by Mary Shelley
We have, as yet, seen few of the lions. I am trying to summon courage and strength for sight-seeing; which will indeed be a task of labour, with the thermometer above ninety in the shade — in the shade of night, remember, as well as in that of day.
Adieu.
LETTER IX.
The Green Vaults. — Collection of Porcelain. — Der Freischütz. — The great Drought. — Preparations for Departure.
DRESDEN, 18TH JULY.
WE spent this morning in the Grüne Gewolbe, or Green Vaults, a suite of apartments containing the treasures of the Kings of Saxony. These sovereigns were much richer once than they are now; and we are told, that, in addition to the dazzling piles of jewels and other valuables here collected, they had amassed large sums of money — all deposited in a secret strong room under their palace. The money is gone, but treasure to the amount of several millions remains, and is spread out for view in eight apartments on the ground floor of the palace, called the Green Vaults — it is said from the hangings with which these rooms were once hung. But why vaults? I cannot help thinking the name comes from some peculiarity appertaining to the former resting-place of the treasures — underground. These rooms display, indeed, incalculable riches. The diamonds alone are worth a kingdom. Their immense size and surpassing lustre must dazzle the eyes when worn. Placed on shelves behind glass frames, of course their exceeding beauty is not enhanced by the movement and sparkle which causes diamonds to transcend all other precious stones. In addition to this almost magical wealth in gems, are a quantity of beautiful works of art, various and magnificent; they are some of exquisite carving, some elegant, some strange and fantastic. We wandered from room to room, wondering at the wealth, amazed by the profusion of treasure; but you must not expect enthusiasm from pae on these points. There is something in this sort of treasure, when arranged for show, which takes from their beauty. Pictures are made to be looked at for themselves. The view of them excites the passions or calms the heart; or if even only gratifying to the taste, yet they please for themselves, and require no extraneous interest. It is a bathos indeed to turn from them to stones from the mine; but diamonds and jewellery, and even delicately-carved cups, elegant statuettes and fantastic toys, are agreeable to look at only as objects of personal ornament or use. Show me a beautiful woman, or an illustrious sovereign, adorned in jewels — served in cups that cost a province — and the imagination fills up a picture pleasing to itself — exalting a human being above his fellows — and glorifying weak humanity in his image. Show me a room in which a fellow-creature is accustomed to live, where all he or she touches might ransom a king, and a thousand feelings and sympathies are awakened. Thus if we read in the “Arabian Nights,” of apartments supported by columns encrusted in jewels; then also we find some enchanted prince, who inhabits the wondrous chamber; or if we read of basins of diamonds and cups of a single pearl, they are tributes to beauty from love. With regard to these gems, indeed, we need not go so far afield as the “Arabian Nights” to imagine regal splendour. When Napoleon held his court in the North, to which “thrones, dominations, princedoms” thronged — proud hearts swelled beneath these stones, lifted up with a sense of greatness, and the lovely adorned by them were made glad by the consciousness of admiration.
I am afraid my lion-hunting at Dresden is over. After the Grüne Gewolbe I went to see the collection of porcelain, in an underground suite of rooms at the Japanese palace. I own I was disappointed. I expected to find a quantity of curious and exquisite Dresden china. The collection consists in specimens of porcelain, fabricated from the earliest times in all parts of the world. I confess a very slight inspection would have satisfied my curiosity. But I was with a party, and I dare say we spent two hours in these rooms, which were really vaults. At first their cool atmosphere, after the excessive heats from which we are suffering, was agreeable; but I got chilled, and caught a cold. I have been confined to the house for some days, and feel myself quite incapacitated from undergoing the fatigue of further sightseeing.
JULY 20TH.
IN spite of indisposition, I have contrived to go to the theatre, to hear Der Freischütz in its native country. Shroeder Devrient is the prima donna; and a pretty young débutante, a great favourite here, was the Bridesmaid. The orchestra and singing were, of course, perfect; and the music of this opera is indeed enchanting. It is much to be regretted that the talking part is not arranged for recitative: we are no longer accustomed to the mixture of singing and speaking, and it grates on the ear. The imagination easily lends itself at first, and is soon carried away by the music to admit as natural and proper discourses in melody and singing; but the change from one to the other jars the ear, and unhinges the fancy. We had been told that nearly a year had been devoted to the getting up of the scenery and diablerie. They were very shabby and meagre. When Linda throws open her window in her first exquisite scena, some unlucky urchin had drawn an actual face on the very oily-looking moon — a laugh through the house was inevitable.
