What Is Man? and Other Essays
majestic lady with added years; and finally in deep black and without
ornaments—the costume she always wore after the tragic death of her son
nine years ago, for her heart broke then, and life lost almost all its
value for her. The people stood grouped before these pictures, and now
and then one saw women and girls turn away wiping the tears from their
eyes.
In front of the Krantz is an open square; over the way was the church
where the funeral services would be held. It is small and old and
severely plain, plastered outside and whitewashed or painted, and with
no ornament but a statue of a monk in a niche over the door, and above
that a small black flag. But in its crypt lie several of the great dead
of the House of Habsburg, among them Maria Theresa and Napoleon’s son,
the Duke of Reichstadt. Hereabouts was a Roman camp, once, and in it
the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died a thousand years before the first
Habsburg ruled in Vienna, which was six hundred years ago and more.
The little church is packed in among great modern stores and houses,
and the windows of them were full of people. Behind the vast
plate-glass windows of the upper floors of a house on the corner one
glimpsed terraced masses of fine-clothed men and women, dim and
shimmery, like people under water. Under us the square was noiseless,
but it was full of citizens; officials in fine uniforms were flitting
about on errands, and in a doorstep sat a figure in the uttermost
raggedness of poverty, the feet bare, the head bent humbly down; a
youth of eighteen or twenty, he was, and through the field-glass one
could see that he was tearing apart and munching riffraff that he had
gathered somewhere. Blazing uniforms flashed by him, making a sparkling
contrast with his drooping ruin of moldy rags, but he took no notice;
he was not there to grieve for a nation’s disaster; he had his own
cares, and deeper. From two directions two long files of infantry came
plowing through the pack and press in silence; there was a low, crisp
order and the crowd vanished, the square save the sidewalks was empty,
the private mourner was gone. Another order, the soldiers fell apart
and enclosed the square in a double-ranked human fence. It was all so
swift, noiseless, exact—like a beautifully ordered machine.
It was noon, now. Two hours of stillness and waiting followed. Then
carriages began to flow past and deliver the two or three hundred court
personages and high nobilities privileged to enter the church. Then the
square filled up; not with civilians, but with army and navy officers
in showy and beautiful uniforms. They filled it compactly, leaving only
a narrow carriage path in front of the church, but there was no
civilian among them. And it was better so; dull clothes would have
marred the radiant spectacle. In the jam in front of the church, on its
steps, and on the sidewalk was a bunch of uniforms which made a blazing
splotch of color—intense red, gold, and white—which dimmed the
brilliancies around them; and opposite them on the other side of the
path was a bunch of cascaded bright-green plumes above pale-blue
shoulders which made another splotch of splendor emphatic and
conspicuous in its glowing surroundings. It was a sea of flashing color
all about, but these two groups were the high notes. The green plumes
were worn by forty or fifty Austrian generals, the group opposite them
were chiefly Knights of Malta and knights of a German order. The mass
of heads in the square were covered by gilt helmets and by military
caps roofed with a mirror-like glaze, and the movements of the wearers
caused these things to catch the sun-rays, and the effect was fine to
see—the square was like a garden of richly colored flowers with a
multitude of blinding and flashing little suns distributed over it.
Think of it—it was by command of that Italian loafer yonder on his
imperial throne in the Geneva prison that this splendid multitude was
assembled there; and the kings and emperors that were entering the
church from a side street were there by his will. It is so strange, so
unrealizable.
At three o’clock the carriages were still streaming by in single file.
At three-five a cardinal arrives with his attendants; later some
bishops; then a number of archdeacons—all in striking colors that add
to the show. At three-ten a procession of priests passes along, with
crucifix. Another one, presently; after an interval, two more; at
three-fifty another one—very long, with many crosses, gold-embroidered
robes, and much white lace; also great pictured banners, at intervals,
receding into the distance.
A hum of tolling bells makes itself heard, but not sharply. At
three-fifty-eight a waiting interval. Presently a long procession of
gentlemen in evening dress comes in sight and approaches until it is
near to the square, then falls back against the wall of soldiers at the
sidewalk, and the white shirt-fronts show like snowflakes and are very
conspicuous where so much warm color is all about.
A waiting pause. At four-twelve the head of the funeral procession
comes into view at last. First, a body of cavalry, four abreast, to
widen the path. Next, a great body of lancers, in blue, with gilt
helmets. Next, three six-horse mourning-coaches; outriders and coachmen
in black, with cocked hats and white wigs. Next, troops in splendid
uniforms, red, gold, and white, exceedingly showy.
Now the multitude uncover. The soldiers present arms; there is a low
rumble of drums; the sumptuous great hearse approaches, drawn at a walk
by eight black horses plumed with black bunches of nodding ostrich
feathers; the coffin is borne into the church, the doors are closed.
The multitude cover their heads, and the rest of the procession moves
by; first the Hungarian Guard in their indescribably brilliant and
picturesque and beautiful uniform, inherited from the ages of barbaric
splendor, and after them other mounted forces, a long and showy array.
