Twenty Years in Europe

While sitting at the old, old table, sipping our coffee, we see the pretty steamers pass on the lake far below us, and towards Glarus we see the snowy Alps reflecting the morning sun.

Plain old Chateau Bocken was built centuries ago as a country home for the Burgomasters of Zurich. Those fellows of the olden time knew where the beautiful spots of earth were. I often think Bocken, in summer, the loveliest spot on earth. I am sure it is, for me. Evenings after supper on the terrace, we sit out there at the table with the lamps burning till bedtime. We have good times in talk and reminiscences. Harte is as fine a conversationalist as I ever knew. He uses the most choice and elegant language possible. This surprises one, on recalling that his famous California stories are so often in the dialect of the gold mines. His voice is fine, his speech extremely taking, and I think he has a good heart. When feeling well, he is a delightful companion-an interesting man-apart from his work and fame.

These evenings out on the terrace, we talk of the poets too. Each expresses his preference. Harte said almost the finest poem in the language is Browning’s “Bringing the Good News From Ghent to Aix.” He recited it with splendid feeling.

To me, Browning’s “Napoleon at Ratisbon” seemed almost equally good-a whole drama in a dozen lines or so.

I spoke of Harte’s own poem, the “Reveille.” His recital to us of how it was produced in San Francisco was in itself a picture of old war times, exciting in the extreme.

A great mass meeting was to be held in San Francisco one evening. Men were wanted to enlist-to go out and die for their country, in fact. Somebody must write a poem, said the Committee, and Thomas Starr King, the patriot orator, suggested the name of a young man employe at the Government mint. It was Bret Harte. The day of the evening came, and, with fear and doubting, Mr. Harte read his little poem to Mr. King. “I am sure it won’t do-It is not good enough,” he added deprecatingly, and with self-disappointment. “You don’t know,” answered Mr. King. “Let me read that poem aloud to you once.”

In his great, fine voice, he rendered the verses, till Harte himself was astonished with his own lines. Still, the judgment of a friend could be over partial.

Harte was almost afraid to go to the hall that night; but he went and crept up into the gallery. All San Francisco seemed to be present. It was a terribly exciting time. Would California rise up and be true to the Union, or only half true?

“I will read a poem,” said the magnificent King, after a while. “It is by Mr. Harte, a young man working in the Government mint.”

“Who’s Harte?” murmured half the audience. “Who’s he?”

The orator commenced, and ere he reached that great line, “For the great heart of the Nation, throbbing, answered, ‘Lord, we come,’” the entire audience were on their feet, cheering and in tears.

It was too much for the young poet to stay and witness. He thought he would faint. He slipped down the back stairs and out into the dark street, and walking there alone, wondered at the excitement over verses he had that morning feared to be valueless.

One can imagine a young man out there alone in the dark, for the first time hearing Fame’s trumpet sounding to him from the crowded theater.

August 15.-The days were passing in delight at Bocken. I come out from the consulate early in the afternoon. Occasionally I stay here all day, and then with Harte and his cousin we have little excursions in the vicinity.

Yesterday, I helped Mr. Harte read over the proof-sheets of his “Twins of Table Mountain.” We lay in hammocks and read. I do not think it approaches some of his former stories.

Miss C- copies much for him, and he also occasionally dictates to her. I wonder that any one can write in that way.

The other afternoon I took him in to consult Dr. Cloetta, a distinguished professor and physician. The good doctor, who speaks but little English, put him on a lounge, examined him carefully, and said, “Mr. Harte, I think you got extension of the stomach.” Coming back on the boat, Harte laughed a good deal about this; cursed a little too.

August 18.-Mrs. Senator Sherman, of Washington, and two of her nieces, are stopping for a while in this part of Switzerland. A lieutenant of the navy is also with them. The other day we all took a notion to cross the country in a post diligence, and turn up at the Rigi.

We started from Bocken early in the morning. The driver was jolly and we had much fun. I only fear some of the peasants thought us tipsy, as we passed through their villages singing “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me,” and like joyous American ditties. We had a big, red umbrella fastened above the diligence, and when we came to a hamlet the driver put his horses on the gallop and blew his bugle. Mrs. Sherman looked a bit serious over it all, but the noisier ones of the party were in command.

