Saxon Studies

Front matter

■ ■ ■ ■ I I ■ ■ I I ■ ■ I ■ I ■ I BY THE SAME AUTHOR. IDOLATRY: A ROMANCE 1 vol., 12mo, bevelled boards. $2.00. " One of the most fascinating books of its kind within our knowledge. It is a very daring piece of work ; but the vigor of imagination and. the dexterous skill with which it is wrought out justify tbe work man. The charm is in the personages and in the character which thev reveal. Although lifted far above the plane of real life, they are only therefore more intensely human. Balder is grand in a radiant manliness, which makes him as close a representative of a Scandina vian demi-god as a man can be who was born in America and educated at a German University ; and Grulemah, the new Miranda, who first worships Balder as her God, and then loves him as a man, isa won derful and enchanting revelation of that delicious mystery, unmitigated womanhood." — N. Y. Tt/nes. *** For salt by all Booksellers.

Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price by the publishers, JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., BOSTON. SAXON STUDIES. BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE. / BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. [Late Ticknoe & Fields, and Fields, Osoood, & Co.] 1876. Copyright, 1875, by Julian Hawthorn*. RIYERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. H0UGHT0N AND COMPANY. To EDWARD D. HOSMER, Esq., OF CHICAGO, A SOUVENIR OF ONE OR TWO WELL-REMEMBERED YEARS FROM HIS FRIEND, THE AUTHOR.

Preface

. When the ostensible subject of a book is one with which everybody believes himself familiar, the legendary Gentle Reader becomes rarer than ever. The author of the present compilation, however, has not consciously written anything calculated practically to avail the least instructed visitor to Saxony. Under cover of discussing certain aspects of Dresden life, he has stolen entrance to a far wider field of observation and remark, — so wide, that though the whole world of analyzers and moralists crowded into it, there would be space and to spare for each hobby to curvet its fill. He is free to admit that his interest in Saxony and the Saxons is of the most moderate' kind, — certainly not enough to provoke a treatise upon them. They are as dull and featureless a race as exists in this century, and the less one has to do with them, the better. But, the plan of his work re quiring some concrete nucleus round which to group such thoughts and fancies as he wished to venti-

PREFACE.

. late, and the Saxon capital chancing to have been his residence of late years, he has used it, rather than any other place, to serve his turn in this respect. So far, therefore, from being abashed at any critic's discovering nothing essentially Saxon in " Saxon Studies," he would insist upon thinking such a verdict complimentary. On the other hand, the author by no means de sires to evade the responsibility of whatever opin ions on Saxon life and character the ensuing pages happen to contain. He has perhaps been led to speak home truths on this subject oftener than he would otherwise have done, by reason of the mawk ish tendency, very observable of late, to make Ger mans of all people in the world, and Saxons with them, objects of sentimental hero-worship. But nothing that he has advanced in this direction errs not on the side of mildness rather than of severity ; and no deliberate assertion as to matter of fact that he has made is controvertible upon any grounds whatsoever.

Probably none would more readily admit this than the better class of Saxons themselves. It is true that these chapters, while appearing serially, were bitterly denounced in some of the Dresden journals, as well as elsewhere. But the author has before him, as he writes, the programme of a "Na-

PREFACE.

. V tive and Foreign Mutual Interest Protection Com pany," dated at Dresden, June, 1875, and signed by Baron Von Stockhausen as president. This com pany aims to remedy some of those very abuses, for mentioning which the " Studies " have been assailed. The reform is a necessary, if not a particularly hopeful one ; but in any event, the present writer is very far from claiming either credit for the en terprise or interest in its success ; and would be hugely diverted to find himself masquerading in a character so alien to his ambition and capacity as that of a patcher-up of dilapidated manners and morals. " Saxon Studies " own no such exalted pretensions. That they may be an amusement and relax ation to the reader, as they have been to the writer, is the best the latter cares to wish for them.

