Part 26 (2/2)

We found agreeable lodgings at the Rond Point of the Champs Elysees. The day after our arrival I determined to arrange the terms of living with our landlord. He and his wife had the reputation of being fearful screws in their ”items.” So he, thinking I was a newly arrived and perfectly ignorant American, began to draw the toils, and enumerate so much for the rooms, so much for every towel, so much, I believe, for salt and every spoon and fork. I asked him how much he would charge for everything in the lump. He replied, ”_Mais_, _Monsieur_, _nous ne faisons pas jamais comme cela a Paris_.” Out of all patience, I burst out into vernacular: ”_Sacre nom de Dieu et mille tonnerres_, _vieux galopin_! you dare to tell _me_, a _vieux carabin du Quartier Latin_, that you cannot make arrangements! _Et depuisse-quand_, _s'il vous plait_?” {372} He stared at me in blank amazement, and then said with a smile: ”_Tiens_! _Monsieur est donc de nous_!” ”That I am,” I replied, and we at once made a satisfactory compromise.

We had pleasant friends, and saw the sights and shopped; but I began to feel in Paris for the first time that the dreaded break-down or collapse which I had long apprehended was coming over me. There was a very clever surgeon and physician named Laborde, who was called Nelaton's right-hand man. I met him several times, and he observed to a mutual friend that I was evidently suffering seriously from threatening nervous symptoms, and that he would like to attend me. He did so, and gave me daily a teaspoonful of bromide of pota.s.sium. This gave me sleep and appet.i.te; but, after some weeks or months, the result was a settled, mild melancholy and tendency to rest. In fact, it was nearly eighteen months before I recovered so that I could write or work, and _live_ as of old.

I had inherited from both parents, and suffered all my life fearfully at intervals, from brachycephalic or dorsal neuralgia. Dr. Laborde made short work of this by giving me appallingly strong doses of _tincture of aconite and sulphate of quinine_. Chemists have often been amazed at the prescription. But in due time the trouble quite disappeared, and I now, _laus Deo_! very rarely ever have a touch of it. As many persons suffer terribly from this disorder, which is an _aching_ in the back of the head and neck accompanied by ”sick headache,” I give the ingredients of the cure; the proper quant.i.ty must be determined by the physician. {373}

We dined once with Mr. Washburne, who during dinner showed his extreme goodness of heart in a very characteristic manner. Some foolish American had during the _emeute_--in which I was to have been a leader, had I so willed--got himself into trouble, not by fighting, but through mere prying Yankee ”curiosity” and mingling with the crowd. Such people really deserve to be shot more than any others, for they get in the way and spoil good fighting. He was deservedly arrested, and sent for his Minister, who, learning it, at once arose, drove to the _prefecture_, and delivered his inquisitive compatriot. On another occasion we were the guests of J. Meredith Read, then our Minister to Athens, where we met Prevost Paradol. But at this time there suddenly came over me a distaste for operas, theatres, dinners, society--in short, of crowds, gaslight, and gaiety in any form, from which I have never since quite recovered. I had for years been fearfully overdoing it all in America, and now I was in the reaction, and longed for rest. I was in that state when one could truly say that life would be tolerable but for its amus.e.m.e.nts. It is usual for most people to insist in such cases that what the sufferer needs is ”excitement” and ”distraction of the mind,” change of scene or gaiety, when in reality the patient should be most carefully trained to repose, which is not always easily done, for so very little attention has been paid to this great truth, that even medical science as yet can do very little towards calming nervous disorders. In most cases the trouble lies in the presence, or unthinking heedless influence, of other people; and, secondly, in the absence of interesting minor occupations or arts, such as keep the mind busy, yet not over-excited or too deeply absorbed.

An important element in such cases is to interest deeply the patient in himself as a vicious subject to be subdued by his own exertions. No one who has _never_ had the gout severely can form any conception of the terribly arrogant irritability which accompanies it. I say _arrogant_, because it is independent of any voluntary action of the mind. I have often felt it raging in me, and laughed at it, as if it were a chained wild beast, and conversed with perfect serenity. Unfortunately, even our dearest friends, generally women, cannot, to save their very lives and souls, refrain from having frequent piquant scenes with such tempting subjects; while, on the other hand, the subjects are often led by mere vanity into exhibiting themselves as something peculiar. Altogether, I believe that where there is no deeply seated hereditary or congenital defect, or no displacement or injury from violence or disease, there is always a cure to be hoped for, or at least possible; but this cure depends in many cases so very much upon the wisdom and patience of friends and physicians, that it is only remarkable that we find so many recoveries as we do. Where the patient and friends are all really persons of superior intelligence, almost miraculous cures may be effected. But unfortunately, if it be not born in us, it requires a great deal of genius to acquire properly the real _dolce far niente_.