The hotel on the Rigi had not a single bed for us that night. “May we sleep on the hall floor?” innocently inquired Mr. Harte. “No,” answered the landlord. “Perhaps out on the doorsteps then?” continued Mr. Harte. “Just as you please,” said the keeper of the hostelry, crustily. “My beds, I tell you, are taken. I can do nothing for you.” “Yes, but-” went on Mr. Harte, with a knowing smile-“it is awfully cold and dark out there-suppose our little party orders a good champagne supper, with lots of chicken and etceteras, and sits at the table here all night. You wouldn’t mind that would you?” The landlord coughed a little cough.

The supper was ordered, and before it was half over our host bethought himself. He said he had just got a telegram from Prince – and his suite, who had engaged the four finest rooms in the house. The Prince could not come. We could have the Prince’s rooms, all of them. “Hurrah for the Prince of – ,” we all cried, clinking our glasses to him. The fact was, and we knew it, the telegraph office had not been open since 6 o’clock. All the same, we had the finest rooms and a moderate bill. And the next day one of the nieces was engaged to the young lieutenant. So a good deed prospers.

“You will not mind telling us why you did not give us the rooms in the first place, will you?” said Mr. Harte to the host next morning, as he settled the bill for the party. “We know, you know, that you got no telegram at all from the Prince.” “Frankly,” said the landlord, “it was because Americans don’t often order wine. My profit’s in my wine and if none is ordered, better the rooms remain empty. But you folks are not Americans, I know by the many bottles.” Nevertheless, it was Mr. Harte’s good nature that won the day for us, or rather the night.

We were up too late for the “Sunrise on the Rigi” next morning; but the splendid view of a dozen blue lakes and snow white mountains all around us, repaid the party for the trip.

Mrs. Sherman liked the Rigi for its own lonesome heights. Mr. Harte praised the whole wonderful scene; the Lieutenant looked into the blue eyes of Miss – , and all were satisfied.

August 30, 1879.-When we got back from the Rigi to Bocken, Mr. Harte proposed that we go for a week to Obstalden, that picturesque hamlet hung above the Wallensee. We ourselves had spent parts of three summers there. It is indeed a characteristic Alpine village. It is on the side of a mountain. The wonderful little Wallensee, blue as a summer’s sky, lies 2,000 feet below it. Behind it rise majestic mountains. It is all green grass up there, even up to the very doors and windows of the brown, hewn log houses. A little white highway winds up to the village from the lake, while the rest of the roads are simple, narrow goat paths. They lead about over the grass from house to house, and from the village up to the higher Alps, where the village boys herd goats and cows from sunrise till evening. The peasant women all weave silk, and this necessitates the great number of long windows in their ham-brown cabins. The men are almost as brown as their houses, and live to be a hundred years old. I never saw so many very old people in my life. They live on bread and milk and cheese, with a little sour wine. Some of these centenarians are Alpine guides, and I have had them carry my overcoat and haversack and escort me up high mountains with the nimbleness of a boy of twenty. I was ashamed to have them lug things for me, a member of the Alpine Club, but they insisted.

American tourists don’t find Obstalden. The hamlet is kept a close secret among a few Swiss and Germans, who want only picturesque scenes and very simple life. It was a great favor that a friend told me about it, and got the little village inn to always give me the refusal of a room or two.

I had learned Mr. Harte’s tastes, after his coming to Bocken. They were not for the utterly simple life of mountain villages, after all, and my wife and I protested against his going to Obstalden. But go he would and we had to accompany him.

When we got there, the little hotel was overflowing with people. It held but a dozen guests. The keeper of the inn offered to sit up that night, and let Miss C- and my wife have his room. But at last he thought of the village pastor’s wife, and she took in the two ladies. He tried to get a room in a peasant’s house for Mr. Harte and me. It was impossible. We could walk about all night, at the imminent risk of falling off a couple of thousand feet or so, or we could sleep in a peasant’s hayloft.

Many of Mark Twain’s famous “Chamois” were likely to be hopping around in that little hayloft. Mr. Harte hesitated a little-wished he had never heard of Obstalden. He wore one of his newest, swellest suits, and the situation “gave him pause.” At last he nimbly climbed up the ladder. I followed, and without much undressing in the dark, we were soon under a big coverlet, where to me, for a novelty, the sweet hay was better than any sheets ever made.