There is an Italian company here, with a handsome prima donna. There is something very antagonistic in the German and Italian operatic schools. They despise each other mutually. Professors mostly side with the Germans, but I am not sure that they are right.
The Opera begins at six; it is over by nine; and everybody is in bed by ten. If you come home after that hour, the porter has a right to a fee for being disturbed from his bed at untimely hours: as in Paris, you pay him if you come home after twelve. If early rising conduces to health, how very healthy the Germans ought to be! But they have other habits by no means so consonant to our notions of what is good for the preservation of life. Their dislike of fresh air amounts almost to frenzy; this, joined to their smoking, and, in winter, to the close stoves, must make their domestic hearth (only they have no hearth) very incompatible with our tastes.
JULY 25TH.
THE heat continues. Most of the wells and springs of the town are dried up: that in our house yet affords a small supply. It is said that Government is about to issue an order that no water, except that of the Elbe, is to be used, except for culinary purposes. People must send to the river (and that runs shallow) for supplies to wash their clothes and keep their rooms clean, I do not think they use much water at any time for the latter purpose.
The drought indeed becomes alarming. News came, the other day, that a village was burnt to the ground, and the calamity was attributed to some trees taking fire from the extreme dryness of the atmosphere.
Our month is at an end. We are about to undertake a long, long journey to Venice. The dry season has defeated our hopes of ascending the Elbe in a steamer as far as Prague. Professor Hughes, an Englishman long established at Dresden, who receives gentlemen in his house for the purposes of education, and whose kindness has been of the greatest use to us, has bargained with a Lohnkutscher, or voiturier, to take us to Prague, by way of the Saxon Switzerland; as we intend to make the tour of that singular district. From Prague we shall make a fresh start, and be guided by circumstances as to the manner. We hope to find some sort of railroad after Budweis, which will abbreviate a part of our journey.
I leave several sights unseen. I fear that sightseeing will renew my attack of illness, and delay our leaving Dresden, and our journey towards mountain, forest, and stream, for which this heat and drought inspire an ardent longing. My imagination takes refuge at times in shady spots beside murmuring rills, and I look out on the dusty Alt Markt in despair.
When I returned from Babenau a week or two ago, I found a grasshopper nestled in my muslin dress, and thoughtlessly I shook it off, out of window. That night the act weighed on my conscience. It was a stroke of adversity for the insect, to be transported from the fresh grass and cool streamlets of wooded Rabenau, and cast out to die in the arid, herbless market-place of a big town. In the morning, when I opened my eyes, to my great satisfaction, I found that my grasshopper had rebelled against my cruelty, and had leapt back into the room; it lay evidently in great distress on the floor.
I gave it water, which it drank greedily, and put it in a cornet of paper; — that evening, M — , in her walk, on the other side of the Elbe, took it with her, and set it free on the grassy banks of the river. It was not its native glen of Rabenau — but it was all I could do.
In olden times, this insect might have returned to thank me in the form of a fairy, but the days of wonders are passed. However, pining as I am, to repose “in close covert, by some brook,” thirsting to betake myself to “some wide-watered shore,” I hope to be even kinder to myself than to my victim, and in a few more days to be far, far from the dusty Alt Markt, amid more congenial scenes.
LETTER X.
The Saxon Switzerland.
Dresden, 26th August.
ADIEU to Dresden — I shall probably never see it more. I cannot say that I visited it (as far as regards the outside, for I saw no more,) under unfavourable circumstances — for the great cold that often prevails, were worse than the heat. Still, every act, every step is a painful exertion. Besides, I dislike all towns; I would never willingly live in one, summer or winter. To be near a metropolis usually — within a drive, and visit it, is pleasant — ? but I never feel happy except when I live in the palaces or secret coverts of Nature — mountain — forest — stream — or the shores of ocean: these are my true home.