From Paris we went to Spa in the Ardennes. In this very beautiful place, in a picturesque land of legends, I felt calmer and more relieved. I think it was there that for the first time I got an inkling that my name was becoming known in Europe. There was a beautiful young English lady whom I occasionally met in an artist's studio, who one day asked me with some interest whom the Leland could be of whom one heard sometimes--”he writes books, I think.” I told her that I had a brother who had written two or three clever works, and she agreed with me that he must be the man; still she inclined to think that the name was not Henry, but Charles.

Mr. Nicolas Trubner, whom I had not seen since 1856, came with his wife and daughter to Spa, and this was the beginning of a great intimacy which lasted to his death. Which meeting reminds me of something amusing. I had written the first third of ”Breitmann as a Politician,” which J.

”Camden” Hotten had republished, promising the public to give them the rest before long. This I prevented by copyrighting the two remaining thirds in England! Being very angry at this, Hotten accused me in print of having written this conclusion expressly to disappoint and injure _him_! In fact, he really seemed to think that Mr. Trubner and I were only a pair of foreign rogues, bound together to wrong Mr. J. C. Hotten out of his higher rights in ”Breitmann.” I wrote a pamphlet in which I said this and some other things very plainly. Mr. Trubner showed this to his lawyer, who was of the opinion that it could not be published because it bore on libel, though there was nothing in it worse than what I have here said. However, Mr. Trubner had it privately printed, and took great joy, solace, and comfort for a very long time in reading it to his friends after dinner, or on other occasions, and as he had many, it got pretty well about London. I may here very truly remark that Mr. Hotten, in the public controversy which he had with Mr. Trubner on the subject of my ”Ballads,” displayed an effrontery absolutely without parallel in modern times, apropos of which _Punch_ remarked--

”The name of Curll will never be forgotten, And neither will be thine, John Camden Hotten.”

From Spa we went to Brussels, where I remember to have seen many times at work in the gallery the famous artist without arms who painted with his toes. What was quite a remarkable was the excellence of his copies from Rembrandt. Nature succeeded in his case in ”heaping voonders oopen voonders,” as Tom Hood says in his ”Rhine.” I became well acquainted with Tom Hood the younger in after years, and to this day I contribute something every year to _Tom Hood's Annual_. At Brussels we stayed at a charming old hotel which had galleries one above the other round the courtyard, exactly like those of the White Hart Inn immortalised in ”Pickwick.” There was in Philadelphia a perfect specimen of such an inn, which has of late years been rebuilt as the Bingham House. While in Spa I studied Walloon.

From Brussels to Ghent, which I found much modernised from what it had been in 1847, when it was still exactly as in the Middle Age, but fearfully decayed, and, like Ferrara, literary with gra.s.s-grown streets.

_Und noch weiter_--to Ostend, where for three weeks I took lessons in Flemish or Dutch from a young professor, reading ”Vondel” and ”Bilderdijk,” who, if not in the world of letters known, deserves to be.

I had no dictionary all this time, and the teacher marvelled that I always knew the meaning of the words, which will not seem marvellous to any one who understands German and has studied Anglo-Saxon and read ”Middle or Early English.” Then back to Spa to meet Mr. and Mrs. Trubner and her father Octave Delepierre, who was a great scholar in _rariora_, _curiosa_, and old French, and _facile princeps_ the greatest expert in Macaronic poetry who ever wrote. May I here venture to mention that he always declared that my later poem of ”Breitmann and the Pope” was the best Macaronic poem which he had ever read? His reason for this was that it was the most reckless and heedless or extravagant combination of Latin and modern languages known to him. I had, however, been much indebted to Mr. Oscar Browning for revising it. And so the truth, which long in darkness lay, now comes full clearly to the light of day.

Thence to Liege, Amsterdam, the Hague, Haarlem, and Leyden, visiting all the great galleries and many private collections. At Amsterdam we saw the last grand kermess or annual fair ever held there. It was a Dutch carnival, so wild and extravagant that few can comprehend now to what extremes ”spreeing” can be carried. The Dutch, like the Swedes, have or had the strange habit of bottling up their hilarity and letting it out on stated occasions in uproarious frolics. I saw _carmagnoles_ in which men and women, seized by a wild impulse, whirled along the street in a frantic dance to any chance music, compelling every bystander to join. I heard of a Prince from Capua, who, having been thus _carmagnoled_, returned home in rags.

In Leyden I visited the Archaeological Museum, where I by chance became acquainted with the chief or director, who was then engaged in rearranging his collections, and who, without knowing my name, kindly expressed the wish that I would remain a week to aid him in preparing the catalogue. As there are few works on prehistoric relics which I do not know, and as I had for many years studied with zeal innumerable collections of the kind, I venture to believe that his faith in my knowledge was not quite misplaced. Even as I write I have just received the _Catalogue of Prehistoric Works in Eastern America_, by Cyrus Thomas--a work of very great importance.