Mr. Harte found it all “mighty tough” and “mighty rough.” He had wanted, he said in his letter “a little inexpensive simplicity,” but this was too much for anything-a couple of representatives of the great United States, and one of them a New York exquisite, tucked away in a hay mow above the goats and cattle. Obviously, he had not been a mountaineer, fine as had been his tales of the rough life in California.

That was something I always wondered at-how Bret Harte could write such splendid touching tales of “hard cases,” being himself so much the reverse of all the characters he depicted. It was the genius of his character that had done it all. Some men take in at a glimpse, and can perfectly describe what others must experience for a lifetime, to be able to tell anything about.

We lay awake much of that summer night, in the hay mow, but the “poetry” of the thing was all wasted on Mr. Harte. We heard the solitary watchman of the village, who with his lantern walked about in the darkness, cry to the sleepers: “Twelve o’clock, and all is well.” That solitary watchman’s occupation did touch Mr. Harte. It is indeed a singular life, going around there alone all the night, the towering pinnacles of the rocks on one hand, the depths of the valley and the lake below on the other, the flash of waterfalls close by, the thunder of distant falling avalanches. Never a night in three hundred years but some watchman has gone about the byways of Obstalden with his lantern, calling aloud the hours.

A tin cup, and a little mountain rill that laughed its way through the village, afforded Mr. Harte and myself our opportunities for morning toilettes. Mr. Harte’s new clothes had been pressed in the hay-mow, but not always in the right direction. We met the ladies at the breakfast table of the inn. Mr. Harte’s narrative to them of the adventures of the night made a hearty laugh. Never did a breakfast of brown bread and butter, with good coffee, hot milk and wild honey, taste better. The table was set out on the terrace. The blue lake was far, far below us. On its opposite shore, the perpendicular rocks, a mile high, shut in the loveliest water in Switzerland.

Up on top of those walls of rock, on a little green plateau, we could see the town of Amden. Nothing like it in the world. Not a horse nor a carriage up there. It is reached by a stone stairway, zigzagging along the face of the rocks. Everything the people buy or sell is lugged up and down this wonderful stairway on peasants’ shoulders.

In the afternoon, Mr. Harte’s attention was riveted on a curious procession of row boats, slowly crossing the lake in our direction. One of the boats was entirely covered with garlands and white flowers. It was a village funeral, said our landlord. They don’t have ground enough for a graveyard up there in Amden; so they bury their people this side of the lake.

“There is your story,” I said to Mr. Harte-“the wonderful stairway-the lake funeral-the town on the high rocks.”

“Yes-all right,” he answered; “but, somehow, I never have luck with material I don’t find out for myself. I must suggest it myself.” I recalled Bayard Taylor’s saying, “there is no satisfaction in even a pint of hot water which has been heated by somebody else.” I am afraid I heated this water, not very hot. The story will never be written.

That evening we visited the “goat village,” not far away, and watched hundreds and hundreds of goats, led by a young mountaineer, with a great bunch of Alpine roses tied to his staff, and a wreath of roses on his hat. He was coming down from the grassy slopes of a mountain. He was whistling and singing all the way. It was a picturesque sight. The “goat village” is composed of scores of little huts or pens, each one big enough for a single goat. It was interesting to see how each goat knew its own hut among the many, and hurried into it to be milked.

In a very few days Mr. Harte had had enough of Alpine simplicity, though we had secured a room in the inn.

Far down below us on the lake lay pretty Wesen. It looked more civilized, and he would try it there. When he was shown his room in the Wesen inn, and strolled into the little drawing-room, what was his surprise to notice lying among the books on the table, “the Works of Bret Harte.”

This was fame-away off in an Alpine village of Switzerland to find his name was known, his books read.

When he told me, I recalled that other first night in San Francisco-the applauding assembly-the unknown poet out in the street in the dark.

Mr. Harte soon came back to us at Bocken, and on the 26th we accompanied him on his way to his home in Germany, as far as the Falls of the Rhine.

But we stopped first in Zurich. As it was his birthday, we had a little good-bye dinner together in the Tonhalle by the lake, and did all we could for his “health” with a bottle of “Mumm’s extra dry.”

