Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art

I stop a day en route to revisit Nuremberg, the Pompeii of the Middle Ages. I will not speak of its many interesting churches, houses, towers, of the Woolding Chamber, nor of the terrible Iron Virgin, covered inside with spikes, like Regulus’ barrel, which, in closing, pierced its victim through and through, and opened to drop the corpse into the torrent roaring a hundred feet below. Nothing gives a more vivid idea of the refined cruelty of these dark ages. But I have no wish to encroach upon Baedeker’s prerogative. A word only as to what I see before the cathedral. I observe there a small Gothic monument, which reminds me of the Roman column of Igel, on the Mosel, near Trèves. It has a niche on each of the four sides, under glass. In the first niche is a thermometer, in the second an hygrometer, in the third a barometer, and in the fourth the day’s telegrams from the observatory, and the meteorological maps. These instruments are enormous, from four to five feet in height at least, so that the figures may be large enough to be clearly legible. I have seen similar monuments in several German towns, and in Switzerland, at Geneva, in the gardens near the Rhone, at Vevey, close to the landing-stage, and at Neuchatel, on the promenade near the lake. It would be excellent if all towns would adopt them. I take every opportunity of urging this. Their cost is but trifling. A perfectly plain one can be made for £40, something more elegant might cost £80 or £100; they are a source of amusement and a means of instructing the people, and a daily lesson in physics for all classes. The laboring man learns there far better than he would do at school the practical use of these instruments, which are most useful for agricultural purposes and for sanitary precautions.

Towards midnight I go on foot to the railway station, to take the express to Vienna. The old castle throws a black shadow over the town, the roofs of which seem to whiten in the silvery moonlight. This, I say to myself, is the birthplace of the Hohenzollern family. What a change has taken place in its destiny since its name first appeared in history, in 1170, when Conrad of Hohenzollern was made Burgraaf of Nuremberg! One of his descendants, Frederick, first Elector, left this town in 1412 to take possession of Brandenburg, which the spendthrift Emperor Sigismund had sold him for 400,000 florins of Hungarian gold. He had already borrowed half this sum from Frederick, who was as economical as the ant, and had even mortgaged the electorate as security. Being unable to repay his debt, and in want of more money to defray the costs of an expedition to Spain, he very willingly yielded up this inhospitable northern “Mark,” the sands of the “Marquis of Brandenburg,” which Voltaire so turned into ridicule. The Emperor could not suppose that from this petty Burgrave would spring a future wearer of the imperial crown. Economy is a small virtue made up of small privations, but which makes much of little —Molti pochi fanno un assai– “Mony a pickle maks a mickle,” as the Scotch say. Though far too often forgotten or ignored by rulers, it is nevertheless even more necessary for nations than for individuals.

A short June night is soon passed in a sleeping car. I wake up and find myself in Austria. I perceive it at once from the delicious coffee and cream which is served me in a glass, by a fair young girl in a pink print dress and with bare arms. It very nearly equals in quality that of the Posthof at Carlsbad. We are very soon in view of the Danube, but the railway does not keep alongside it. Whatever the well-known waltz, “The Blue Danube,” may say to the contrary, the river is not blue at all. Its waters are yellow-green, like the Rhine, but how infinitely more picturesque is the “Donau!” No vineyards, no factories, and very few steamers. I saw but one, making its way with difficulty against the rapid current. The hills on either side are covered with forests and green meadows, and the branches of the willow trees sweep the water. The farm-houses, very far apart, have a rustic and mountain-like appearance. There is very little movement, very little trade; the peasant is still the chief producer of riches. On this lovely summer morning the sweet repose of this peaceful existence seduces and penetrates me. How delightful it would be to live quietly here, near these pine forests, and these beautiful meadows, where the cattle are at pasture! But on the other side of the river where there is no railway! There are several reasons for this great contrast between the Rhine and the Danube. The Rhine flows towards Holland and England, two markets that have been well established for upwards of three hundred years, and ready to pay a high price for all the river brings them. The Danube flows towards the Black Sea, where the population is exceedingly poor, and can scarcely afford to purchase what we should call here the necessaries of life. The produce of Hungary, even live cattle, is taken westward by rail to London. The transport by water is too long. Secondly, coal, the indispensable fuel of all modern industry, is cheaper on the Rhine than anywhere else. And thirdly, the Rhine, ever since the Roman conquest and at the earliest period of the Middle Ages, has been a centre of civilization, whereas that portion of the Danube the most valuable for traffic was, until yesterday, in the hands of the Turks.

