The interest of this story is unquenchable; it is
of the sort that time cannot decay. I have not
looked at the diaries for thirty-two years, but I
find that they have lost nothing in that time.
Lost? They have gained; for by some subtle
law all tragic human experiences gain in pathos by
the perspective of time. We realize this when
in Naples we stand musing over the poor Pompeian mother,
lost in the historic storm of volcanic ashes eighteen
centuries ago, who lies with her child gripped close
to her breast, trying to save it, and whose despair
and grief have been preserved for us by the fiery
envelope which took her life but eternalized her form
and features. She moves us, she haunts us, she
stays in our thoughts for many days, we do not know
why, for she is nothing to us, she has been nothing
to anyone for eighteen centuries; whereas of the like
case to-day we should say, ’Poor thing! it is
pitiful,’ and forget it in an hour.
[1] There are nineteen days of voyaging ahead yet.—M.T.
[2] Six days to sail yet, nevertheless.—M.T.
[3] It was at this time discovered that the crazed
sailors had gotten the delusion that the captain had
a million dollars in gold concealed aft, and they
were conspiring to kill him and the two passengers
and seize it. —M.T.
This establishment’s name is Hochberghaus.
It is in Bohemia, a short day’s journey from
Vienna, and being in the Austrian Empire is of course
a health resort. The empire is made up of health
resorts; it distributes health to the whole world.
Its waters are all medicinal. They are bottled
and sent throughout the earth; the natives themselves
drink beer. This is self-sacrifice apparently—but
outlanders who have drunk Vienna beer have another
idea about it. Particularly the Pilsner which
one gets in a small cellar up an obscure back lane
in the First Bezirk—the name has escaped
me, but the place is easily found: You inquire
for the Greek church; and when you get to it, go right
along by—the next house is that little
beer-mill. It is remote from all traffic and
all noise; it is always Sunday there. There
are two small rooms, with low ceilings supported by
massive arches; the arches and ceilings are whitewashed,
otherwise the rooms would pass for cells in the dungeons
of a bastile. The furniture is plain and cheap,
there is no ornamentation anywhere; yet it is a heaven
for the self-sacrificers, for the beer there is incomparable;
there is nothing like it elsewhere in the world.
In the first room you will find twelve or fifteen
ladies and gentlemen of civilian quality; in the other
one a dozen generals and ambassadors. One may
live in Vienna many months and not hear of this place;
but having once heard of it and sampled it, the sampler
will afterward infest it.