Prov idence would never have been at the pains to create man the only laughing animal, had it not first made him the most laughable of all. London, October, 1875. CONTENTS. PAGE I. DRESDEN ENVIRONS 9 II. OF GAMBRINUS 71 III. SIDEWALKS AND ROADWAYS 123 IV. STONE AND PLASTER 191 V. DRESDEN DIVERSIONS 249 VI. TYPES CIVIL AND UNCIVIL 313 VII. MOUNTAINEERING IN MINIATURE . . . .383 DRESDEN ENVIRONS.

Chapter I. Dresden Environs

I. The capital of Saxony, although not devoid of some pleasant interior features, improves, like the Past as we walk away from it ; until, seen from a certain distance, it acquires a smack of Florence. But cross this line in either direction, and the charm begins to wane. Here erects itself a moral barrier, which the temperate traveller should not transgress. A like mystic circle of greatest enjoyment surrounds all delights ; though, unfortunately, we are aware of it only after it has been overpassed. The right perception of mutual distances is a Philosopher's Stone, for which the wise, from Solomon down, have been experimenting. The true end of travel is, to reconcile us to our homes. We study foreign countries and customs, not for their intrinsic sake, but in order to compare them disadvantageously with our own : and thus the mere cosmopolitan misses more than he gains.

But man's eyesight sharpens as his intellect expands, and he begins to hold aloof from his surroundings. The tendency is not an unhealthy one, and, had Paradise never been lost, we should scarce have heard so much about its attractions. Lovers, it is true, appear to prefer contact to vision ; but hearts — and sweet hearts — see with some faculty transcending ordinary eyesight, and unattainable by commonplace travellers. Nevertheless, we shall do wisely, on starting out into the world, not quite to disencumber ourselves of our affectional luggage. It restrains too extended wanderings, and tempers glances else too keen for perfect truth. As for Dresden, I think its main charm lurks in the towers of its churches and palaces. They elevate the city's outline and make it seductive : albeit there by somewhat falsifying its true character.

Dresden is less romantic than the promise of its spires : for that matter, it is doubtful whether any city could maintain the standard of a cluster of minarets. Surely, the veriest atheist — if there stir within him any vestige of what less rational beings call a soul — must bless Eternal Nothingness that superstition still puts steeples on her churches. Religion may be DRESDEN ENVIRONS. folly, but all creeds admit the beauty of a dome. It gives unlimited enjoyment, and covers a multitude of sins. What is there, in this upward-tapering, slen der-pointing, worse than practically useless structure that so ensnares the fancy ? Certainly, a spire is an outrage to logic and to common sense. Yet .has the practice of building them outlived many a seeming wiser custom, and will, I trust, be one of the latest cured follies of mankind.

The idea was first, per haps, suggested by an aspiring lamp-flame ; and it may continue in vogue so long as fire — and that finer fire we call soul — tends heavenward. At all events, had I a grudge against Dresden, with power to back it, I would overthrow her towers. Had they never been erected, the city would to day have been unknown. The traveller, downward gazing from yonder long-backed hill, and beholding a flattened swarm of mean-featured houses spread ing dingily on both sides of a muddy river, would have hastened on to carry fame and fortune else where. Not here had the Sistine Madonna chosen her abode. But, as it is, these dusky minarets are loadstones whose attraction it is not easy to resist. In absence, they rise in memory and woo us back. Neverthe less, if we have once escaped, we shall do wisely to revisit them no more.

The tall pinnacles lose noth ing in the light of recollection ; rather a second look would find them less lofty and refined than at first. Beautiful were they as we gazed upon them ; but perfect, only when we have turned away. DRF.SDEN ENVIRONS. II. From the summit of this grassy upland we may see the city lie below us in the broad and shallow valley through which the Elbe prolongs a lazy S. Under the influence of the early sunbeams, a thin brown mist rises above the red-tiled roofs, and is trailed away by the indolent breeze. This valley is a notable wind-conductor, and many an epidemic has been put to flight by the sturdy northern gales — fortunate medicine for a most constipated system of drainage. We turn our backs on the city, and ramble country-wards for to-day. We may walk as leisurely as we like, pausing whenever the humor takes us.