Adieu to Dresden. A long, long journey is before us. We are in a charming ignorance of how we shall proceed, and of how much time the way will occupy: all we know is, that we must make our way as economically as we can to Venice, whither we are bound.
Our first destination is, as I told you, the Saxon Switzerland. We have only time to make a limited tour in this singular region. Professor Hughes, who has been settled for many years in Dresden, has given us instructions how to guide our steps, so that we may see some of the most striking points. I transcribe them, as it may be useful to yon if ever you visit these parts. I must premise that we have bargained with a Lohnkutscher to take us to Prague. We sent him and his carriage on with my maid and our luggage, and we are to rejoin them at Arbesau, he having provided us with another vehicle and driver for our excursion: —
“Start at five o’clock.
“Pilnitz.
“Lohmen.
“Uttervalde — walk through the valley to the Bastei, where the carriage must again meet you.
“Leave the Bastei at latest at 3 o’clock; drive to Hockstein and Shandau.
“Leave Shandau the same evening, at latest at 5 o’clock, for the Wasserfall. Order a mule to meet you at the foot of the Kuhstall; walk to the Kuhstall; descend; take the mule to the Kleine and Grosse Winterberg.
“Leave the next morning at nine o’clock for the Prebischthor and Hernitskretschen on a mule; take a boat for Tätchen; stop at the Bad; order a carriage for Arbesau,”
August 27th.
WE left Dresden more than an hour later than the time appointed — a disaster, as we were to crowd so much into one day. We took the road on the left of the Elbe, to Pilnitz and Lohmen. The road grew more varied as we advanced, but I looked out in vain for traces of the mountainous region which we were to visit. The landscape was pretty, but tame, and when we reached the little village of Uttervalde, I wondered why it was necessary to leave the carriage; what road could be here that would not admit a dozen waggons abreast if need were? However, in obedience to our instructions, we did alight, and ordering the carriage to meet us at the Bastei, we hired a sort of open sedan, a comfortable arm-chair placed on poles carried by two men, for me; my companions were to walk, and we set out, as it seemed, to look for wonders where none could be.
But immediately on quitting the village the portals of the mountains opened before us, and we plunged into their recesses. It is difficult to describe the peculiarity of this region; it differs so much from every other. Rabenau shared in some degree in its characteristics. Generally, when you see mountains, they seem (as they are) upraised above the plains which are the abodes of men; lifting their mighty heads towards heaven. In Saxony, the impression is as if the tops of the hills were the outer circumference of the globe, strangely fissured and worn away by the action of water. We plunge into depths of the earth; we might fancy some sprite of upper air had forced a passage so to reach the abode of subterranean spirits. The mystic imagination of the Germans has indeed peopled this region with gnome and kobold, who watch over hidden treasure. A thousand romantic legends are associated with scenes whose aspect awakens the fancy. In uncivilized and disturbed times the persecuted and houseless found refuge in these secret recesses from lawless freebooters or religious bigots.
As we proceeded through the narrow ravine, the rocks rose perpendicularly on each hand, and shut us in as with walls, but not walls as at Via Mala, abrupt and bare. The precipices are broken into a thousand fantastic shapes, and formed into rough columns, pillars, and peaks numberless; with huge caverns, mighty portals, and towering archways; the whole clothed with pines, verdant with a luxuriant growth of various shrubs; and, but that for the most part the long drought has silenced them, resonant with waterfalls, The stream that makes its way in the depth has thus lost all energy and variety — it ripples murmuring in its rocky channel.
The path, ascending and descending over the rocks, winds at its side. Sometimes the fissure nearly meets overhead, and the sun can never shine on the stream below. There is a charm of novelty in the scene quite inexpressible. We penetrate Nature’s secret chambers, which she has adorned with the wildest caprice. Various ravines branch off from the main one, and become numerous and intricate, varied by huge caverns of strange shapes; some open to the sky, some dark and deep; there are little verdant spots in the midst, too, where the turf was green and velvetty, and invited us to rest. We were taken to the particular spots selected as most remarkable for the formation or grandeur of the rocks, or where cascades, reduced unhappily to a thread of water, were accustomed to scatter their spray abroad. The whole way, I must tell you, was one continued ascent, and this explains the wondrous view we gain when we emerge again into outer air.
