seen you already. I answered : I am sure I have not had the honor. I was looking out of the back- window, she said, and I saw you walking in the garden with papa. He told me who it was, and said he had such a pleasant walk with you. Schlozer then came up, and insisted on presenting me to a lady who was possessed to make my acquaintance the Countess Oriolla. And who do you think she is? Why, the daughter of Bettina, and the sister of Gisela!* "I had quite a talk with Mehemet Ali Pasha, whom I heartily like, met Count de Launay, Count Corti, and had a little conversation with Andrassy, who is a gipsy- chief in feature, if ever there was one. ... It was, on the whole, a free, cordial, altogether pleasant recep tion, and I felt all the better for it. . . . You will understand, of course, that I can t possibly come on Saturday. Count St. Vallier invites me to meet the Congress at 9^ that evening. ... I must wait until Gen. Grant s departure, and then I ll come at any time, in the middle of the week, probably. No more business has turned up for two days past, and the only dispatch from Washington (by the bag, to-day) says Your dispatches are read with much interest. Now, in regard to your * Hermann Grimm s wife. SUNSET 285 coming here, I am still in doubt. ... If I were certain that you would need no Court presentations, I should say come! and I ll try to ascertain to-morrow." "June 21, 1878. " I have just come from Count Eulenburg, Hofmar- schall to the Crown-Prince. I have pretty much decided what I can and can t do. Thus stands the case : Grant s courier has engaged quarters for him at the Kaiserhof, so no need of my offering ours. Birney (U. S. Minister at the Hague) writes that G. will arrive here Wednesday. I shall go to Stendal (100 kilom.) to meet him, have my carriage at the station to take him to Kaiserhof, and afterwards at his and Mrs. G s disposal, while they are here. Count E. thanked me for letting him know at once, says he will arrange everything with me, that the Crown-Prince will receive Grant at once, but the Empress most probably not. "I have arranged that Grant and his wife shall have an opportunity to receive all the Americans here, at the Legation, on a fixed evening, with tea, ices and cakes for refreshments. Everyone seems to think this will be proper, then, I shall give no formal, official dinner (which would involve no end of trouble, questions of etiquette and expense), but shall pick out a select company of about a dozen, all of whom speak English. . . . That is I shall wait until Grant comes, and propose it to him. . . . Grant will stay about six days; so, if he wishes to see the High-Mightinesses of the Congress, I have only to take him to the receptions of Lord Odo, Carolyi and St. Vallier. He will there informally meet with every body, and I am sure it will be much more agreeable to him. "This leaves you tolerably free to act as you please. You can either come, preside at the American reception, support Mrs. Grant at the dinner (no other ladies!) and appear once at each of the evening receptions while they 286 ON TWO CONTINENTS are here, or you can stay away, on account of your health. . . . But you need not decide before Monday. I will telegraph whenever anything turns up to indicate what is best." "June 22, 1878. "I have half an hour before dressing for Delbruck s dinner, and sit down to send you something more. Yester day evening I drove to Bunsens, and sat an hour in the garden with them. . . . Bunsen is simply charming. As I was going away, I begged a rose from Frau v. B. and she gave me 3 or 4 dark-red Persian blossoms, which have kept the Legation sweet all day. This morning, just after I wrote to you, Curtius called. He asked par ticularly after you and your mother, and said that if Grant should care to see the Olympian antiquities, and I would let him know, he would be on hand to explain. (Another good arrangement!) This afternoon I have punctually returned all necessary calls, including an hour with Lindau, whom I shall see again to-night at the soiree of Comte de St. Vallier. He was very cordial, and is an excellent Kamerad." "AMERICAN LEGATION, BERLIN, "Sunday morning, June 23, 1878. "I may as well begin now to write to you, as the morning mail brings no official business which / need attend to. The day is thoroughly bright and hot, and I shall presently take a walk in the shadiest part of the Thiergarten. The dinner, yesterday, was very pleasant. . . . After dinner, I took Schlozer to drive an hour in the Thiergarten, and finally went to the French Embassy about ten. . . . St. Vallier presented me to Count Nesselrode, who said that the Empress was quite anxious to see me, and might send me word to appear on Monday, at half past one. At any rate, he advised me to be ready for a summons. If it happens so, I shall then instantly apply for presentation to the Crown-Princess. I spoke particularly to St. Vallier, Lord Odo and Carolyi about SUNSET 287 Grant s coming, and secured the most pressing invitation from each one for him and Mrs. Grant to attend the diplomatic soirees. Lord Odo commissioned me to say that he would be * proud and honored. He was markedly cordial, perhaps because the Marquis of Salisbury received me so heartily. I asked the latter: Do you find the temperature any better? and he laughed as loudly as I often do. We were just getting into a cheery talk, when Nothomb came and asked me to present him which I did. I also made the acquaintance of Prince Hohenlohe, who is small, quiet-mannered and agreeable. Counts Corti and De Launay were especially friendly in fact, I felt for the first time that I was received on the footing of familiar acquaintanceship, and midnight came surprisingly quick. Lord Odo and St. Vallier both