At the Amstett Station I purchased the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, which is, I think, with the Pester Lloyd, the best edited and the pleasantest paper to read in the German language. The Kölnische Zeitung is exceedingly well-informed, and the Allgemeine Zeitung is also as complete and interesting as possible; but it is a terrible pell-mell of subjects, a dreadful muddle, where, for instance, many little paragraphs from France or Paris are disseminated haphazard in the six sheets. I would rather read three Times’ than one Kölnische, in spite of the respect with which that paper inspires me. I have scarcely unfolded my Neue Freie Presse than I find myself in the very heart of the struggle of nationalities, just as I was sixteen years previously, only that the strife is no longer, as it then was, between Magyars and Germans. The Deak dual compromise created a modus vivendi, which is still in force. The dispute is now between Tchecks and Germans on the one hand, and between Magyars and Croatians on the other. The Minister Taaffe has decided to dissolve the Bohemian Parliament and there will be fresh elections. The national and feudal Tchecks banding together will overthrow the Germans, who will no longer possess more than a third of the votes in the Diet. The Freie Presse is perfectly disconsolate at this, and foresees the most terrible disasters in consequence: if not the end of the world, at least the upset of the monarchy. On account of these warnings, the numbers are seized by Government order three or four times a month, even although it be the organ of the Austrian “bourgeoisie.” It is Liberal, but very moderate, like the Débats and the Temps in France. After two or three months have elapsed, the numbers seized are returned to the editor, only fit for the waste-paper basket. These confiscations (for they are, in fact, nothing more nor less, although effected through the Administration) are absolutely contrary to the law, as is proved by the reiterated acquittals. Their constant recurrence reminds one of the worst periods of the French Empire. Applied to a newspaper that defends Austrian interests with so much skill as the Freie Presse, they are more than surprising. If my friend, Eugène Pelletan, were aware of this he would no longer claim for France “liberty as in Austria,” for which saying he suffered at the time three months’ imprisonment. It is said that the influence of the Tchecks dictates these confiscations, and this alone is sufficient to show the violence of the enmity between the races. The Viennese with whom I travel declare that this enmity is far less bitter than it was fifteen years ago. At that period, I tell them, I travelled across the country without meeting a single Austrian. I met with Magyars, Croatians, Saxons, Tchecks, Tyrolians, Poles, Ruthenians, Dalmatians, but never with Austrians. The common country was ignored, the race was all in all. At the present day, my fellow-travellers tell me this is very much subdued. You will find plenty of excellent Austrians, they say, to-day amongst the Magyars, and to-morrow amongst the Tchecks.

The reader will permit a short digression here touching this nationality question. You meet with it everywhere in the dual Empire. It is the great preoccupation of the present, and it will be in fact the chief agent in determining the future of the population of the banks of the Danube and the Balkan peninsula. You Englishmen cannot well understand the full force of this feeling which is so strong in Eastern countries. England is for you your country, for which you live and for which, if needs, you die. This love of country is a religion which survives even when all other faith or religion has ceased to exist. It is the same in France. M. Thiers who, as a rule, so thoroughly grasped situations, never realized the immense force of these aspirations of races, which completely rearranged, before his eyes, the map of Europe on the nationality footing. Cavour and Bismarck were, however, well aware of this, and knew how to take advantage of this sentiment, in creating the unity of Italy and of Germany.