Thence we went to Cologne, where it was marvellous to find the Cathedral completed, in spite of the ancient legend which a.s.serts that though the devil had furnished its design he had laid a curse upon it, declaring that it should never be finished. Thence up the Rhine by castles grey and smiling towns, recalling my old foot-journey along its banks; and so on to Heidelberg, where I stayed a month at the Black Eagle. Herr Lehr was still there. He had grown older. His son was taking dancing lessons of Herr Zimmer, who had taught me to waltz twenty years before. One day I took my watch to a shop to be repaired, when the proprietor declared that he had mended it once before in 1847, and showed me the private mark which he put on it at the time.

There were several American students, who received me very kindly. I remember among them Wright, Manly, and Overton. When I sat among them smoking and drinking beer, and mingling German student words with English, it seemed as if the past twenty years were all a dream, and that I was a _Bursch_ again. Overton had the reputation of being _par eminence_ the man of men in all Heidelberg, who could take off a full quart at one pull without stopping to take breath--a feat which I had far outdone at Munich, in my youth, with the _horn_, and which I again accomplished at Heidelberg ”without the foam,” Overton himself, who was a very n.o.ble young fellow, applauding the feat most loudly. But I have since then often done it with Ba.s.s or Alsopp, which is much harder. I need not say that the ”Breitmann Ballads,” which had recently got among the Anglo-American students, and were by them greatly admired, did much to render me popular.

I found or made many friends in Heidelberg. One night we were invited to a supper, and learned afterwards that the two children of our host, having heard that we were Americans, had peeped at us through the keyhole and expressed great disappointment at not finding us _black_.

In November we went to Dresden. We were so fortunate as to obtain excellent rooms and board with a Herr and Madame Rohn, a well-to-do couple, who, I am sure, took boarders far more for the sake of company than for gain. Herr Rohn had graduated at Leipzig, but having spent most of his life in Vienna, was a man of exuberant jollity--a man of gold and a gentleman, even as his wife was a truly gentle lady. As I am very tall, and detest German small beds, I complained of mine, and Herr Rohn said he had another, of which I could not complain. And I certainly could not, for when it came I found it was at least eight feet in length.

It seems that they had once had for a boarder a German baron who was _more than seven feet_ high, and had had this curiosity constructed; and Herr Rohn roared with laughter as I gazed on it, and asked if I would have it lengthened.

We remained in Dresden till February, and found many friends, among whom there was much pleasant homelike hospitality. Among others were Julian Hawthorne and sisters, and George Parsons Lathrop. They were young fellows then, and not so well known as they have since become, but it was evident enough that they had good work in them. They often came to see me, and were very kind in many ways. I took lessons in porcelain-painting, which art I kept up for many years, and was, of course, a.s.siduous in visiting the galleries, Green Vault, and all works of art. I became well acquainted with Pa.s.savant, the director. I was getting better, but was still far from being as mentally vigorous as I had been. I now attribute this to the enormous daily dose of bromide which I continued to take, probably mistaking its _influence_ for the original nervous exhaustion itself. It was not indeed till I got to England, and subst.i.tuted _lupulin_ in the form of hops--that is to say, pale ale or ”bitter”--in generous doses, that I quite recovered.

So we pa.s.sed on to Prague, which city, like everything Czech, always had a strange fascination for me. There I met a certain Mr. Vojtech Napristek (or Adalbert Thimble), who had once edited in the United States a Bohemian newspaper with which I had exchanged, and with whom I had corresponded, but whom I had never before seen. He had established in Prague, on American lines, a Ladies' Club of two hundred, which we visited, and was, I believe, owing to an inheritance, now a prosperous man. Though I am not a Thimble, it also befell me, in later years, to found and preside over a Ladies' Art Club of two hundred souls. At that time the famous legendary bridge, with the ancient statue of St. John Nepomuk, still existed as of yore. No one imagined that a time would come when they would be washed away through sheer neglect.

So on to Munich, where, during a whole week, I saw but one _Riegelhaube_, a curious head-dress or chignon-cover of silver thread, once very common.

Even the old Bavarian dialect seemed to have almost vanished, and I was glad to hear it from our porter. Many old landmarks still existed, but King Louis no longer ran about the streets--I nearly ran against him once; people no longer were obliged by law to remove cigars or pipes from their mouths when pa.s.sing a sentry-box. Lola Montez had vanished. _Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan_?

So we went over the Brenner Pa.s.s, stopped at Innspruck, and saw the church described by Heine in his _Reisebilder_, and came to Verona, the Bern of the _Heldenbuch_. ”_Ich will gen Bern ausreiten_, _sprach Meister Hildebrand_.”

It was a happy thought of the Italians to put picturesque Verona down as the first stopping-place for Northern travellers, and I rather like Ruskin's idea of buying the town and keeping it intact as a piece of _bric-a-brac_. He might have proposed Rome while he was about it; ”anything there can be had for money,” says Juvenal.

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