said that it would be very difficult for me, just now, to give Grant a satisfactory dinner, and no one would expect me to do it. I also spoke to Philipsborn about Grant seeing Bismarck, and he said that Biilow would arrange every thing for me. " There! you see that I have prepared for all that can be done, and (I think) in the simplest and best way." "Tuesday morning, June 25, 1878. "As there is no business whatever on hand, I may as well write a line this morning. ... As soon as I sent off the letter (last evening) I lay down on the sofa, and slept so soundly that Harris could hardly get me awake at 9^. There was a small but pleasant party at Lord Odo s. Count Nesselrode said that the Empress could not receive me yesterday because the Count of Flanders came unexpectedly. I said to Beaconsfield: I don t know whether you remember me? and he an swered: Yes I do; you are sans peur et sans reproche! The Marquis of Salisbury came up, exclaiming : It s getting hotter and hotter, and burst into his usual laugh. I presented the Baroness Jauru to Waddington, and the 288 ON TWO CONTINENTS Japanese Minister to Beaconsfield in fact, it s rather astonishing that I am constantly asked to be a sort of Master of Ceremonies. . . . Lady Odo appeared in white; all the others in black. The mourning is slowly wearing off. I only stayed an hour, came home and slept 8 hours, and am still sleepy this morning! But I think it is a good sign. Last night Grant telegraphed that he would be most happy to meet me at Stendal. Colerrrn will go with me, and perhaps J. R. Young. U. S. G. has excellent quarters at the Kaiserhof 4 rooms on the ist floor. If no more work comes in I shall get along very well." " Wednesday morning, June 26, 1878. " I have just received your yesterday s letter, and must honestly confess that I am glad you are coming. I do begin to feel a little tired, having so much on my shoulders, and hardly know what I shall do with Mrs. Grant without your help. . . . Coleman had symptoms of malaria fever yesterday, and I don t feel sure of him any longer, you can therefore easily understand that the visit may turn out to be a little too much for me. " I had a charming dinner with Rodenberg last evening Auerbach, Max Maria v. Weber, Etienne of the Wiener Freie Presse, Kruse of the Kolnische Zietung and Abel of the London Times. . . . "Afterwards I went to Bunsen s to tea, finding every body in the garden, and stayed until n. I was talking with Falk, saying goodbye to him alone, in a quiet path, holding his hand and exclaiming: "Stehen Sie fest und Harren Sie aus!"* when Lasker came up and took my other hand, and for a moment we stood like the three men of Grutli.f It was really a picturesque meeting. *"Stand firm and persevere!" fThis little incident refers to struggles which went on at this period in the internal affairs of Germany. Falk was the Minister famous in the Kulturkampf, whose position had been shaken lately by Bis marck s unexpected veering toward "Canossa." Lasker was one of the leaders of the National Liberals in the German Parliament. SUNSET 289 I like Falk very much. Helmholz was also there, and lots of other famous people. I took Waddington aside, and consulted him about Grant. He said promptly: Don t try to give a dinner it will be very difficult, and the etiquette will cause you trouble. / could not invite the Diplomatic Corps to the dinner I gave Gen. Grant in Paris, for that reason. Then I told him about my idea of a breakfast, and he said : That will do ; you can manage that ; but if you have Biilow, he takes precedence. I said: suppose I give Biilow my place? * Ah, he cried; that will make everything right! Would you come? I asked. Certainly, said he, if it is a day when the Congress doesn t meet: I can do what I please, and I should certainly raise no point of etiquette/ "This is great comfort to me, as you may imagine. When I came home, I found that Count Eulenburg and Herr v. Mohl* had been here, the former very anxious to see me; so I drove to the palace at 9} this morning and saw him. Everything is nicely arranged. The Crown-Prince will receive Grant (with me) to-morrow, and give him (also with me) a dinner at Potsdam on Friday. I am to write to the Countess Briihl about Mrs. Grant. The Crown-Princess knows that I am waiting on the Empress, yet will receive me before dinner. I explained your absence thoroughly, and made it all right with the Hohen Herrschaften. You can come, all the same, and be here unofficially." My husband s confession that he felt "a little tired" meant more than his words conveyed. Next day I received a telegram from him: "Be sure and come to morrow, I need you." I hurried my departure as much as possible, and arriving in Berlin Friday evening, was received at the station by our two Secretaries of the Legation. I learned that my husband had been seriously *Secretary of the Empress, formerly German Consul at Cincinnati. 290 ON TWO CONTINENTS ill two days before, but that his physician had so far restored him as to enable him to meet General Grant at Stendal, and also to fulfil his other duties. Mr. Everett stayed with me about half an hour, until Taylor returned from the dinner at Potsdam. He entered the room, with a light overcoat thrown across his shoulders, a bouquet in his buttonhole, pale, but in a mood of pleas urable excitement. Almost his first words were, "I am so glad, I have won my first diplomatic victory!" Then he told us that von Biilow had whispered to him during the dinner: "Everything shall be settled according to your wishes!"