For my own part, I refuse at the outset to be hurried, or to stick to the main road when the by path looks more inviting. The day is before us, and it is better to acquire something of country lore before attempting the city. As the sun of planets, so is Dresden centre of a spattering of villages. It is observable, that, al though the central body is greatly larger, and presumably older than its satellites, yet the latter are more antique in aspect and conservative in character. Like the smallest babies, they have the oldest faces, and are farthest behind the age. Their limited con stitutions do not easily assimilate new food : the short-paced intelligence of the offspring fails to keep pace with the parent's far-striding civilization. Dresden is, at present, not very far behind the age in some respects : it knows something about veloci pedes, tram-ways, and expensive living.

But the villages are still early in their eighteenth century. The ignorance of the average Saxon peasant is pet rifying — all the more in view of the fact that, of late years, he has begun to learn reading and writ ing. Such acquirements appear to be a poor gauge of intelligence. Of the march of events — the news of the day — of all such knowledges as the American infant sucks in with the milk from his feeding bottle — your Saxon peasant has no inkling. Often he cannot tell you the name of the king beneath whose palace walls he fives. A tradition is current that the last king but one (who was safely buried about thirty years ago) still survives in a neighboring castle, a captive to the ambition of his relatives. In short, hke better men than they, when truth is not readily to be had, they swallow lies with at least equal relish.

The Saxon mind is capadous of an indefinite amount of information ; but its digestion is out of proportion weak. There is not power to work up the meal of knowledge into the flesh and blood of wisdom. I have observed in the faces of the learned an expression of mental dyspepsia, — bulbous foreheads and dull pale eyes. As for Schil ler, Goethe, Heine, and the rest of that giant con clave, they are either not German, or else they are the only true Germans ever born. Immense, truly, seems to be their popularity among their later countrymen : but is the sympathy so officiously asserted, genuine stuff ? It sometimes puts me in mind of the reflection of sublimity in mud-puddles. There is, or used to be, a symmetricalness and consistency about these peasants, unattainable by the more enlightened.

They lived near the earth, like plantains ; but their humbleness was compensated by some wholesome qualities. It is uncom fortable to reflect that cultivation will vitiate them — has already begun to do so. Such manure as they are treated to will cause them either to grow rank and monstrous, or to rot away. Broad-based scepticism is sometimes maintained to be better than deep-rooted prejudice ; but it does not seem to with stand storms so well. If progress must progress with these people, why not a little modify the method ? The heart of the ■2 peasant is, perhaps, as valid as other men's : but his brain is notably weak. Yet reformers address themselves solely to the latter, and force it to an empty activity. The cone is thus inverted, and the learned peasant topples over. In the best of men, the brain, however large, has always been out-weighed by the heart.

Were education filtered into the peasant through the latter channel, it could never hurt him. It might work in more slowly, but would always remain pure and sweet, and never overfill the vessel. Barriers against civilization are rather physical than moral, — a matter of good or bad roads. We need not consult books for the history of past times ; all ages since the Deluge live to-day, if the traveller direct his steps aright. How old is the world ? Shall we measure its antiquity by Babylon or Boston ? Time sleeps beneath immemorial ruins at one spot, while he mounts the telegraph-pole at another. The Nineteenth Century, accordingly, while it ambles easily down the current of the Elbe, and along the high-roads and railways, seldom exerts itself to climb a hill or wind its way into a se questered valley.

There are retreats but a few miles from Dresden, where still lingers the light of centuries sunk beneath the general horizon. The " Guttentag " affords a ready test of the matter : the distribution of this flower of courtesy marks the boundaries of progress. Try yonder peasant, for instance, as he passes us on the road. Did he stare stolidly at us? or go by, awkwardly unconscious, with averted gaze? We are at an easy distance from Dresden, and the roads are good. But, did he touch his cap, meet our glance with humble frankness, and speak the " Good-day " with a pleasant gruffness of cordiality ? Alas, poor fellow ! he lives in a savage gorge, accessible only by an un easy foot-path. Though he appear scarce thirty, he was born at least one hundred and fifty years ago. He knows nothing about the Neue-Continental- Pferd-Eisenbahn-Actien-Gesellshaft lately started in Dresden.

