Taylor knew a little book French, but neither he nor either of his companions could speak it or understand it when spoken, and they knew nothing at all of German.  When they reached Frankfurt they tried to inquire the way to the house of the American consul.  At first they were not at all able to make themselves understood; but finally they found a man who could speak a little French and who told them that the consul resided in “Bellevue” street.  It was in reality “Shone Aussicht,” which is the German for beautiful view, as Bellevue is the French.  But the young travelers knew nothing of this.  They went in search of “Bellevue” street, and though they wandered over the greater part of the town and suburbs, they did not find it.  At last they decided to try all the streets which had a beautiful view, and in this way soon found the consul’s house.

Not only did they have very little money in any case, but they were frequently obliged to wait months for remittances.  While in Italy, Taylor’s funds ran so low, and he became so discouraged, that he gave up going to Greece, as he had at first planned.  He was expecting a draft for a hundred dollars; but that would barely pay his debts.  “My clothes,” he writes to one of his companions, “are as bad as yours were when you got to Heidelberg, nearly dropping from me; and I cannot get them mended.  What is worse, they must last till I get to Paris.”  Later he speaks of spending three dollars for a pair of trousers, as those he wore would not hold together any longer.  In despair, he exclaims, “It is really a horrible condition.  If there ever were any young men who made the tour of Europe under such difficulties and embarrassments as we, I should like to see them.”

But all this only urged him to greater efforts.  “I tell you what, Frank,” he writes almost in his next letter, “I am getting a real rage in me to carve out my own fortune, and not a poor one, either.  Sometimes I almost desire that difficulties should be thrown in my way, for the sake of the additional strength gained in surmounting them.”

These words were written from Italy; but yet harder things were in store for him.  “I reached London for the second time about the middle of March, 1846,” he writes in his paper on “A Young Author’s Life in London,” “after a dismal walk through Normandy and a stormy passage across the Channel.  I stood upon London Bridge, in the raw mist and the falling twilight, with a franc and a half in my pocket, and deliberated what I should do.  Weak from sea-sickness, hungry, chilled, and without a single acquaintance in the great city, my situation was about as hopeless as it is possible to conceive.  Successful authors in their libraries, sitting in cushioned chairs and dipping their pens into silver inkstands, may write about money with a beautiful scorn, and chant the praise of Poverty—­the ‘good goddess of Poverty,’ as George Sand, making 50,000 francs a year, enthusiastically terms her;—­but there is no condition in which the Real is so utterly at variance with the Ideal, as to be actually out of money, and hungry, with nothing to pawn and no friend to borrow from.  Have you ever known it, my friend?  If not, I could wish that you might have the experience for twenty-four hours, only once in your life.”