* Then he related how he had come by the bouquet in his buttonhole. After the close of the dinner he turned to the table and took a red verbena from one of the flower centrepieces, when he noticed that the Crown Prince and Princess were watching him from the opposite side. He bowed and remarked, "I confess that this is theft, but I never see flowers that they do not tempt me." Both smiled, and the Crown Prince replied, "Take as many as you like." The following morning I called on Mrs. Grant and offered her my services. The day was filled with engage ments, and in the evening we gave a large reception, to which all the Americans in Berlin had been invited. The comparatively small apartment (we were still in our tem porary quarters) was hardly able to contain the number of guests, and all of course wished to be introduced to General and Mrs. Grant, and to shake hands with them. The former declined any other kind of entertainment, and accepted only a family dinner at our solicitation. *The matter in question was the naturalisation case mentioned on page 277. SUNSET 291 He recognised the state of affairs, and was far too informal and republican in his tastes to be willing to cause any inconvenience to the representative of his country. At his request we invited to our little dinner, beside the guests of honour, only the two Secretaries of Legation and the American Consul-General with his wife. Taylor had in the meantime almost recovered from his indis position and was at his best in the character of an amiable host. As a special compliment to the General he had composed the following amusing menu: SOUP Hasty Plate, a la Win Field. FISH Saumon du Mississippi, d la Vicksburg. ENTREE Sweetbreads, d la Appomatox (furnished to the hungry Rebels) ROAST Beef Americain douteux. ICES (To counteract the warmth of the reception in Berlin.) FRUITS Reconnaissants, d la White House. COFFEE Cordial de Cedarcroft. Aside from the dinner given by the Crown Prince, the official courtesies accorded to the ex-President and celebrated commander-in-chief were necessarily con fined to a review of several divisions of the army that was held in his honour outside of the city. The German officers present were rather astonished to see General 292 ON TWO CONTINENTS Grant appear in civilian clothes; as a matter of fact, simple republican that he was, he had left his uniform at home! On the following day Prince Bismarck gave him a dinner, with twenty invited guests, to which the Amer ican Minister and wife were also bidden. Mrs. Grant had the seat of honour at the great chancellor s right; I was placed at his left, while the Princess sat opposite, between the General and Bayard Taylor. As this was not an official affair, there was an utter absence of any restraint not dictated by good taste, and conversation was informal. At first, indeed, I felt oppressed by the weight of Bismarck s personality, but I soon gained an insight into his human character when he assured me that he had never met with a more attractive, amiable man than my husband. I judged from this that he could be a man like other men. During the dinner I made the acquaintance of Tyras ; the immense beast sud denly thrust his large head between myself and my neighbour on the left, and permitted me to caress him, a proceeding which was said to be a great favour on his part. Coffee was served in the drawing-room while most of the guests stood about in groups. The Chancellor and General Grant were the only ones who smoked. They sat side by side in two armchairs, the former with his long pipe, the latter with his cigar, and chatted together as peacefully as if there had never been any battles or con flicts, never any victories illustrious in history. After the dinner in the Chancellor s palace we drove with General and Mrs. Grant to the English Embassy, where numerous guests were already assembled. Lord and Lady Odo Russell received us with great cordiality SUNSET 293 and a few interesting hours passed very quickly. Among the diplomats who were introduced to me, the figure of Lord Beaconsfield stands before my eyes after all these years as the most eminent personality. He was a dis tinguished man, if only for the reason that he held the winning cards in the Congress; but what struck me most was the studied nonchalance, the aristocratic self- confidence that he showed. And in truth he had reason to feel himself superior to his colleagues ; for he had the English-Turkish treaty in his pocket, which gave Cyprus to England, and which he played as a trump card in the Congress a few days later. This was doomed to be the only occasion when I appeared in the diplomatic circle in Berlin. A noted physician, formerly attached to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, said to me once in Rome: "Life is a comedy at first, later it becomes a drama, and finally a tragedy." The tragedy had begun for us, without our being as yet conscious of the fact. General and Mrs. Grant departed on July 3d, and after the celebration of the Fourth, Taylor accompanied me to Friedrichroda, in order to seek a much-needed rest. Scarcely had he recuperated somewhat in the aromatic forest air when his exaggerated conscientiousness took fright at the idea that he was neglecting his duties in staying away from his post. In vain both Secretaries, whom he had left in charge of the Legation during his absence, wrote to him that everything was going on smoothly, and that no business requiring the Minister s presence had come in. A feeling of unrest possessed him, he could not settle down quietly, but made repeated trips between the Thuringian Forest and Berlin during 294 ON TWO CONTINENTS the following month ; his physical condition in the mean time was sometimes better, sometimes worse. In August Berthold Auerbach came to Friedrichroda, and his presence seemed to have a cheering influence upon my husband. During the short time that the genial author stayed we saw him daily. He