by Mary Shelley
I looked with pleasure also on the lower uplands, with their vineyards. Surely, the inhabitants of this region worship the sun. On one side, that of shadow, forest-trees clothe the ravines, and pine woods crown the mountains — a beautiful but poor growth. On the other, the open, sun-visited banks are rich in vines, whose vintage is almost the best in the world. What a store of merry hours clusters together with the grapes on those old snake-like roots; and how much glittering coin is pressed out from those clusters of fruit into the pockets of their owners. We had a specimen of the first part of its power; some young Germans on board got gloriously tipsy, and called for another, and yet another bottle — becoming with every glass more affectionate and happy.
On this occasion we arrived at Mayence in time to proceed to Francfort the same evening; more than in time; when we reached the station we found the train would not start for three hours. My companions passed the interval in viewing the Cathedral and other sights at Mayence. Most unfortunately, I was so indisposed as to be obliged to remain at the waiting-room of the station. O Life! O Time! — how dear and valuable are ye in the aggregate; how still more dear and valuable are certain gem-like portions that at intervals fall to our lot — treasures in themselves, dearly prized and hoarded; but how contemptible seems a shred torn off and unusable; such as these three hours spent on a horse-hair incommodious chair, in the bare dull waiting-room, incapable from illness of putting to use the avenues to perception; and uneasy and wearied, in no humour to exercise the jaded powers of the soul. Such three hours slowly dragged themselves along; at last we took our places, and were whirled to Francfort.
We have betaken ourselves as before to the Hotel de Russie. We have better rooms, for then the hotel was full, and now it is empty; it was about the same season of the year; but there appears a capricious reflux in the tide of travellers, and we have encountered few. You know the peculiar physiognomy of these German hotels; more comfortable than perhaps any others in the world; characterised by order, comfort, and civility; also at this one in particular, by an excellent table; the cook is renowned; people come to the table d’hôte, for the sake of the dinner; the price whereof is a thaler, or three shillings.
Good-night. I will tell you more to-morrow of our plans and future proceedings. I cannot now, for I have not the slightest idea at present what they will be.
18TH JUNE.
MADAME DE SEVIGNE sagely remarks, that “nothing seems to impede the exercise of our free will so much as not having a paramount motive to urge us one way or the other.” Here lies, in a great measure, our difficulty: we intend spending this next winter at Florence, but we have no fixed idea as to how to pass the summer. I incline to some German Bath, as I think it would benefit my health. I should like the Tyrol — any part of the world where the scenery is beautiful; but then I want a few months of peace, and not to be near a lake, so to live in one ecstasy of fear. We find it very difficult to decide, and have determined meanwhile to visit Kissingen. I have heard that it is a pleasant place, very prettily situated. I have an idea that the waters will benefit me; at least it is something new: we penetrate at once into Germany. It is true, we do not understand German; but where better learn a language than in its native country?
“What’s in a name!” — You know the quotation: it applies to things known; to things unknown, a name is often everything: on me it has a powerful effect; and many hours of extreme pleasure have derived their zest simply from a name; and now a name is drawing me on — Germany — vast, unseen Germany! whence has poured forth nearly the whole population of the present civilised world, — a world not gifted, like the ancient, with a subtle organisation which enabled them to create the beauty, which we do little more than admire — nor endowed with that instinctive grace that moulded even every stone which the Greeks touched into imperishable types of loveliness — nor with that vivacious imagination that peopled the unseen universe with an endless variety of beautiful creations, — but the parent of a race in which women are respected — a race that loves justice and truth — whose powers of thought are, if slow, yet profound, and, in their way, creative. Tacitus’s Germany — a land of forests and heroes. Luther’s Germany, in which sprung up the Reformation, giving freedom to the souls of men. The land of Schiller and Goëthe. Do you remember La Motte Fouquè’s Magic Ring — and the old Baron, sitting in his ancestral hall, where banners waved and armour clashed, and the wild winds whispered prophecies, and Power brooded ready to fly abroad and possess the world? Such a mysterious shape is Germany to me. And this, too, is the stage on which Napoleon’s imperial drama drew to a close. What oceans of human blood have drenched the soil of Germany even since my birth. Since I love the mysterious, the unknown, the wild, the renowned, you will not wonder that I feel drawn on step by step into the heart of Germany. It will doubtless continue a mysterious and unknown region, since we cannot speak its language; but its cities and its villages will no longer be dim shadows merely; substance and reality will replace misty imaginings; my rambles will be something novel; of the people whom I cannot understand, I shall have so little to say. A mighty outline is all I can present, if, indeed, I do penetrate at all into its recesses. But our plans are so vague, that really, till something is done, I scarcely can conjecture what we may do.