May we not almost say, seeing that he has never breathed our Nineteenth Century air, that he has no real existence at all? This same flower of courtesy depends for its growth, not solely on the locality, however, but somewhat also on the individual. In one and the same household we may meet with it under all conditions of luxuriance or starvation. As a rule, it flourishes best with the very old and with the very young — those who have either lived too long to be affected by modern gospels, or have not yet grown tall enough to reach up to them. It is in the hands of the well-grown youth that the flower is most apt to droop, or wither quite away : they it is who dream most of emigrating to America, and who meantime practise some American virtues in their native cottages. Much unhappiness is no doubt in store for them : but posterity may glorify their stripes with stars.

Their newly gained culture has not yet sunk so deeply into these peasants, however, as to be inca pable of occasional disconcertment. If we first salute them, they will almost invariably return our greet ing : or the magnet of an overbearing or calmly superior glance will often draw the words from our man, or startle them out of him. For no Saxon, of whatever degree, understands the maintenance of self-respect in the presence of what he fancies a superior power. In treating of Saxon manners, it might be sup posed that the illustrations should be drawn else where than from the peasantry. But I find among them the original forms of many social peculiarities, which, on higher planes, are almost unnoticeable by reason of their conventional dress : conventionalism being the true cloak of invisibility.

Superficially, a best-society drawing-room in Germany and in Eng land appear much alike ; but go to the corresponding villages, and we see plainly points of difference, which exist no less — although imperceptibly — higher up. The thin, satiny skin of the polished man of the world is a better veil of his soul, than is the canvas-like hide of the coarse-grained laborer. But, indeed, all Saxons know how to be polite, and often seem to take pleasure in elaborate exhibitions of civility. Few things do they enjoy more than to take off their hats, smile, nod, and exclaim, " Ja ! Ja ! Ja ! " It is curious and strange to watch the antics of a group of acquaintances who have by chance encountered one another in the street. After a brief but highly animated conversation, they pro ceed to make their adieux.

It is on his powers in this respect that the Saxon chiefly prides himself. Behold, therefore, our friends who stand waving their hats, smiling, nodding, gesticulating, peppering one another with broadsides of Ja's. They become every moment more and more wound-up. Their excitement permeates every part of their bodies, and approaches ecstasy. It resembles the frenzy of Dancing Dervishes, or the more familiar madness of our own Shakers. This is the Saxon's mystic religious dance. To this height of fervor rises the warm-heartedness for which he is. noted. Polite ness is common in Saxony — provided only that it cost no more than in the proverb. American Emerson says, " I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women." He is said to be the most popular foreign essayist in Germany ; and it is certain that these people are most fond of such literature as is far thest beyond their comprehension.

Nevertheless, no true Saxon would subscribe to this particular dogma. For yonder market-wagon, high-piled with country produce, and drawn by a woman and a dog tugging on either side the shaft, while the husband driver walks unencumbered alongside, is so far from be ing a singular spectacle that, after now some six years daily familiarity with it, I confess to a difficulty in quite sympathizing with the indigna tion of a new-comer. But, indeed, this is nothing : only, at nightfall, we shall meet the same wagon homeward drawn by the same team : and lo ! seated upon the empty hampers, smokes serene the man and master of all. Let us be rational: why walk home when our woman and dog are at hand to carry us ? Why do not the woman-emancipationists come to Saxony, and see with their own eyes what the capacities of the sex actually are?