That he might be right over the Rhine Falls by moonlight, the host of the Laufen Castle gave him the room with the balconies above the water. It was beautiful, but the noise of the falls kept Harte awake all night.

In the morning we said good-bye and parted, he for Crefeld via the Black Forest, and we for Bocken.

Yesterday I got this letter from him:

“Crefeld, Aug. 27, 1879.

“My Dear Mr. Byers: – We arrived here safely last night. Of course, the railways did not connect as you said they would, and of course, we did not go where you promised we should, but we got to Düsseldorf within twelve hours of the schedule time set and are thankful. Only let me beg you to post yourself a little on Swiss railroads before you travel yourself. Your knowledge does well enough for a guide to old experienced travelers like us!!! but it won’t do for a simple, guileless, believing nature like your own. And don’t let the landlord of the Chateau ‘Laufen’ cook up a route for you.

“Our ride through the Black Forest was a delicious revelation. I should say it was an overture to Switzerland, had I entered Switzerland from its borders, but coming from Switzerland, I could not but think it was really finer than the Alps in everything that makes the picturesque, and that Switzerland would have been a disappointment afterwards. It was very like the California ‘foothills’ in the mountain ranges, and the long dashes of red soil and red road-so unlike the glare and dazzle of the white Swiss turnpikes-were very effective. I wanted much to stop at Freiberg, still more at a certain ruined castle and ‘pension’ called Hombeck, which was as picturesque as Castle Laufen, minus the noise of ‘factory wheels and fulling mills’ from these awful rapids. Heidelberg was a sensation, with its castle that quite dwarfs the Rhine River (as all these things do by comparison when one travels) and we could have stayed here two or three days and enjoyed ourselves.

“The weather has changed back to the old wet season that we thought we had left behind us when we turned our faces Southward. It is dull and rainy. Nevertheless as soon as I get some work off my hands that has accumulated here I shall try the seaside for my hoped-for rehabilitation.

“My cousin sends her regards. I suppose she will write or has written to Mrs. Byers. I hope you will not give up your Rhine trip (with a suitable guide) and that we may see you in Düsseldorf soon.

“With my best regards to Mrs. Byers,

“Very truly yours,Bret Harte.”

September 29, 1879.-We are just home from a ten days’ trip up and down the Moselle River, that neglected Cinderella sister of the Rhine. It is more beautiful than the Rhine itself. It has more pretty hills and mountains on its shores; its villages are more picturesque; its ruins of castles more numerous; its wines as good. Parts of our journey we went in a row boat, often we walked along the shores. At Cochem, we visited friends and had a good time. We also went to the magnificent “Elz,” the only German castle Louis XIV’s invaders failed to find and destroy. It is among the dark wooded hills, miles back from the Moselle River. Nothing like it to-day in Germany. Heidelberg is a ruin. Elz is a perfect castle of the Middle Ages. Portcullis, gate, tower, moat, walls and halls, stone floors, fireplaces, tapestries and furniture, as they were centuries ago. Everything has been left, and the owner of Elz keeps all the surroundings in the spirit of the olden time, even to the troops of hounds.

To wander through this castle is like reading Scott’s novels, only here all is old German. No wonder the French never found the castle. Even we, with a guide, blundered right on to it, before we knew we were within miles of it. We heard dogs baying, looked, and there among the rocks and woods saw the lofty walls and towers. We had no passes allowing us to enter, but our guide had a brother among the men in charge, and we were shown across the bridge and moat.

I know no spot, castle, or ruin, in Europe, where one feels himself so absolutely back in the Middle Ages. While in there, I forgot there were such things as gunpowder, railways, gas and cannon. The walls were hung with spears, swords, bows and battle clubs.

Another of the perfect works of olden times visited by us on the Moselle was the ancient gateway at the City of Treves. This “Porta Nigra” impressed me much. I think there is nothing to equal it, even in Rome. Many of the works of the Romans, built in this German town, are in better preservation than anything in the “Eternal City.” Some of them are just as grand. The town itself is only a feeble reminder of the great, old times, when seven different Roman Emperors made this town their residence.