There is nothing very amusing at Francfort for a passing visitor. This time, however, we did see Dannecker’s Ariadne. It is among the best modern statues representing a woman. She is sitting on, and being carried along by, a panther. Her attitude is of repose, of enjoyment: there is something harsh in the face, which I do not like; but there is softness and roundness in the limbs; nothing angular; nor anything narrow or pared away like Canova’s female figures. This statue is one in the collection of Mr. Bethman; being the gem of his Gallery, it has a room to itself, and by shutting shutters and drawing down a crimson blind, the statue is seen clad in roseate light, beaming amidst darkness. Such arts for showing off marbles have been termed meretricious; but the finest statues of the Romans were found in chambers where the light of day never entered, and were therefore illuminated artificially.
Goethe was born at Francfort, and we saw the outside of the house with the three prophetic lyres over the door.
My companions have just returned from the opera; they say that “they found a good orchestra, and singers with very tolerable voices, but mortally ugly, and their action totally devoid of grace; so that it would be much better if they did not ape it, as their abortive attempts make the deficiency more glaring.”
So it was, you may remember, with the company we had in London, with the exception of Staudigl, whose voice and style is full of elegance as well as power. In spite of the enchantment of the Zauberflaüte, how happy and at home I felt at the Italian Opera, after several visits to that of their rivals in the art.
We have engaged a voiturier to take us to Kissingen in two days, a distance of about eighty miles. With a thrill of pleasure I feel I am going to scenes entirely new. I am not sure that I am rich enough for such an enterprise: yet I suspect much of the half eager, half timid feeling that urges me on, arises from our being comparatively poor, — all is so easy and same to the wealthy. As it is, there is the dangerous attraction of forbidden fruit in our wanderings. — Adieu.
LETTER II.
Journey to Kissingen. — Taking Lodgings. — The Public Gardena.
KISSINGEN, JUNE 21ST.
THE country immediately round Francfort is flat and uninteresting; but as soon as we entered Bavaria, we came upon very agreeable scenery. The valley of the Main, which we thridded during our first day’s journey, is quite beautiful. Magnificent forests of oak and beech cover the hills; and the little rural plain at their foot, bordering the river, is rich in pasture and ripe grain. There is a steamboat from Francfort to Wurzburg, of which I am half sorry we did not avail ourselves; for I like following the course of a river as it meanders through a country. But Wurzburg is at some distance from Kissingen, and the intervening country by no means so
pretty as that we have just traversed. For several miles our route ran close to the river; then, quitting the low valley, we wound along the ridges of the hills, entering the forests, which gathered round us with their pleasant shade. We slept at Lohr. This town is delightfully situated on the Main; the inn, good; the only drawback was, that they had no bread — an extraordinary circumstance, it appeared to me, in Germany, as I have always enjoyed and vaunted its peculiar blessing of excellent bread, even when all else was repulsive. There was some very black bread I could not touch, and some sort of cakes, stale, and even mouldy. We showed them complainingly to our dirty-handed waiter, who caught them up. “These not good,” he cried, turning them about and tossing them from one hand to the other — from bad to worse—”they were new yesterday — they are excellent.” This manipulation succeeded in rendering them absolutely uneatable. We did not like even to look at them.
