Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1884-01-25
TEE sl1Isslll IN q AT HERIlAND.
9Ae Reyeries Sf al American, Fresh from the
Youthful Northwest, as HB Wanders Isl.
IA About Historic Towns .3s
Th6 Germans as Hero Worship pers, and the
I h Modern Military Expression Of this }.S
. as5s 81 Characteristic. 2S Is .g5

Th6 Germans as Hero w orshippers, and the
I Modern Military Expression Of this }sS
:55s 81 Characteristic Il
- Paradise OF Honesty and Fair Dealing,
81 Where Even Hackmen Forbear to Take s#
1. Advantage Of the Tenderfoot.
VIENNA, Editorial Correspondence, Dec. 20
Having spent some two months in Ger
many, divided sucsessively in unequal perl
ODDS between Munich, Nuremberg, Barnberg,
LEIPZIG and Dresden, ought to be qualified
Il am as keen sighted traveller as the Eng
Nshman wflose observations from the window
Of d sleeping car In night express train
from New York to Boston enabled him to
write q thrilling book about 'America--to tell
all about Germany-or, at least to tell you
something neWrand interesting about 1t. But
lam not going to fall into the common mis-
take Of surprising that what is new and in
teresting to me in these old places and
scenes, the familiar tramping ground Of
armies OF letter writing and book-making
tourists, would be at all likely to be of the
slightest interest to any one else. Yet
there is this much to be said in
defense Of a deluson which inspires the cal
low tourist to deliver himself Of his first I'M
pressions; that his first impressions,
though crude and superficial aud
likely to be mistaken, have q heenness and
yividness which are lost as the sense OF
novelty wears off with a longer and more
familiar acquaintance, l think, perhaps,
the average American takes in more OF these
old countries in first rapid survey than any
other stranger. Not that he is an acuter OBJ
server or has sharper sense of local color;
for there is no one to whom everything in
country not his own is SO strange and odd as
the European. Their armed international
antipathiee, perpetuated by tradition and
policy, have more completely isolated these
little STATES from one another than
II they were islanded by inter-
rolling oceans The same physical and
political causes which have so sharply &C.
Gentuated their national and provincial
peculiarities have given them perhaps
keener sense Of their respective minor diff
ferences than on American can feel, coming
from q country where all the dispersed
nations nave come together again to rebuild
the tower of Babel, amid a miraculous con-
fusion of tongues. But if, Of all travellers,
the American Is the most catholic and cosmO-
politan, he at least brings with him into
these old countries livelier curiosity and a
keener zest for what is old in them; for their
old things and old ways; for what may call
the old clothes of the old world; for the me-
MORALS of old times which are found not
only In ancient buildings and monuments and
y the Hike, but in the institutions and customs
and characters Of the people.
70 green American like myself, at least,
from the Altogether New Northwest-fresh
as the freshest kind Of a daisy-bathed In
morning dew from the riotous spring OF a
civilization just bursting into bud, it feels
good TO get into countries which have
reached their ripe and mellow autumn, and
where the atmosphere is hazy with the mists
of an antiquity which empurples all the far
off historic background and spreads a
softening charm over all the hard realism of
the visible life and world about u.s. But I
confess that the old things which have most
attraction for me are not always those which
are seb down in the guide books. Despite
the glamour Of romantic interest which
poetry and song and legend-to
say nothing of history--haves lent
to the picturesque castles and palaces
and towns of the middle ages, or to their
'ijtlllh more picturesque ruins, my favorite
antiquities are not these ancient strongholds
Of violence, built with the cpcils of war and
raplne and oppression. Nor do I find them III
the royal museums, treasures and what not
where are displayed the costly gimcracks of
long lines Of costly princess the relics Of the
martial pride and pomp and prowess of chiv-
airy; arms and ar1nor Of polished steel for
use, and FURNISHED gold for show; swords
whose hits are jeweled with the ravished
wealth of dukedoms; and even the brides
and surcingies and saddles and other gear of
royal horses studded with barbaric opulence
Of precious stones that cost--God on'y
knows what wide waste of human
life and substance to furnish forth
knightly pageant All this nonsense of
which the museums are full sets me to think
ing that the men who made history as it is
written by the chroniclers, are not the men
who made civilization.
THE INTEREST OF THE BY-wAYs
So turn from these glittering baubles and
the graver monuments of feudal state and
power, which recall the times when war was
the pastime and human life and substance
the sport and spoil Of mobiles and princes, to
ramble-where am never tired of, rambling
jim the green old, narrow, crooked streets
the squares and market places, and 1nysteri-
quaint remains of medieval German archi-
lecture. This is found in its best state of
preservation in such provincial cities
as Nuremberg, SchaHhausen, etc,
which have been little invaded by
modern progress; but many traces of it
still remain in the older parts Of such mod
ernized cities as Berlin, Munich and Dresden
The fantastic gables and the arcaded or pro-
r],o
angled, ox-eyed roofs. The little, low, narrow,
dim1y lighted shops, whose antique, iron
barred, duodecirno windows recall the days
when5sa narrow slit like a portfolio was the
only aperture permitted in the lower stories
Of houses, which served in. part as the citi-
zens' fortresses; while everywhere are the
queer courts, inherited from the days when
it was dangerous to have doors or windows
opening on the streets A broad, archsd and
paved passage way, spacious enough for
heavy teams to pass, the entrance to which
from the street is barred at night,
or when occasion Serves, against hos
tile intrusion, by massive folding doors,
leads through the exterior building to an in
terror area OF all shapes and sizes, but usual
" q spacious quadrangle, surrounded by
buildings, the ground floors Of which in com
mercial quarters are still, as centuries ago,
occupied wholly or partly by shops, ateliers,
restaurants, stables, and the like, while the
upper stories, like the upper stories Of almost
all private ui1dings in European cities, are
used for residence apartments From the.
stone paved passageWay stairs ascend to the
different stories or residence flats of The ex-
terror buildings These curious cour the
entrance to which is presided over, at least
nv night by 81 concierge. who. &c the belatedf
denizen is not provided with q key, requires