Radio Script #991

Little Talks on Common Things
December 9, 1973

Last week we began an account of a most interesting diary kept by a Maine woman on a trip to Europe in 1885. At the end of last week’s broadcast we left her party on the Isle of Wight off the coast of England, ready to cross the channel to France.

It seems that they nearly decided to return home; while still on Wight, the lady wrote: “Papa has been very homesick and wishes his journeyings were over. English food is very monotonous. In fact beer and whiskey seem to take the place of food. At home we always had dinner at noon, and that is very difficult to get in England. At midday all we can get is cold mutton, hard bread and cheese. I would give a lot right now for some of Aunt Sadie’s baked beans and doughnuts. To think the day would ever come when we would sigh for cod fish hash and rye muffins. Over here cold toast is a fixed institution.”

On the morning of August 26, the party boarded a channel steamer at the island port of New Haven and crossed to Dieppe in France. In 1885 folks dreaded that choppy channel crossing just as they still do. Of course many now cross by air, and in a few years the long-awaited tunnel for trains will be completed under the channel.

But I suspect many Americans have shared the experience of this Maine woman, who wrote in 1885: “Crossing the channel was the most dreaded stage of our journey. We had heard it depicted in awful accounts. On our trip we were told the crossing was unusually favorable, but it was certainly bad enough. We were all seasick until we reached Dieppe. Papa had a little misunderstanding with the guard who insisted that Jill was seven and must pay full fare. Allover England she had gone free. Papa finally had to give in and pay her fare. We even had to pay three pence to use the toilet.”

Arriving in Paris, our Maine woman wrote: “As Papa’s French was a little rusty, we were glad to be met by a porter who spoke English. The Hotel Tamise had sent him· to meet us.”

After seeing the usual Parisian sights the party went to Switzerland. The woman declared Geneva to be a beautiful city, fully living up to the pictures of it they had seen at home. Next they recrossed the border into France and approached the Alps via the Frenchtown of Chamonix. The diarist said, “We are now in the Alps but do not feel up to climbing Mont Blanc. We did buy Alpine stocks for the children, which they will bring home. Hurrah! Papa has decided that we shall go mountain climbing after all; so now we must hire some Alpine stocks for ourselves.”

So on September 7, the lady recorded: “The four of us took mules and two Swiss guides to ascend a low mountain, much like our Kearsarge at North Conway. At the top we found a good hotel, had a well-cooked lunch, and started to cross the
Mende Glacier, which the travel books describe as most perilous. A short walk brought us to broken ice, a space three-quarters of a mile wide, stretching from one ridge to another. It was actually the top of a chasm filled with ice. Without the
least difficulty we walked across. This glacier comes from Mt. Blanc, whose snow capped peak dominates the landscape. We got back to our hotel in time for a delicious table d ‘hote dinner.”

You will note that this time the members of the party were so hungry that they made no complaint about table d’hote. A few days later they were at the Castle of Chillon where, the diarist wrote, “the poor prisoner passed six years in the dungeon”. She was of course referring to Byron’s well known poem, “The Prisoner of Chillon”.

Our Maine woman did not miss ordinary peasant sights that seemed anything but ordinary to her. She wrote: “It is a novel sight to see the pretty Swiss maids in their quaint costumes driving home the droves of goats at night. The women take their babies into the fields and put them under a tree while the women themselves bundle grain or dig potatoes. The people here have come more and more in contact with travelers from England and America. Consequently English is taught in the schools. Even shop girls and chamber maids can use our language. Children no bigger than Jill have baskets fitted to their heads to carry their share of the burdens. All along the roads mothers and daughters sit beside little chalets where they offer wood carvings for sale, and busily knit lace. When I was about Jack’s age, my grandmother, an Irish girl who had been educated in a convent, taught me to knit the same way – quite different from our Maine way of knitting stockings and mittens.”

From the shore of Lake Lucerne they took a railway to the top of another mountain to see the sunrise. The diary says, “I never saw a good sunrise from the top of Mt. Washington, but Papa says it is better than this one. That may be true, or it may be just patriotism.”

On September 18, the party found themselves in the Black Forest of Germany, a place made famous by stories of robbers, brigands and hobgoblins. Our Maine lady declared the place a big humbug: She saw just one live fox and no other sign of wild life. “I have seen a lot more frightening places than the Black Forest.” She did note that in that part of Germany the universal breakfast was bread and honey.