Our next day’s journey was hilly, as we crossed a height and passed from the valley of the Main to the valley of the Saale. The hills are lower, but the country bears the same characteristics — a clear stream, bordered by a grassy plain — wooded hills, forming amphitheatres, closing around. The villages are miserable enough.
With eager eyes we caught a view of Kissingen, as we descended the hill from Hammelburg. It looked a small village interspersed with a few large houses on the banks of the Saale. The river meanders through green meadows from east to west, and wooded hills close in the vale. It was a scene of great tranquillity, without any striking beauties; verdant, peaceful, and secluded.
We alighted at the hotel of the Kurhaus, a spacious and good inn. They were expecting the Queen of Wurtemburg and her suite in a few days, but were tolerably empty; and we easily procured rooms. Our next care was to look for a lodging. My companions went on this task, I was so very tired. There is a Commissaire des Voyageurs appointed by Government, to whom strangers can apply, who keeps lists of lodgings and mediates with regard to the price. He pretended to speak French and English; but, as Dangle says in “The Critic,”
“Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!” He said he should spend the winter in England, and really learn English for the next season. He seemed straightforward in his dealings, and went with my friends to various houses. They selected one across the bridge, out of the town. I went to look at it. The terms were tolerably moderate. The rooms had a southern aspect; they were large; and the floors, of white new deal, only wanted a little scouring: in short, though of course somewhat bare of furniture, the lodging, in this summer season, looked cheerful, and even pleasant. We agreed for it and instantly took possession.
I despair of describing the scene of our entrance. Madame Fries, the landlady, was an invalid, and did not appear. Herr Fries, a tall, fair German, is an employé in the police, and was absent. No one spoke a word of anything but German in the house. We were at our wit’s end. Dictionary in hand, we tried to impart our wants; there was an ugly good-humoured looking maid, and a rather pretty girl to wait on us, in addition to an uncouth sort of lad. These people gathered round us very earnest to please; but how were we to be pleased? We wanted the floors washed, for they looked unhealthy. We wanted our beds arranged in our own way (German beds are so strangely uncomfortable from the queer odds and ends of mattresses with which they are garnished); and above all, we wanted something besides a pie-dish and water-bottle for our washing apparatus. The way to secure this was to insist on a fuss-bad in each room; so small tubs were at last provided. Then we wished for tea: by dint of gesture and dictionary we tried to make ourselves understood. The women stood by laughing; the lad looked all eagerness to catch our meaning. At length he gave an exulting hop, snapt his fingers and rushed out, and brought back a tea-pot. Happy apparition! but it was more difficult to procure boiling water.
After about two hours order was established, and hopes of cleanliness for the morrow brightened round us. We sat down to tea, when lo! Herr Fries entered with another German, whom he introduced as a German Master. We did not like his appearance, and his attempts at English less, so we declined engaging him. This, however, was not the real object of Herr Fries’s visit. It was to inform us, by means of his interpreter, for he himself spoke German only, that we had taken his rooms for four months. This startled us; as our bargain was really for four weeks. Our compact, however, had been made by the Commissaire, and we referred to him. Reluctantly, and still arguing the point, Herr Fries at last withdrew.
I shall see a physician to-morrow and begin the waters; the place is rather empty as yet. We walked in the public gardens, in which the medicinal springs flow. Crossing the bridge we entered the gardens at one extremity; they are oblong, occupying about a couple of acres, of course gravelled, or rather shingled, and planted with avenues of trees. To the left they are bordered by the high-road, on the other side of which are all the large hotels. On the right is the Conversation Haus, consisting of a very large and well-built assembly-room with various appendages. At the other end are the springs; they are in a sort of paved court, about twenty feet below the soil; a low iron railing runs round the court; and they are covered with a light open-worked wire canopy. Two springs are here — the Pandur and Ragozzi: there is another, the Max Brunnen, resembling Seidlitz water, but without iron, which is in another part of the garden. A band plays under the trees from six till eight in the morning, and from six till eight in the evening; at which hour the visitors walk and drink the waters.