At length we left the ravine, and entered a forest of firs. After traversing this we found ourselves, as if by magic, at a high elevation, and stood upon the Bastei or Bastion. This is a vast mass of rock, that rises 800 feet above the Elbe, in the depths and centre of which the rent was made which we had thridded. The uttermost edge projects far beyond the face of the precipice, and here we stood looking on a scene so utterly different from every other, that it is difficult to describe it. A caprice of nature is the name usually bestowed on this district; while geologists explain how the action of water on a peculiar species of rock has caused the appearance before us. It is still the same, though on a gigantic and sublime scale. The earth has been broken, and fissured, and worn away. The Elbe sweeps majestically at the foot of the Bastei; a plain is spread beneath, closed in by an amphitheatre of huge columnar hills, which do not, as is usually the case, begin with gradual upland, but rise at once in shape fantastic, — isolated one from the other. Some of the highest and most abrupt have been used as fortresses. The sides of the precipices of the Bastei are clothed in a forest of firs and other wood. The whole scene was bathed in dazzling sunshine. The heat was so great, that it was painful to stand on the giddy verge, which is protected by wooden rails (for the whole district is prepared for show); yet it was almost impossible to tear oneself away.
There is an inn at the Bastei, where we dined. German cooking is very bad, and we had to wait long, and were served slowly. A young Englishman dined at the same table. In a classification of travellers, what name is to be given to those who travel only for the sake of saying that they have travelled? He was doing his Saxon Switzerland; he had done his Italy, his Sicily; he had done his sunrise on Mount Etna; and when he should have done his Germany, he would return to England to show how destitute a traveller may be of all impression and knowledge, when they are unable to knit themselves in soul to nature, nor are capacitated by talents or acquirements to gain knowledge from what they see.
We must become a part of the scenes around us, and they must mingle and become a portion of us, or we see without seeing and study without learning. There is no good, no knowledge, unless we can go out from, and take some of the external into, ourselves: this is the secret of mathematics as well as of poetry.
We indulged, as well we might, in gazing delightedly from this battlement of nature on the magnificent scene around; and then we turned to the prosaic part of travelling, the necessity of getting on. Our driver (provided by the master voiturier who was to take us to Prague) had been told to meet us at the Bastei; he pretended that this was impossible; that no carriage ever came up, and we must walk some three or four miles to join him. We found all this to be utterly false, and that the usual custom, was for the carriages to come up to the Bastei. With a burning sun above, and a good deal of labour before us, we were not willing to encounter any unnecessary fatigue: so we sent a man to order the carriage tocome to us. It came; but the kutscher refused to take us unless we paid him something extra. This was an obvious piece of rascality, and we begged our friend, who was absolute master of German, to remonstrate with him. But he had, during his long stay in this country, acquired too much laisser-aller for our impatient English natures. Nothing can equal the slow style in which a German makes a bargain, or discusses a disputed point. He never thinks that he can argue with any success, unless he puts one hand on the other’s shoulder, and brings his face dose to him. Indeed, this habit of coming so very near in conversation is, as far as I remarked, usual in Germany. I have often edged off till I got into a corner, and then there was no help but, if possible, to run away. To return to our kutscher. With ignorant and deaf ears we saw him and our friend argue and re-argue the point while time flew. Our instructions were, to leave the Bastei at three at latest; it was now long past four. Why not yield to the demand? I believe travellers alone know the swelling indignation and obstinate resistance with which, at the worst of times, they meet extortion. We would not yield; and finding our friend still vainly discussing, another among us took our books and cloaks from the carriage, and, pumping up the only German words he could command, said to the fellow:—”Kannen sie nach Dresden gehen” If he had been master, he might have taken us at our word; but he knew we should meet his master at Arbesau, so he took fright and consented, without extra pay, to take us to Schandau. He had been engaged to take us some four miles beyond; but we (foolishly enough) consented to be satisfied with being driven so far.