showed us the most amiable side of his nature, was companionable, humor ous and full of interest in the most manifold intellectual topics. He made many complimentary remarks to me about my husband and my married life. One of his observations concerning the former was to the effect: "Although endowed with an unbridled imagination, that tempts him to kick over the traces, he is always the aris tocratic gentleman, who behaves like a lord." He was greatly struck by the change in Taylor s appearance, and seriously advised me to insist upon a medical consultation on our return to Berlin. In the middle of August, how ever, my husband s health appeared to take a sudden decided turn for the better, so that he declared his vaca tion to be at an end, and went back to Berlin to stay. Since the close of the Congress society had been abso lutely dead in the capital, and Taylor might have enjoyed a temporary reprieve, if the wedding festivities of the eldest daughter of Prince Friedrich Karl with Prince Henry of Orange had not intervened. The nuptials were celebrated on August 24th in Potsdam, and all the mem bers of the diplomatic corps, who happened to be in Berlin at the time, were required to be present. It was gener ally known that the marriage had been arranged for political reasons. As the aged King of Holland was a childless widower, and no one then dreamed of his taking a second wife, Prince Henry was heir apparent. His SUNSET 295 years were far in advance of those of his fiancee, and she was popularly supposed to have yielded an unwilling consent. My husband wrote to me concerning the pre liminary festivities, which consisted in a gala performance at the Royal Opera , as follows : August 24, 1878. "I drove in the Thiergarten, called on Boyesen, dined heartily at 5^, and at 7^ found myself on the front seat of a proscenium box, beside Counts Benomar and De Launay, with Rochussen, Prollius and Deering who is now charge behind us. . . . Prince Fred. Carl and the Crown-Prince of Holland sat opposite, but the ladies in the Royal box were so far away, that, having no opera glass I couldn t make them out. The operetta and ballet were very lively and pleasant. It lasted 3 hours, and I got to bed at n, a little tired. ... I shall take Carl with me this evening to Potsdam. The ceremonies commence at 7, and the understanding among the Diplo mats last night was that they would last about 2^ hours, and that we shall not stand still all the time. We shall get a fine supper and be sent back about n by a special train. I am quite sure I can stand that much without any damage, and after having appeared at the Opera, I can t now well stay away." On the day after the marriage I received a long letter from my husband. With the exception of a few brief lines, this was the last one that he wrote to me. It runs thus: "Sunday, n A. M., Aug. 25, 1878. "A great deal has taken place in the last 24 hours, and I must try to give you a tolerable report of it. Fortunately, not a single letter has come this morning, and nobody has called; so after sleeping late, breakfasting heartily, reading all the papers, and taking a Russian bath, I find myself in a comfortable mood for writing. It has been 296 ON TWO CONTINENTS raining steadily since yesterday afternoon, although now there are signs of clearing. The temperature is just right, and the air soft and fresh. " Friday evening, just as I had put on my hat to drive to the opera, came three men in a state of great haste and excitement. One stated in German that he had arrested the other, who was an American : the third was a frightened friend of the second. The first wanted to know if I would become security for the prisoner, who was charged with violating some patent law; his name was C . He offered me his letter of credit, but I told him that it was just as good security for the German authorities, if genuine; that I must first be sure of his Americanship ; that all the offices were already closed; and finally, that I was going to a festival by the invitation of the Government, and they must come again in the morning. "Yesterday forenoon, however, only one person came a young Dr. D , of Boston, handsome, refined and prepossessing. He was the third, who had called the night before. He told me that Mr. C was a great manufacturer of Worcester, Mass., worth over $2,000,000. The inventor of the celebrated "C loom," and an intimate friend of Ward the sculptor, and many other artists. A manufacturing firm in Chemnitz had been using his looms under a contract to pay a certain royalty. As they did not pay, C went to Chemnitz and dis covered that they were unlawfully manufacturing his looms themselves. He brought suit against them, and out of revenge they had him arrested through a tele graphic dispatch from the Staatsanwalt, charging him with violation of the German patent laws! The case seemed to be so serious that I sent Coleman off with Dr. D to look into it. Meanwhile I received four Americans, one of whom Judge W of Penn a brought me a letter of introduction from Evarts. He and Judge P of Illinois, are Delegates to the Prison SUNSET 297 Reform Convention at Stockholm, and want to see the prisons here. I have thought it necessary to invite them to a plain dinner here, to-day, and everything is arranged. Johanna and Carl are properly instructed, and I have engaged Auguste to wash the only 6 silver knives and forks between each course.