One evening, Jules Simon took me to call on M. Thiers, in rue St. Honoré, who asked me to explain the Flemish movement in Belgium. I did so, and he seemed to consider the question as most unimportant, quite childish in fact, and very much behind the age. He was at once both right and wrong. He was right because true union is one of minds, not of blood. Christ’s saying is here admirably applicable: “Whosoever shall do the will of God the same is my brother and sister and mother” (St. Mark iii. 35).

I grant that mixed nationalities which, without consideration of diversity of language and race, rest, as in Switzerland, on an identity of historical reminiscences, of civilization and liberty, are of a superior order; they are types and forerunners of the final fusion when all mankind will be but one great family, or rather a federation. But M. Thiers, being idealistic, like a true son of the French Revolution, was wrong in not taking into account things as they actually are, and the exigencies of the transitory situation.

This awakening of nationalities is the inevitable outcome of the development of democracy, of the press, and of literary culture. An autocrat may govern twenty different peoples without in the least troubling himself as to their language or race; but if once assemblies be introduced, everything is changed. Speech governs. Then what language is to be spoken? That of the people of course. Will you educate the young? It must be done in their mother tongue. Is justice to be administered? You cannot judge a man in a foreign language. You wish to represent him in Parliament and ask for his votes; the least he can claim in return is that he may understand what you say. And thus by degrees the language of the multitude gains ground and is adopted in Parliament, law-courts, and schools of every degree. In Finland, for instance, the struggle is between the Swedes, who form the well-to-do classes and live in the towns on the coast, and the rural population who are Finns. When visiting the country with the son of the eminent linguist, Castrén, who died while in Asia seeking out the origin of the Finn language, I found that the latter was more spoken than Swedish, even in the suburbs of large towns such as Abö and Helsingfors. All official inscriptions are in the two languages. The instruction in the communal schools is almost entirely in the Finn tongue. There are Finn gymnasiums, and even at the University, lectures in this language. There is also a national theatre, where I heard “Martha” sung in Finn. In Gallicia, Polish has completely replaced German; but the Ruthenians have also put in a claim for their idiom. In Bohemia the Tcheck dialect triumphs so completely that German is in danger of being wholly cast aside. At the opening of the Bohemian Diet, the Governor made a speech in Tcheck and one in German. At Prague a Tcheck University has recently been opened next to the German one. The clergy, the feudals, and the population are strongly in favor of this national movement. The Archbishop of Prague, the Prince of Schwarzenberg, although himself a German, appoints none but Tcheck priests, even in the North of Bohemia where Germans dominate.

It is certain that in countries where two races are thus intermingled, this growing feeling must occasion endless dissensions, and almost insurmountable difficulties. It is a disadvantage to speak the idiom of a small number, for it is a cause of isolation. It would certainly be far better if but three or four languages were spoken in Europe, and better still if but one were generally adopted; but, until this acme of unity be attained, every free people called upon to establish self-government, will claim rights for its mother tongue, and will try to unite itself with those who speak it, unless the nation be already fully satisfied with its mixed but historical nationality like Switzerland and Belgium. Austria and the Balkan peninsula are now agitated with these claims for the use of the national tongue, and with aspirations for the formation of States based on the ethnic groups.

As we near Vienna the train runs through the most lovely country. A succession of small valleys, with little streamlets rippling through them, and on either side green lawns between the hills covered with woods, chiefly firs and oaks. One might imagine oneself in Styria or in Upper Bavaria. Soon, however, houses make their appearance, often charming châlets buried in creeping plants, “Gloire de Dijon” roses, or jessamine and clematis. These become more and more frequent, and, near the suburban stations, there are quite little hamlets of villas. I know of no capital with such beautiful suburbs, save perhaps Stockholm. Nothing could be more delightful than Baden, Möoling, Brühl, Schönbrun, and all those little rustic nooks south of Vienna, on the road to the Sömering. —Contemporary Review.