LETTER III.
Kissingen. — The Cur. — The Table d’Hôte. — The Walks. — German Master. — Bathing.
KISSINGEN, July 4.
I AM in the midst of my cur, and we are all in the midst of a general cure of a regiment of sick people. It is odd enough to seek amusement by being surrounded by the rheumatic, the gouty, the afflicted of all sorts. I do not think I shall be tempted to a German bath again, unless I am seriously ill.
Kissingen, until lately, was not much visited, even by the Germans, and was quite unknown to the English. The Bubbles of the Brunnens brought the baths of Nassau into fashion with us. Doctor Granville’s book extended our acquaintance with the spas of Germany; and, in particular, gave reputation to those situated in Bavaria. Kissingen has thus rapidly acquired notoriety; and soon the English, who are flocking hither, will effect a change in the homely habits we have found. A throng of our country people soon effects a revolution, increasing both comforts and prices in a very high degree.
All the Germans get up at four, and parade the gardens to drink the waters till nearly eight; I contrive to get there soon after five. These waters are not mere salts, like Carlsbad, nor mere iron, but a very diluted mixture of both. I believe them to be very conducive to the restoration of health; but they must only be taken under a physician’s superintendence, as it is dangerous to play with them. The morning walk I find pleasant: I leave the gardens after each glass, and stroll beyond into the meadows bordering the Saale, away from the garish spectacle of the smart toilettes, and the saddening sight of the sick. I return to breakfast at eight, if that may be called breakfast, which is not one. So many things are supposed to disagree with the waters, that not only everything substantial, but also butter, fruit, tea, coffee, and milk are prohibited. We dine at one at the table d’hôte of the Kurhaus; the ceremony is, to the last degree, unsatisfactory and disgusting. The King of Bavaria is so afraid that his medicinal waters may fall into disrepute if the drinkers should eat what disagrees with them, that we only eat what he, in conjunction with a triumvirate of doctors, is pleased to allow us. Every now and then a new article is struck out from our bill of fare, notice being sent from this council, which is stuck up for our benefit at the door of the salle-à-manger, to the effect that, whoever in Kissingen should serve at any table pork, veal, salad, fruit, &c. &c. &c., should be fined so many florins. Our pleasures of the palate are thus circumscribed, not to say annihilated; for the food they give us is so uninviting, that we only take enough barely to sustain life: for, stra
ngely enough, though butter is prohibited, their dishes overflow with grease. Oh! the disgust of sitting down with two hundred people in one hall, served slowly with uneatable food: each day we resolve to try to get a dinner at home; but there is a little knot of English about us, and we agree to endure together; but it is sad.
Our evening walks are pleasant. We desert the public gardens, as you may believe: sometimes we walk in the meadows bordering the Saale to the Soolen Sprudel, where the salt works are established, and where there is a spring of water strongly impregnated with gas, which boils up furiously at intervals. People have gas baths here — they ought to be carefully conducted; for though I believe efficacious cures, they sometimes kill. A Russian nobleman since our arrival, died under the operation of bathing in one.
Sometimes we cross the valley, and ascend the hills to the ruined castle of Bodenlauben, which commands a view of this rural vale; but our favourite walk is in the wood that clothes the hill on our side of the valley. They have the practice in Germany, in the neighbourhood of Baths, of laying out innumerable paths all through the woods, and across the hills, for the convenience of the visitors — long walks entering into the course of treatment. The woods, oak and elm, varied by magnificent silver birch, with their graceful tresses, are very fine. We find here a few fire-flies: like unfortunate Italian exiles, they gleam with subdued brightness in an ungenial clime, and one wonders how they can endure so northern a temperature.