* . . . The menu is: soup, salmon and potatoes, chops and tomatoes, par tridge and peas, auflauf, bread and cheese; and it will be a sumptuous affair for those plain Pennsylvanians. "Well : Coleman came back, having visited C in the prison, at the Police Headquarters. C had been all night there, was alarmed, desperate and almost sick. We discussed what were best to be done, finally con cocted a fierce dispatch to the Am. Consul at Chemnitz, took the carriage and drove again to the police. At first the subordinates refused to let me see C , as no one was there who had requisite authority. I persisted, called for the dispatch which occasioned his arrest, pointed out its flimsy character, asked a few embarrassing ques tions, and succeeded in frightening the whole batch of them out of their shoes. C was brought up, looking the picture of misery : I only gave him a few encouraging words, but took care to shake hands with him in the sight of the officials. (To be concluded after what followeth:) " When we got back there were only 40 minutes left to dine and dress, before starting for Potsdam. I invited Coleman, although there was nothing but one carp, and he said he did not like carp ! I gave him the one plate of soup and took beef-tea myself. Fortunately the carp was enormous, fresh and admirably cooked ; so I ate one- third and he two- thirds, saying that he must have mis taken some other fish for carp, heretofore. There were 300 guests at the station : it was raining, and all was confusion. I finally found a place with two gentlemen who proved to be the Pres t. of the Dutch * The silver had been locked up during Taylor s frequent absences, and the key mislaid or lost. 298 ON TWO CONTINENTS Chamber of Deputies and the Mexican Secretary of Lega tion. Count de Launay, as the only Ambassador pres ent, was treated with the greatest obsequiousness, while the rest of us Ministers were allowed to shift for ourselves. I didn t believe that Carl could get along with us, but when we reached Wildpark there he was at the door, and he afterwards shoved aside Secretaries and Charges to get me a back carriage seat. "We reached the Palace at 6J: the whole court-yard was so crowded that I and my companions would have had much embarrassment without Carl s help. On entering the Palace there was a blaze of light everywhere, and a perfect tangle of people. I was first struck by the giant guardsmen, in the uniform of the last century : what magnificent men they are! From 6 to 7 feet high, all strongly built, and all with handsome faces, I could scarcely look at anybody else. Next to them I was attracted by the Pages,* boys of 14 to 17, in mediaeval costumes of scarlet and silver, with black velvet barets and white ostrich plumes : there must have been 60 or 70 of them. In the Jasper hall, an altar and shrine were arranged in the centre ; music pealed from an alcove ; the increasing crowd was dazzling with color and jewels. . . . Two rows of Pages kept the central space open for the Royal party, and a lot of Maitres de Ceremonies at the head of them an old, fussy, foolish Baron R , gave the guests their places. R moved me three times, and then I said : * I shall be obliged if you will at last give me a place where I can stay! After that he was wonderfully polite. I was the only person present in simple black and white, and that ought to have dis tinguished me. Rudhart, I found, is my predecessor in the diplomatic corps ; so, by following him, I easily kept in the right place. The Princess R - was beside me, and complained bitterly of fatigue before the ceremony * Sons of noble families who are educated in an exclusive college at the cost of the Prussian Government. SUNSET 299 began. I talked a good deal in order to make her out. This is the result amiable, tolerably natural, smart yet flippant, secretly haughty yet desirous not to seem so openly, and on the whole slightly more interesting and agreeable than the average of Court ladies. "The wedding was announced for 7 o clock, and the Royal party was punctual. Trumpets proclaimed the approach: four clergymen in black basilicas (or dal- maticas, I don t know which!) waited near the door; and there was a moment of solemn and stately expectation. Gorgeous lackeys first appeared ; then the Marshall, Prince of Salm-Something, carrying a high stick tipped with silver; then the two official cavaliers of the bride, two Pages, and the bridal couple. And a singular looking pair they were! She . . . walking with bent head, eyes fixed on the floor, and a deep flush over face and neck; he like a little, amiable, refined, withered, worn- out beau of sixty, with pleasant but dilapidated features and uncertain legs. Behind the Princess, divided by her train, walked a Prussian and a Dutch Dragoness of Cere monies then about 15 feet in the rear, 4 bridesmaids, carrying the end of the silver brocade train spread out like a peacock s tail. But they were charming each face and form lovely as a picture, and taking lovelier groupings with every step. I have never seen anything more beautiful. The bride wore the small crown of a Princess on the very top of her hair; but it was made of 100 very large diamonds, and seemed to rain light over her. She also wore the old crown diamonds as a stomacher. "After the pair came a lot of high H of -Char gen, two more Pages, then the King of Holland and the Crown- Princess, followed by their Court officials. The same order marked each pair, and there were always grand lackeys and pages between. The succeeding pairs were: the Crown-Prince with Princess Friedrich Karl; Prince Fr. Karl and the Grand Duchess of Weimar ; Prince Karl of Prussia and >6-Duchess of Oldenburg; Prince Fred- 300 ON TWO CONTINENTS erick of Holland with Princess Albrecht; the Grand- Duke of Weimar with his daughter-in-law; the Duke of Connaught with his bride; and the Grand Duke of Oldenburg with the Erb-Princess of Meiningen. Before the Crown-Prince went his four youngest children, three small girls and one boy, in pale blue and silver, with little bridal bouquets. They were half frightened, but