Here women show more strength and endurance than many of their husbands and brothers do. They carry on their broad backs, for miles, heavier weights than I should care to lend my shoulders to. Massive are their legs as the banyan-root ; their hips are as the bows of a three-decker. Backs have they like derricks ; rough hands like pile-drivers. They wear knee-short skirts, sleeves at elbows, head-kerchiefs. As a rule they possess animal good-nature and vacant amiability. But at twenty or twenty-five they are already growing old. Growing old, with them, is a painful process, not a graceful one. The reserves of vitality are dry, and the woman's face becomes furrowed, even as the fields she cultivates. Her eyes fade into stolidity and un intelligence. Her mouth seldom smiles. Thirty finds her hollowed-cheeked, withered, bony.

At fifty — should she live so long — she is in extreme old age. Meanwhile she has been bearing children as plentifully as though that were her sole employ ment. But such labors secure her scarce a temporary immunity from other toil. I have seen her straining up a long hill, weighted with more bur dens than one. Pleasanter is it to consider her in the hay-field, before youth has dried up in her. Her plain cos tume follows her figure closely enough to show to the best advantage its heavy but not unhandsome contours. Seen from a distance, her motions and postures have often an admirable grace. Her limbs observe harmonious lines. In raking, stooping, toss ing the hay, her action is supple and easy. As she labors in the sun, she keeps up a continuous good humored chatter with her companions. Her bare arms and legs are bronzed by summer exposure to heat — and dirt ; and her visage is of a color almost Ethiopian.

But an American Southerner might see in her more than the dark complexion, to put him in mind of former days and institutions. The Greeks had slaves who took the edge off the work, but were not intended to bear Grecian children. Saxon slaves are not let off so easily. A nation, whose women keep their houses, saw their wood, cultivate their crops and carry them to market on their backs, and bear children in season and out of season, may indeed go to war with full ranks, for a time. But what use to con quer the world, if our sons and daughters are to grow up cripples and idiots ? For, does that pregnant woman whom we saw straining uphill with her heavy basket injure only herself? I have already remarked that the ground-plan of high society may best be studied in the nearest village ; and so the best way to become acquainted with a Saxon lady is to observe her peasant-sister who sweats and tugs in fields and on country roads.

The spirit of chivalry never throve among these people, high or low ; what is more serious (and, perhaps, too much so for context so light toned as this), the bulwarks of female chastity, where they exist, are rather mechanical than moral. In Saxony, therefore, suspicion justly has the weight of conviction. The best result of this system is an insecure and exaggerated innocence : the rest needs not further to be enlarged upon. Women are what men make them ; and thus we come back to our Emersonian text. The nation that degrades its women, cuts off the wings and darkens the light which should lift and guide it to an enduring stand-point. I cannot but feel a misgiving about these German triumphs in field and cabinet, when I see men helping themselves before women at table — and elsewhere. How many of us have dreamt romantically about the ideal German peasant-girl ?

She appeared to us pretty to the edge of beauty — perhaps a step beyond. She was blue-eyed, and flaxen braids fell over shapely shoulders. Her gown was charmingly caught up at one side ; she was often seen with a distaff, and was apt to break out in sunny smiles or pathetic little songs. Gœthe a"nd Kaulbach have much to answer for ! And yet, among many im perfect Gretchens, I have sometimes fancied that I caught a glimpse of the real, traditional heroine. Handsome and pretty women are certainly no rarity in Saxony, although few of them can lay claim to an unadulterated Saxon pedigree. We see lovely Austrians, and .fascinating Poles and Russians, who delicately smoke cigars in the con cert-gardens. But it is hard for the peasant type to rise higher than comeliness ; and it is distress ingly apt to be coarse of feature as well as of hand, clumsy of ankle, and more or less wedded to grease and dirt.

Good blood shows in the pro file ; and these young girls, whose full faces are often pleasant and even attractive, have seldom an eloquent contour of nose and mouth. There is sometimes great softness and sweetness of eye ; a clear complexion ; a pretty roundness of chin and throat. Indeed, I have found scattered through half a dozen different villages all the features of the true Gretchen ; and once, in an obscure ham let, whose name I have forgotten, I came unex pectedly upon what seemed a near approach to the mythic being. She was at work on the village pump-handle, and her management of it was full of grace and vigor. She bade me good-morning in a round, melodious voice, and looked healthy, fresh, bright, and almost clean. I gave but one glance, and then a subtle inward monition impelled me to hurry away.