They were in Freiburg on market day. The diary tell us: “As many as a thousand men, women and children were in the market square, dressed in the gayest of peasant costumes. Arcades and nooks were filled with baby carriages, in which
tiny babies stay all day while mothers are selling near by. Such vast quantities of goods of all kinds, from foods to old iron. Papa bought six large pears, a pound of nice grapes, a dozen peaches and a quart of walnuts – all for one mark, 25 cents.”

Near Frankfurt they saw how the Germans plowed their fields. The diary says: “A woman leads the forward yoke of oxen by the horns. The farmer urges on the rear yoke with a goad, while another woman holds the plow. Women are the real
laborers here. I have seen them digging ditches and building roads, or pitching manure in the barnyard.”

Reaching Cologne on September 25, the woman wrote: “We have sailed down the Rhine, a wonderful experience. The many castles on the heights, the rich farmlands along the banks, the tiny villages and the large cities, all make a memorable
picture. At our hotel in Cologne, we expected the usual kraut and sauerbrauten, but we got a delicious omelet with peas and carrots.”

In their Cologne hotel occurred an incident which our Maine lady thought worth recording. “A jet black gentleman”, she wrote, ” of about 30 years appeared with a petite white wife, as fair as any girl in Maine, her manners simple and unembarrassed. One of the clerks told Papa that this man was well educated, speaking French, German and English, and was highly respectable. He is agent for the Chinese government, sent to purchase cannons from Krupp, the great manufacturer of artillery. I could imagine it possible for such a man to inspire love in a girl’s heart so as to make her overlook his color and the scornful gaze of the world, but how can she possibly expect her family to accept her sacrifice?”

On September 30 the party had come from Germany into Belgium. In Antwerp their guide was a well educated fellow who spoke five languages. As usual our Maine diarist recorded strange sights. “In a museum with its fine Rubens,” she wrote, “We saw a man without arms copying some of the best pictures. He wore on both feet stockings cut off at the toes. The pallet was hung on one great toe, while the brush was held between two toes of the other foot. He painted with all the precision and skill of a man with normal hands.”

On October I the lady recorded: “We are off for Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague. From Rotterdam we shall sail for home, and we are not sorry, because our eyes are weary with sightseeing and our ears aching from the strain of listening to cathedral bells and the distant harmonies of chanting priests mingled with the jingling jabbers of the people. Yesterday we saw the magnificent Marriage of St. Catherine, a symbolic painting by Rubens, representing the saint taking her consecration vows, that is, being married to the Church of Christ. It is said to be the only one of Rubens’ paintings that has never been restored or retouched. ”

At the Hague, our traveler wrote: “As we look off into the distance, the huge windmills flap their great wings, the masts of ships sway in the midst of tall poplars and willows, as canals cross and recross the city. Marine life and agriculture are curiously blended. At Scherwegan, the center of herring fisheries, for the first time in my life I saw a sweet-smelling fishing village. I do think the Dutch are the cleanest people in the world. Their houses are of brick, and a peep through the open doors reveals the most tidy kitchens. It is said that even King William takes off his shoes when he enters a peasant home. Not a person here seems slovenly or beggarly. If I were not an American, I should want to be a Dutchman.”

Then our Maine traveler recorded a bit of royal gossip about Holland. She wrote: “The present King William III is 70, but he has a wife of 25 and a daughter only three years old. Political feelings run high in Holland today. The nihilists are fomenting discontent among the idle classes. Some think, if King William’s death should occur while the little princess, his only child, is still young, the sceptre of royalty in Holland would be buried with him. His young wife is a German princess, however, and her whole family would help to keep power in their line. These Germans are shrewdly marrying their royal children into the lines of noble houses in neighboring countries, where they hope by military power to sustain the tottering structure of absolute rule. Nevertheless, the day of the downfall of principalities and thrones in Western Europe is sure to come. King
William has an immense income, his young wife has a large allowance, and the three year old child has thousands of guilders spent on her every year. All this makes the people grumble. We can only wonder when the inevitable change will be effected, whether by concessions of royalty, or by revolution of the masses.”

Well, of course that Maine woman of 88 years ago could not forsee what the years would bring to Holland. That three-year old child became the renowned Queen Wilhelmina, and in the person of her daughter Juliana, royalty still reigns in the Netherlands.

The next day the party boarded ship at Amsterdam and were off for home. And that ends the remarkable diary of a Maine woman who toured Europe before most people living today were even born.

Year: 1973