alto gether beautiful, and it was pleasant to see how the whole company bowed twice as low to them as to the High- mighty persons. I m sure I did it most willingly. The slow and stately march of the procession, the strains of the music, the dazzle of torches and wax-lights and the splendor of color, made a most impressive picture, and I longed intensely for you and Lilian to enjoy it with me. " There was a hymn and a short address by the clergy man, and then the marriage ceremony, the first part of which requires the bridegroom to present the bride with the Bible* a thing I never saw before. At the exact moment when they gave each other the rings, there was a distant, sullen peal of thunder as I thought; but it was repeated every ten seconds, the orchestra fell into a new tempo, and the booming of the cannon became part of the music thenceforth to the end. After the blessing, the Hallelujah Chorus was sung with the grandest effect and then the procession returned in the same order to the grotto, or Hall of shells, to receive the Defile. The Diplomatic Corps went first: while the old, fussy R was mustering us, somebody behind me said : * Good even ing ! Not supposing it was meant for me I did not turn ; but the greeting was repeated, and I felt a slight punch in the side. It was the Erb-Prinz of Weimar! who laughed as if he had perpetrated a good joke. Presently somebody bowed so low I could hardly see his face, and said: Excellent, I am very glad to see you here/ It was *This custom and the "Fackeltanz," described further on, are cere monies observed at the marriage of every member of the Royal house of Hohenzollern. SUNSET 301 M v. W ,* who had to fall back and make way for us, but not before he had whispered : Be sure and come to Gotha in the winter: we shall make it very pleasant for you. "There were so few Ministers that I was about the tenth in the Defile. . . . The Royal party sat on a dais, along one side of the grand hall. All the central space was clear, and the three other sides were crammed with guests, Court officials, Pages, with the giant guards looming up in the background, and the horns and trum pets blowing. Following Rudhart, I caught his step at the door and walked rapidly in time with him and the music. Each faced the bridal couple rapidly, bowed profoundly, wheeled and walked two or three steps, faced the King of Holland and Crown-Princess, bowed ; walked on and gave the third and last bow to the Crown-Prince. . . . It was all over in half a minute, and I had no time to feel embarrassed. All the rest of the company followed us, according to precedence, but we hurried upstairs to find our places at the supper-table. Mine was between Rudhart and Arapoff, and opposite Deering, so I got along very well. . . . The supper lasted, I should think, about f of an hour, and it was not particu larly good, except the single glasses of Johannisberger and Lafitte. I stole three tea-roses, rather withered, cut a white bridal button-hole bouquet from a bon-bon and wore it, and brought away the gorgeous menu for your collection. Also, a bon-bon, with photograph of Crown- Prince for Lilian. As every one had a chair, the supper was a great rest, and the accompanying music was superb. At -the royal table, on the platform, a Page stood behind each chair, and the effect of color was very fine. "After supper we returned to the jasper hall, took our former places, and the Fackeltanz began. The shrine and altar had been meanwhile removed and a raised platform, long enough to accommodate the whole Royal *Court Marshall of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 302 ON TWO CONTINENTS company, substituted; ... It was not at all what I supposed, but very stately, very impressive in fact, beautiful. I stood beside the Princess B v. C (I conversed only with Princesses!), who was very amiable, and told me all I needed to know, about the personages. . . . First, there was a grand blast of music ; then the pages, high lackeys, etc., cleared a circular space of 50 feet diameter in the hall, the giant guardsmen towered behind, and the music played outside an arched entrance. The ministers entered, in full uniform black coats almost buried under gold embroidery, and white trousers each bearing a large wax-light, 3 or 4 feet long with a thick wick, sending forth a strong white name, and a sort of holder of crystal and gold. There were 12, the places of Bismarck, Falk and one other being filled by Generals : they entered two by two, but on reaching the royal dais formed in single file and bowed to the High-mighty ones, then advanced and stood on the right, just before me. The bride and groom descended, bowed gravely to the high ones, and followed the torch-bearing ministers in a slow, stately promenade around the circle. On reaching the platform, they bowed again, while the ministers marched past, and took up their former station on the right. The groom went up on the platform and sat down, the King of Holland came down, took the bride s hand, and the march around the circle began. More deep bows and courtesies, the Crown-Prince came down and the whole thing was repeated, the respective Court- officials and Pages following the pair each time. It was more like a minuet than anything else grave, stately walking, keeping time to the music, and slow, majestic salutations. The circuit was made about 20 times, before the bride had walked with all the persons who had the right, although towards the close, she took two gentlemen instead of one. An interesting part of the play, to me, was that her bended head and downcast eyes were ex changed, by the most consummately graded changes, for SUNSET 303 uplifted head and proud, flashing eyes. At each round, her veil fell a little more