For, although a second look might have recognized her as the long-sought one, yet it might have brought disappointment, and, therefore, was too much to risk. Meanwhile, so much was gained — I cannot say that I have failed to find her. But this is sentimental nonsense. English, French, Italians, Spaniards, Russians — each and all surpass their German sister in some particular of beauty ; and the American, in all combined. Gretchen will always have unlovely hands and shapeless feet ; her flaxen braids will be dull and lustreless, and her head will be planed off behind on a line with her ears. This is no anti-climax ; for most of the qualities which make a human be ing humanly interesting, are dependent upon a goodly development of the cerebellum. V. We sallied forth this morning in quest of a representative Saxon village ; but, save as regards situation, one is as representative as another.

The same people inhabit all, and follow the same customs, submit to the same inconveniences, partake of the same ignorance, and are wedded to the same prejudices and superstitions. Moreover, the names of fifteen out of twenty of these villages end in the same three mystic letters — " itz." What " itz " signifies I know not ; but I should fancy that whoever lives in a community whose name terminates differently would feel like a kind of outlaw or alien. Loschwitz, Blasewitz, Pillnitz, Pulsnitz, Sedlitz, Gorbitz, — all are members of one family, and look, speak, and think in the family way. It is admirable the care they take to post up their names on a signboard at each en trance of the village, doubtless a safeguard against the serious danger of forgetting their own first syllables. Were some mischievous person, while the honest villagers slept, to interchange all their signboards, there would be no hope of their ever identifying themselves again.

Perhaps, indeed, thejT might fail to perceive the alteration. Pill nitz or Pulsnitz — what odds ? It can matter lit tle to a pebble what position on the beach it occupies ; and I dare say the members of various families might be substituted one for another, and nothing be noticed much out of the way on either side. Many of these little flocks of houses have settled down from their flight in the realm of thought along the banks of a stream which trickles through a narrow gorge, between low hills. The brook is an important element in the village economy, fulfilling the rather discordant offices of public drain, swill-pail, and wash-tub ; and moreover, serving as a perennial plaything for quantities of white-headed children and geese. It is walled in with stone ; narrow flights of steps lead down at intervals to the water's edge, and here and there miniature bridges span the flood.

The water bab bles over a pebbly bottom, varied with bits of broken pottery and cast-away odds-and-ends of the household ; once in a while the stream gathers up its strength to turn a saw-mill, and anon spreads out to form a shallow basin. Stiff-necked, plaster faced, the cottages stand in lines on either bank, winking lazily at one another with their old glass eyes, across the narrow intervening space. Above their red-tiled roofs rise the steep hill-ridges, built up in irregular terraces, overgrown with vines or fruit trees. Nobody seems to stay at home except the geese and the babies. Such little settlements hide in country depths, whither only grassy lanes and foot-paths find their way. Others there are, mere episodes of the high road, dusty, bare, and exposed, with flat views over surrounding plains ; with a naked inn — "Gasthaus" — in their midst, where thirsty team sters halt for beer, and to stare with slow-moving ej7es at the pigmy common with its muddy goose pond, and to pump up unintelligible gutturals at one another.

Others, again, are ranged abreast beneath the bluffs on the river bank ; a straggling foot-path dodges crookedly through them, scram bling here over a front door-step, there crossing a backyard. Women, bare of foot and head, peer curiously forth from low door-ways and cramped windows ; soiled children stare, a-suck at muddy fingers ; there are glimpses of internal economies, rustic meals, withered grandparents who seldom get farther than the door-step ; visions of infants nursed and spanked. A strip of grass intervenes between the houses and the Elbe river ; through trees we see the down-slipping current, bearing with it interminable rafts and ponderous canal boats, and sometimes a puffing steamer, with noisy paddle-wheels. At times we skirt long stretches of blind walls, from the chinks of which sprout grass and flowers; and which convey to us an obscure impression of there being grape-vines on the other side of them.