Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1903-09-29
LETTER FROM LOUIS A. PRADT.
TRIBERG, Bad. Schwartzwald,
den IL Sept, 1908.

acdld-the Black iorest-this evening,
and find that | have little
leisure time-something very rare on
such flying trip as we have been max
ing during the past twenty-five days.
So | am going to devote it to you out of
gratitude for the copies of the PILOT
which were handed to me last Saturday
| by the PORTER of our hotel on our arrival
in Geneva. | have been one of your
''steadies" fora good many years, but
| never knew how much [ really adj
mired your paper until then 10 be
sure | noticed that you had delicately
turned me down by stating that my
! last letter had arrived too late for pub
| lication," but / am used to that sort of
a shunt and forgave you in the pleas
ure of reading home news. | am bound
to inform you, though, that | came
near to serious trouble through those
same papers. 1t seems that for some
reason the police had their suspicious
of the character of the publication and
had examined the package before my
arrival, in the course of which they had
run across Neal Browns interview as
set forth by Gill; Vandercook. The
Swiss are brave and chivalrous but
sensitive people and somehow they
took that extraordinary joint pro-
duction of those worthless very i'll, con-
ceiying its sphynx-like sentences to
contain covert threats against the in
tegrity of their Democracy. Accord
!ngly was called sternly to account
by the COne'Rissionaire accompanied by a
tile of gesd'armes, and asked whether
this incendiary article carried the men
ace Of an invasion of Helvetia by the
banditti, "Bobwarts,' headed by Gem
eral Gilbrown. Having denied this ia
three languages to their satisfaction,
was asked to explain what in Helvetia
the article did mean To this | replied
with an earnestness which carried con
viction, that l did not know-it was
oracular. And so got out of it, but it
was a close call.
am not going to bore you with any
detailed account of our travels since
we landed in Antwerp. We have done
pretty much the same as other Ameri-
cans do on their first visit to Europe
We started in, of course, by visiting
every picture gallery and museum with
pious care. As this was in Antwerp and
oalc hoh
of Reubens and his pupils. And, con-
fidentially, you can get too much of
Reubens, great as are his masterpieces,
for there are thousand or more pic
lures attributed to him. We have been
awed by the majestic cathedrals of
Cologne and Milan-those tremendous
monuments of the genius and devotion
of the dim past Thoy overpower you
with their vastness and mounting
height from without and ill you with
wonder and reverence when you walk
the forest of their lofty columns in the
mellow light that falls through stained
glass, centuries old But we have
learned TO fight shy of cathedrals and
churches in general-on week days.
They mean a fee to the man who opens
the door that is already open and an
other fee to see a shrine containing
dubious relics and an altar picture con-
cealed by curtain and very properly
so, and aims to woe-begone creatures
in the vestibule.
We, / use the word advisedly, have
drank Hop Brau beer in Munich and
have also listened to Wagnerian
opera in that beruhmte city | know
which | liked best. If controlled that
beer | could get the German vote.
Likewise the Yankee vote. And l
could shake the Prohibition vote Why,
that beer But must hasten on. We
have walked about the walls and
gaZed into the most of Alt Nuremberg.
The walls were of very satisfying thick
ness and the most was prodigiously
deep and wide. From one of the arrow
Sits in the great watch tower, flank
ing the main gate, | shot bolt from a
plate of tall knight outside and as his
enraged followers pressed on to re-
venge his death turned gatling gun
loose upon them and-waked up from
my day dream. We went by rail
through the Bremen Pass into sunny
very sunny, Italy and came to Venice
in the evening so that we had the
spooky delight of riding to our hotel in
a gondola bus, that wound about
through the blackness of mysterious
canals amidst the weird cries and re-
sponses of our rowers and the rowers
of the sondolas which shot out from
the darkness IS we rounded vague cor
ners. A Frenchman sitting next to me
remarked very justly that it was siris-
days in Venice in midsummer, you be-
gin to tire of wearing clothes pin on
your nose; and if you do not flee Italy in
time, the flea of Italy We left Italy
by way of the Simplon Pass over the
road that the great Napolean built
hundred years ago. We rode il a dill
gence from early morning to late after
noon and had the time of our lives. At
one point the road was crossed by the
track of an avalanche shot out two
years ago by the Rosea boden glacier
that was then peacefully cleaning
above u.s. Workmen have been dig
4 =. A
we passed, there were tremendous boul-
ders of ice sticking out of the mud and
rocks on either side that had beer melt
ing for two years and were still rs big
rs n school house. Weentered Switzer-
land that evening and it was blessed
relief from Italy. Since then we have
been riding on beautiful lakes in set
ting of mountains, with the snowy peaks
of the A lDS in the distance One of