backward and her head was slightly lifted, her silence slowly turned into words, and her expression of timidity and alarm changed into one of brightness and joy, so well done that I still think it may have been real. But the gradual transition was better than anything I ever saw on the stage. . . . Alto gether the Fackeltanz is very imposing and picturesque. I should like to see it again. But I shouldn t like to be Imperial Minister ! At the end of the dance the procession moved out of the hall. Both the Duke and Duchess of Weimar recognized me in passing, and gave special greet ings. This was the close of the performance, and it was only half -past nine. Carl was ready in the ante-room with my coat, and had secured a carriage for 3 or 4 per sons ; so I hurriedly picked up Rangabe and the Mexican Secretary, and we got away among the first. It was raining hard, and the train did not get off for half an hour; but I found a coupe where I could smoke with Claparede and two other Charges, and rested comfortably, congratulating myself that I had come. . . . "I reached home exactly at u, and found a note from Coleman and a telegram from C , both informing me that the latter had been liberated within two hours of my visit to him in the prison! Early this morning a police- officer called upon me, by the order of the Chief (Madai, I suppose), and formally read a statement that intelli gence from Chemnitz showed that the charges against C were unfounded. I returned my thanks to the Department, with the statement that my action was based on my conviction that such would prove to be the case. . . . " Coleman and I are jubilant over the result and he now confesses that the wording of the dispatch to Chemnitz and my language to the prison officials amazed and rather alarmed him. Were I not here, C might have been shut up for days. 3 o 4 ON TWO CONTINENTS "Monday morning. I really could not get this long letter finished yesterday. Boyesen called in the after noon, to get a good deal of literary criticism from me, and the four Americans then came for dinner. The repast was a perfect success: Carl and Wilhelm made no blun ders, the cooking was perfect, and the guests almost shed tears of joy when each saw a big roasted tomato on his plate. . . . Every day finds me a little ahead of the day before." When I arrived in Berlin a few days later my hus band s health appeared to be much improved. Fate willed that we should once more cast a hopeful glance into the future, and that for a brief month we should enjoy life ere our sun set forever. Two friends from America added to our happiness at this time: Professor Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen and Professor Willard Fiske, both of Cornell University. Other cultured and refined Americans visited us, so that we enjoyed a pleasant society, that reminded us of our New York circle. To Boyesen Taylor said one day that he regretted his past ill-health principally because it had hitherto prevented him from making a beginning upon the Goethe-Schiller biography, that had now been waiting so long, and that he was consumed with an intense longing to write the first chapter. He had indeed made an abortive attempt to begin work in the month of July. On the other hand, as soon as he felt a little better, in August, the poetic faculty had reasserted itself. After a drive from Gotha to Friedrichroda, when a storm had destroyed the ancient stork s nest on the gable of a peasant house in the little village of Wahlwinkel, he conceived and wrote the idyllic poem " The Village Stork." His last poem was composed SUNSET 305 a few weeks later, when he was asked to contribute his share to the solemnities which the Century Club prepared in honour of the dead poet, William Cullen Bryant. He consented reluctantly from a sense of duty, for he evi dently felt that he was not equal to the task. When his ode, the "Epicedium," was finally finished, he was not satisfied with it, but was conscious that he could not improve it. Once during his long painful illness sick as he was, he could not be prevailed upon to stay in bed he remarked to me that the idea for a poem had suddenly come into his mind. Later, after an inexorable fate had torn him from me, I found these verses written upon the back of a manuscript: " I meant to live I meant to help and save My fellow creatures : but the end has come, You are no more my father or my King: You are my tyrant, and your face says Death! * They were the sad conclusion of that other verse that he had dreamed in the summer of 1877 during his vacation in West Virginia: "The ship sails true, because the seas are wide." The end had been foreshadowed years ago. Accele rated by a rare "fanaticism of duty" (the expression of a friend), the organic disease suddenly entered its last fatal stage early in October. That inexplicable spiritual power, "das Damonische" as Goethe called it which in his earlier years was manifested in Bayard Taylor as his never-resting energy and compelling personal magne tism, had in his later life overmastered, and now undid him. He gave up his spirit on December 19, 1878. 3 o6 ON TWO CONTINENTS With his last breath the leaves of my book of remi niscences are closed. A widow to whom marriage offered all that her heart could wish no longer possesses a future. The past alone is hers. "I have remembered that Forgotten, when I saw nor understood; And now remembered since I know." EPIMETHEUS, "Prince Deukalion" Act III, Scene 5. INDEX AIRY, Mrs., 44. Airy, Sir George, 44, 45, 101. Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 77, 147, 216. Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, 129, 132, 134. Athens, 52, 53. Auerbach, Berthold, 196, 224, 288, 294. August, Duke of Gotha-Alten- burg, 14. BALEARIC ISLANDS, 177-179. Barrett, Lawrence, 272. Beaconsfield, Lord, 277, 280, 281, 283, 287, 293. Berlin, 217, 218, 273, 275-305. Bismarck, Prince, 126, 275, 276, 292. Boker, George H., 77, 107, 157. Booth, Edwin, 147, 164. Bormio, 226, 227. Botta, Mrs. Vincenzo (Anne Lynch), 77. Boyesen, H. H., 304. Braun, Emil, 22, 26, 28, 37, 38 278, 279. Braun, Mrs. Emil, 22, 23, 26. Browning, Mrs. (Elizabeth Bar rett), 23, 28, 33, 37, 186, 188. Browning, Robert, 33, 114. Bryant, William Cullen, 70, 266- 268, 305. Bufleb, August, 23, 24, 41, 46, 88, 252. "By- Ways of Europe," 176, 193. CALIFORNIA, 70, 73, 74. Cameron, Senator Simon, 118, 120, 137-139. Cary, Alice and Phoebe, 78. "Cedarcroft," 64, 66, 86-88, 98, 100, 107, 113, 145, 151, 152, I SS, I 57~ l6 3, l6 5> I7 1 . I 7 2 > 198-205, 214, 2I62I9, 221, 253 Centennial Celebration, 260, 262, 203. Church, Frederick, 149. Clay, Cassius M., 120, 137 i39 f 141. Cornell University, 207. "Cornwall, Barry," 174. Curtis, George William, 66-68, 96 DANA, Charles, 58. Darlington, Dr., 67. De Witt, Theodore, 26, 28, 29, 36, 38. "ECHO CLUB," 147, 148, 218. Egypt, 251. Eichendorn, 237. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 204, 232, 233, 2 4i. Ernest II., Duke of Gotha- Altenburg, 8. Ernest I., Duke of Saxe-Coburg- Gotha, 16, 20. Ernest II., Duke of Saxe-Coburg- Gotha, 20, 56, 102107, 143, 175, 182. "FAUST" (translation), 150, 151, 165, 195, 199, 200, 207, 213, 216, 217, 257. Fields, James T., no, 196, 216, 258. Florence, 186-188. Frederick, Crown Prince of Ger many, 34, 277, 289, 290, 300, 301. Freytag, Gustav, 182, 195. Furness, Dr. William H., 160. GAGARIN, Princess, 128. Garibaldi, 193. Gauss, K. F., 40. Gevers, Baron, 125. Gifford, Sanford R., 77, 147, 149, 228. Goethe, 196, 216, 224, 225, 244. 307 3 o8 INDEX Continued Goethe, Wolf von, 37, 242, 244- 249. Goethe and Schiller, 215, 230, 232, 236, 242, 258, 270, 304. Golz, Count, 125. Gortchacow, Prince, 126, 127, 138, 139, 141, 278. Gotha, 16, 18, 25, 39, 49, 101, 175, 194, 223, 229, 230, 250. Gould, Dr. B. A., 22. Graham, James Lorimer, 145, 147, 155, 181, 198, 232. Grant, General Ulysses S., 153, 281-283, 285-293. Greeley, Horace, 58, 78, 231. Greeley, Mrs., 78,^79. Gregorovius, Ferdinand, 189, 204. "HANNAH THURSTON," 108, 145. Hansen, Mrs., 4, 5, u, 17, 56, 194, 223, 229. Hansen, Peter Andreas, 3-7, 16, 21, 44, 56, 101, 164, 194, 223, 229, 236, 244, 251. Harte, Bret, 200. Hicks, Thomas, 77. "History of Germany," 232, 236 Holland, Dr., 266, 267. Humboldt, 67. "JOHN GODFREY S FORTUNES," 146, 150. Johnson, Eastman, 149. "Joseph and His Friend," 207. KENNETT SQUARE, 59, 60, 90-93, 100, 162. Kestner, Miss, 37. LANIER, Sidney D., 258. "Lars," 230, 238, 255. Leland, Charles G., 77. Lincoln, President, 137-140, 157. Locock, Mrs., 125, 248. London, 44, 51. Longfellow, Henry, W., 147, 216. Ludlow, Fitz-Hugh, 77, 147. "MASQUE OF THE GODS," 219, 220. Matthison, F., von, 237. McEntee, Jervis, 77, 147, 149, 155, 157. Montebello, Duchess of, 125, 138. Montgomery, Commodore, 73, 74. Moscow, 122, 123. Mt. Cuba, 254, 255. NAPIER, Lord, 125, 127. Naples, 189. Newcomb, Simon, 21. New York, 58, 75, 76, 146-149, 154, 264-273. "Northern Travel," 50. O BRIEN, Fitz-James, 147. Oehlenschlager, 7, 41. Ohio, 71. "Ouida," 233. PICKENS, Francis W., 133. "Picture of St. John," 141, 142. 150, 151, 161. "Poet s Journal," 88, 96. "Prince Deukalion," 220, 257, 259, 270. "Prophet," 238, 241, 243250. Putnam, George P., 58, 253. QUAKERS, 62, 89-93, 99, 230, 255. 258. RAMSAY, Lieutenant-Colonel, 226, 227. Reid, Whitelaw, 212, 232. Reynolds, General John F., 113. Robinson, Dr. Edward, 79. Rome, 26, 27, 31, 36, 191-193. Ruckert, Friedrich, 103. Russamowsky, Countess, 134, J 35- Russell, Lord Odo, 279-283, 287, 292. SALISBURY, Marquis of, 277, 279, 284, 287, San Francisco, 74, ^5, 208-210. San Gemini, 35. Schiller, 225. Seeberg, 9-13, 1 6, 17, 39. Seward, William H., 127, 137-140. Simplon Pass, 228. Sorrento, 189191. St. Paul, 72. St. Peter s, 32. St. Petersburg, 125-142. Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 77, 109, 146, 155, 157-159, 161, 192, 200, 219, 238. Stoddard, Lorimer, 146, 206. INDEX Continued 309 Stoddard, Mrs. (Elizabeth Bar- stow), 59, 69, 78, 88, 97, 115, 146, 147, 150, 155, 187. Stoddard, Richard Henry, 59, 69, 77, 88, 97, 115, 147, J 54, iSS- "Story of Kennett," 161, 164. Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 174. TAYLOR, Annie, 42, 45, 68, 145, 175. Taylor, Bayard, 2325, 42, 43, 45-47, 50, 52, 55, 56, 62, 65, 69, 70, 73, 74, 79-85. 88 > 8 9> 94, 9 6 100, 102106, 108110, 114, 117121, 126128, 132, 134, 136-142,145-147, 150-152, 154, J 55 I 59~ I 7 176-180, 182, 186-188, 191-193, 195-197, 199205, 207-211, 213215, 218-220, 227, 230250, 252, 254-257, 259-261, 263-305. Taylor, Becky, 92. Taylor, Emma, 42-45, 60, 98, 145. I 5 6 - Taylor, Dr. Franklin, 92. Taylor, Frederick, 42, 43, 45, 60, 99, 109, 111-113, 117, 144. Taylor, Joseph, 62, 63, 199, 211, 217. Taylor, Lilian, 115, 170, 190, 191, 206, 256, 262, 264, 301. Taylor, Mrs. Joseph, 63, 199, 211, 217, 274. Tennyson, Alfred, 173, 268. Thackeray, William M., 51, 78, no. Thompson, Launt, 147, 149. Tribune, New York, 50, 53, 100, IJ 5> i53. i? 6 . 2I2 , 231, 233- 236, 250, 259261, 266, 269, 271. Tupper, Martin F., 265-268. VENICE, 184-186. Vienna, 233236. WADDINGTON, Prime Minister of France, 278, 280, 283, 289. War, Civil, 94-101, 108-113, 116 118, 153, 156, 157. Warner, Anna and Susan, 77, 78. Weimar, 238-249, 252. "Wetherell, Elizabeth," 78. Whipple, E. P., 217. Whittier, John G., 90, 258. Wight, Orlando W., 77. William I., Emperor of Germany, 275, 281. Willis, N. P., 69, 109, 117. Wyse, Miss, 54, 55. Wyse, Sir Thomas, 54. YATES, Edmund, 234. .Young, Brigham, 208, 209. 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