There is one church here, the “Liebfrauen Kirche,” exquisite in its beauty, that stands as the most perfect specimen of Gothic architecture remaining in the world. It is indeed “a thing of beauty” and a “joy;” if not forever, for at least five hundred years, and it may last a thousand years to come. The “Holy Coat of Christ” is kept here in the Cathedral. It is claimed to have been brought here by Helena, the mother of Constantine. I can see no reason why this may not be true. Relics of a million times’ less significance have been preserved by men for ages. Nothing would be so easily traced and cared for, from century to century, as a relic that half mankind revered as holy.

November, 1879.-We are again at our home in Zurich, 7 Centralhof. We are anxious for a long visit to Italy, and I have asked for a leave. Mr. Harte thinks to go along with us.

“November 9, 1879.

“My Dear Mr. Byers: – I have your welcome letter of the 7th, and hasten to say that two words by telegraph from Mr. Seward give me my leave of absence. With this in my pocket, I am in no hurry, knowing that I can rush off at any moment, when Crefeld becomes unbearable. When the Rhine fog gathers thickest, and the office lights are lit at 3 P. M. and neuralgia becomes lively, I clutch the telegram and smile a ghostly smile.

“And we may meet, after all, where the sun shines. The doctor here tells me I must go to upper Italy, say Bellagio on the Lake of Como. But there is a time to think of that. Let me know when you get your leave. You will get it of course.

“My cousin had a dismal voyage home, tempestuous weather and seasickness nearly all the time. She writes rather sadly from New York, where she has found her brother-in-law hopelessly ill, and her sister in great distress. Her quiet life in Düsseldorf makes that busy city seem strange to her, and I hope when she gets to Washington she may shake off her sadness. I have written to her urging her, if she have the slightest feeling of ‘homesickness’ for Europe again, to start off with her sister Jessie and come back to me at once. I hope she certainly will in the spring, for it is terribly lonely here.

“Tell Mrs. Byers to stop this shooting of Parthian arrows from Obstalden. I am not so very particular, but if we travel in Italy together, we must certainly have more than one bedroom for us three. I know I am fastidious as to location, but I’d let that go. I’d stick out for two bedrooms, if we had to telegraph a week ahead. If Mrs. Byers and myself are to quarrel in this way we must all have separate apartments, and two wash bowls.

“I forgot to ask you to procure me a book of Swiss photographic views for about eight or ten francs. It is for a child’s present and I leave the selection entirely to yourself. Will you charge your soul with it, and credit me with the enclosed.

“Yours ever,B. H.”

And later he writes:

“November 23, 1879.

“My Dear Mr. Byers: – A line to thank you for the album. It was a great bargain at 10 R. M. And yet people talk of the impractical, unbusiness-like character of the literary mind.

“I am still here, but knowing that I can go when I can stand things no longer, I put up with an india-ink washed sky, a dismal twilight that lasts eight hours, and stands for ‘day’ to the Rhenish perception, and find some work. I have just ‘turned off’ a story longer than the ‘Twins,’ and did it in spite of neuralgia and ’extension.’

“I see by a telegram to the Daily London News that Mr. Seward has resigned, and Colonel John Hay takes his place as Assistant Secretary of State. Hay is a good fellow, was in the diplomatic service once, is an accomplished, well-mannered gentleman of whom any American might be proud, and only a few years ago earned his bread by literary labors as editorial writer on the Tribune, besides being the author of ‘Jim Bludsoe’ and ‘Little Breeches,’ as you, of course, know. He married a rich wife and is quite independent of the office.

“All this ought to presage some intellectual discrimination of the deserts and needs of certain other literary men in the service. But we shall see. Certainly you will get your leave of absence now.

“When you have made up your mind to go, let me know. Meantime give my best regards to your wife.

“Yours ever,Bret Harte.”*****

July 1, 1879.-The business of the Consulate goes smoothly on. I have good assistants and no little leisure. Besides, Zurich is so centrally located that in a few hours I can travel to the most interesting spots of Europe. Germany, France, Italy are only a little journey off, the first but a couple of hours’ ride away. The scenery here is delightful, the climate moderate.

“What would you like if you could choose,” said a Swiss to me at my tea table the other night. “Nothing,” I replied, “only to stay here forever.” “You are content,” he answered. “I envy you-you are a happy man-the first one I ever saw!”