the American artist. He had painted half the famous men of Europe, even then. There, too, was the family of Commander Crowninshield, distinguished of late days as an adviser of the President in the Spanish War.
What we were to do now, was to learn the French and German languages. Good teachers received but two francs, or forty cents, a lesson, and the necessity of the situation impelled us to hard study.
One evening, shortly after our arrival at Zurich, we were out boating with some friends, on the beautiful lake. There were myriads of pretty water-craft, filled with joyous people, circling all about. On a floating raft near by, a band of music was playing airs from Wagner. Zurich was a Wagner town. It was nearing sunset, when suddenly I happened to cast my eyes away from the people and the boats toward the upper end of the lake. “Look at the beautiful clouds,” I exclaimed. My companion smiled. “They are not clouds,” said he. “They are the Glarus Alps.” It was the fairest sight I ever beheld in my life. Some clouds on the horizon had suddenly floated away, and the almost horizontal rays of a setting summer sun were shining on the white snowfields and ice walls of the mountains, turning them into jasper and gold. “That is what we call the ‘Alpine glow,’ ” continued my friend. “It is like looking at the walls of Paradise,” I exclaimed. Pretty soon the sun went down behind the Zurich hills, the jasper and the gold faded from the ice and the rocks of the distant mountains, a cold gray-white, striving to keep off the coming darkness, fell upon the scene. It was the mountains putting on their robes of night. These were the scenes that I was now to live among. Music, they say, takes up the train of thought, where common words leave off. That night, by the waters of Lake Zurich, the soft strains of well-tuned instruments expressed a delight for me that tongue could not utter or pen describe.
Switzerland is full of scenes as glorious as this Glarus range, but this scene here, we were to have from our dining-room window always.
September 5.--The consul of the French Empire called to-day to pay his respects to the consul of the great republic. My consular experiences were about to commence. I was in a dilemma. My Swiss clerk, who spoke six languages for twenty-five dollars a month, had stepped out. I, a plain American, spoke no language except my own.
“Bonjour, Monsieur,” cheerily chirped the Frenchman. I advanced, and, seizing his neatly gloved hand, said “Good morning” in the plainest American. “What! Monsieur, you no parlez Francais? Ah! certainlee. Monsieur he parle Allemand. Monsieur speak a leetle Dutch?” he continued, bowing and smiling. “I am sorry,” I interrupted in embarrassment. “No Dutch--no Francais.” “Oh! Monsieur no understand. No, no. Ah, si, Monsieur, he speak Spanish, certainlee--Spanish better--Spanish better--very fine--Americans all speak Spanish--veree.” Again I shook my head, and again the consul bowed, and I bowed, and we both bowed together; and, after a few more genuflections and great embarrassment, he smiled and went backward out of the room. The situation was absurd. Then the Italian consul called, and then the Austrian consul, and similar scenes occurred. The same nonsense, without understanding a word.
I saw at once what was necessary for me to do. Solid months, years, day and night almost, were to be spent learning the language of the people among whom I was to live. Of course, Americans are not born with a knowledge of international law and an ability to speak half a dozen foreign languages.
The routine work of legalizing invoices, attending to passports, getting foolish fellow-countrymen out of jail, and helping others who were “strapped” to get to the nearest seaport, went on. Then there was the doing the polite thing generally by American travelers who called at the office to pay their respects to the consul.
There were many Americans abroad even then. The Swiss hotels reaped great harvests from the rich American and English nabobs who traveled about, displaying themselves and throwing away money.
“I have special charges for all these fine fellows,” said the landlord of the Bellevue to me. “Indeed, I have three rates, one for the Swiss, a higher one for foreigners, and a still higher one for the Americans and English. The rooms are the same, the dinners are the same, the wines the same; but the bills--ah, well, I am very glad they come.”
Soon I commenced writing reports for our Government. They were asked for on every conceivable subject, from sewer building to political economy. Every American who has a hobby, writes to his Congressman to know what they do about such things in Europe. The Congressman asks the State Department and the State Department asks the consul. He must answer in some way.
In this way, and in guarding against frauds on the customs, the time passed.
In the meantime my official position secured me the entrée into Swiss society. It enabled me at last to know Swiss life and to meet men and women worth the knowing. Many of them living in Zurich, or passing there, had European reputations, for the city, like Geneva, had that about it that attracted people of intellect. Zurich is called the Swiss Athens. Novelists, poets, historians, statesmen and renowned professors occupied chairs in the great University, or whiled away pleasant summers among the glorious scenery of the Alps near by.
Lorenzo Brentano.--Page 24.
August 10, 1870.--On this day I made the acquaintance of a remarkable man. It was Lorenzo Brentano of Chicago. He called at the consulate, and, after first greetings, I found out who he was. It was that Brentano who had been condemned to death after the Revolution of 1848 in South Germany. He had been more than a leader; he had been elected provisional president of the so-called German Republic. When the cause failed on the battlefield, he fled to America, and there, for many years, struggled with voice and pen for the freedom of the slaves, just as he had struggled in Germany for the freedom of his countrymen. The seed he helped to sow in Germany, at last bore fruit there, and he also lived to see American slavery perish. He was a hero in two continents. He had made a fortune in Chicago and was now educating his children in Zurich. His son is now an honored judge of the Superior Court of Chicago, a city Brentano’s life honored. He was also at this time writing virile letters for European journals, moulding public opinion in our favor as to the Alabama claims. We needed his patriotism. Americans will never know the great help Brentano was to us, at a time when nine-tenths of the foreign press was bitterly against us. I once heard a judge on the bench ask Brentano officially if he wrote the letters regarding America. “Yes,” said Brentano, who was trying a case of his own, and was a witness, “I wrote them.” “Then that should be reckoned against you,” said the judge, so bitter and unjust was the feeling abroad concerning our country, especially among Englishmen traveling or living on the Continent at this time. A kind word for America or Americans was rare.
Through Brentano’s friendship, I secured many notable acquaintances. The Revolution of 1848 in Germany was led by the brightest spirits of the country. Its failure led to death or flight. Many had crossed into the Republic of Switzerland and formed here in Zurich a circle of intellectual exiles. They were authors, musicians, statesmen, distinguished university professors. Brentano naturally stood high among them all.
Johannes Scherr.--Page 24.
The Orsini Cafe.--Around a corner, and not a block away from our home, stood a dingy, old building, known as the Cafe Orsini. Every afternoon at five, a certain number of exiles, and their friends, among them men of culture and European fame, met and drank beer at an old oak table in a dark corner of the east room. It was the room to the right of the entrance hall. Many people frequented the Orsini, for it was celebrated for its best Munich beer, and they could catch there glimpses sometimes of certain famous men. Johannes
