Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
Austria -- Description and travel; Germany -- Description and travel; Switzerland -- Description and travel
[Footnote A: From "A Winter in Russia." By permission of, and by
arrangement with, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1874.
Since Gautier wrote, Berlin has greatly increased in population and in
general importance. What is known as "Greater Berlin" now embraces about
3,250,000 souls. Many of the quaint two-story houses, which formerly
were characteristic of the city, have given way to palatial houses and
business blocks. Berlin is a thoroughly modern commercial city. It ranks
among European cities immediately after London and Paris.]
CHARLOTTENBURG[A]
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
Then we drove to Charlottenburg to see the Mausoleum. I know not when I
have been more deeply affected than there; and yet, not so much by the
sweet, lifelike statue of the queen as by that of the king, her husband,
executed by the same hand.[B] Such an expression of long-desired rest,
after suffering the toil, is shed over the face--so sweet, so heavenly!
There, where he has prayed year after year--hoping, yearning,
longing--there, at last, he rests, life's long anguish over! My heart
melted as I looked at these two, so long divided--he so long a mourner,
she so long mourned--now calmly resting side by side in a sleep so
tranquil.
We went through the palace. We saw the present king's writing desk and
table in his study, just as he left them. His writing establishment is
about as plain as yours. Men who really mean to do anything do not use
fancy tools. His bedroom, also, is in a style of severe simplicity.
There were several engravings fastened against the wall; and in the
anteroom a bust and medallion of the Empress Eugenie--a thing which I
should not exactly have expected in a born king's palace; but beauty is
sacred, and kings can not call it parvenu. Then we went into the queen's
bed-room, finished in green, and then through the rooms of Queen Louisa.
Those marks of her presence, which you saw during the old king's
lifetime, are now removed; we saw no traces of her dresses, gloves, or
books. In one room, draped in white muslin over pink, we were informed
the Empress of Russia was born.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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