Then the shining crown in the square crumbled apart, a wrecked rainbow,
and melted away in radiant streams, and in the turn of a wrist the
three dirtiest and raggedest and cheerfulest little slum-girls in
Austria were capering about in the spacious vacancy. It was a day of
contrasts.
Twice the Empress entered Vienna in state. The first time was in 1854,
when she was a bride of seventeen, and then she rode in measureless
pomp and with blare of music through a fluttering world of gay flags
and decorations, down streets walled on both hands with a press of
shouting and welcoming subjects; and the second time was last
Wednesday, when she entered the city in her coffin and moved down the
same streets in the dead of the night under swaying black flags,
between packed human walls again; but everywhere was a deep stillness,
now—a stillness emphasized, rather than broken, by the muffled
hoofbeats of the long cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, and
the low sobbing of gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entry
forty-four years before, when she and they were young—and unaware!
A character in Baron von Berger’s recent fairy drama “Habsburg” tells
about that first coming of the girlish Empress-Queen, and in his
history draws a fine picture: I cannot make a close translation of it,
but will try to convey the spirit of the verses:
I saw the stately pageant pass:
In her high place I saw the Empress-Queen:
I could not take my eyes away
From that fair vision, spirit-like and pure,
That rose serene, sublime, and figured to my sense
A noble Alp far lighted in the blue,
That in the flood of morning rends its veil of cloud
And stands a dream of glory to the gaze
Of them that in the Valley toil and plod.
A SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY
Marion City, on the Mississippi River, in the State of Missouri—a
village; time, 1845. La Bourboule-les-Bains, France—a village; time,
the end of June, 1894. I was in the one village in that early time; I
am in the other now. These times and places are sufficiently wide
apart, yet today I have the strange sense of being thrust back into
that Missourian village and of reliving certain stirring days that I
lived there so long ago.
Last Saturday night the life of the President of the French Republic
was taken by an Italian assassin. Last night a mob surrounded our
hotel, shouting, howling, singing the “Marseillaise,” and pelting our
windows with sticks and stones; for we have Italian waiters, and the
mob demanded that they be turned out of the house instantly—to be
drubbed, and then driven out of the village. Everybody in the hotel
remained up until far into the night, and experienced the several kinds
of terror which one reads about in books which tell of night attacks by
Italians and by French mobs: the growing roar of the oncoming crowd;
the arrival, with rain of stones and a crash of glass; the withdrawal
to rearrange plans—followed by a silence ominous, threatening, and
harder to bear than even the active siege and the noise. The landlord
and the two village policemen stood their ground, and at last the mob
was persuaded to go away and leave our Italians in peace. Today four of
the ringleaders have been sentenced to heavy punishment of a public
sort—and are become local heroes, by consequence.
That is the very mistake which was at first made in the Missourian
village half a century ago. The mistake was repeated and repeated—just
as France is doing in these latter months.
In our village we had our Ravochals, our Henrys, our Vaillants; and in
a humble way our Cesario—I hope I have spelled this name wrong. Fifty
years ago we passed through, in all essentials, what France has been
passing through during the past two or three years, in the matter of
periodical frights, horrors, and shudderings.
In several details the parallels are quaintly exact. In that day, for a
man to speak out openly and proclaim himself an enemy of negro slavery
was simply to proclaim himself a madman. For he was blaspheming against
the holiest thing known to a Missourian, and could NOT be in his right
mind. For a man to proclaim himself an anarchist in France, three years
ago, was to proclaim himself a madman—he could not be in his right
mind.
Now the original old first blasphemer against any institution
profoundly venerated by a community is quite sure to be in earnest; his
followers and imitators may be humbugs and self-seekers, but he himself
is sincere—his heart is in his protest.
Robert Hardy was our first _abolitionist_—awful name! He was a
journeyman cooper, and worked in the big cooper-shop belonging to the
great pork-packing establishment which was Marion City’s chief pride
and sole source of prosperity. He was a New-Englander, a stranger. And,
being a stranger, he was of course regarded as an inferior person—for
that has been human nature from Adam down—and of course, also, he was
made to feel unwelcome, for this is the ancient law with man and the
other animals. Hardy was thirty years old, and a bachelor; pale, given
to reverie and reading. He was reserved, and seemed to prefer the
isolation which had fallen to his lot. He was treated to many side
remarks by his fellows, but as he did not resent them it was decided
that he was a coward.
All of a sudden he proclaimed himself an abolitionist—straight out and
publicly! He said that negro slavery was a crime, an infamy. For a
moment the town was paralyzed with astonishment; then it broke into a
fury of rage and swarmed toward the cooper-shop to lynch Hardy. But the
Methodist minister made a powerful speech to them and stayed their
hands. He proved to them that Hardy was insane and not responsible for
his words; that no man _could _be sane and utter such words.
So Hardy was saved. Being insane, he was allowed to go on talking. He