Study in Frankfort.—Lack of Money.—Different Effect of Want on Travellers.—Bayard’s Privations.—Again sets out on Foot.—Visit to the Hartz Mountains.—The Brocken.—Scenes in “Faust.”—Locality in Literature.—The Battle-field at Leipsic.—Auerbach’s Cellar. For the purposes of this work, an outline of Bayard’s travels is all that can be attempted; except where some remarkable incident occurred that had an unusual influence on his subsequent life. Leaving Heidelberg in the latter part of October (1844), Bayard walked through the Odenwald to Frankfort, where he could pursue his study of the German language, and observe the customs and characteristics of the people to better advantage and at a less expense. In attempting to see Europe on such a limited allowance of money, he necessarily met with many inconveniences and privations. His sufferings were at times most intense. He knew what it was to fast for whole days; he felt the pains of blistered bare feet. He was exposed to the severest storms of summer and winter; he was familiar with the homes of beggary and the hard, swarming beds of third-class taverns. He must have suffered beyond his own estimate, for, as he so well says, the pains of travel are soon forgotten and the pleasures[78] vividly remembered. There was a youthful abandon in his almost reckless adventures which startles the reader of his tours. But yet the pains he felt so keenly, the dangers he encountered so frequently, did not seem to abate his enthusiasm for the great works and beautiful scenes which Europe exhibits. To find ourselves in a strange city, where no one speaks our native language; where it is not possible that any person can know us or any of our friends; without money, or food, or work, is one of the most disheartening situations that can be imagined. Yet such an experience came often to Bayard. It would seem as if, on some occasions, he ran into such difficulties needlessly and for very wantonness. Yet, as was sometimes the experience of the writer, and from one of which dangerous situations Mr. Taylor generously rescued him, there somehow opens a way out from such ventures, which is found on the very verge of starvation and despair. But the trait of character, which in Bayard commanded such respect, was something so unusual, that his daring example cannot be safely followed by the multitude. It is far better to have a supply of money for the necessary expenses of travel in Europe or Asia, than to run risks for the sake of the romance which Bayard found in such straits. To many tourists, even the parks of Homburg, the castle of Drachenfels, or the palace of the Vatican, would become insignificant baubles before the stronger demands of the body for food and raiment. But seldom[79] did any fatigue or annoyance or loss, abate his wonderful zeal in his search for the poetical, the strange, the historical, and the beautiful. Some of his most exquisite descriptions of art or nature, were written from notes made when his stomach was empty and his limbs chilled with wet and cold. Such young men are few; and for one with less perseverance, endurance, or genius to attempt such things on such a scale, would be to meet with disheartening failure.
Of his life in Frankfort, during the winter of 1845, he often speaks with great satisfaction. He made excellent progress in the language, and in that understanding of the habits of the people which Mr. Greeley had so pointedly urged upon him as an ambitious aspirant for the favors of the “Tribune.” He comes out of that study a matured thinker. His descriptions assume a more thoughtful tone. His sympathies are more often awakened for the people, and he sees as a man sees, and less juvenile are all his undertakings and communications. He there acquired a love of German poetry, and became acquainted with many of the noted men of Frankfort. He visited the aged Mendelssohn, and tells with charming simplicity how he was received by the composer of “St. Paul” and “Elijah.” Thus introduced to German literature, art, and music, he entered again upon his travels at the opening of spring, with new and increasing appreciativeness.
Again, on foot, he went into the untried way of Europe. His first attraction was for the Hartz Mountains,[80] so intimately connected with Goethe’s “Faust,” with which Bayard was already in love, and which he afterwards translated in a masterly manner. So he went through Friedberg and Giessen, into Hesse-Cassel, making the acquaintance of peasants and merchants on his way, and moralizing upon the curious circumstance that the descendants of the Hessians, who fought so doggedly at Brandywine, should receive so hospitably the descendant of those who filled the “plains of Trenton with the short Hessian graves.” Thence by Münden, G?ttingen and Osterode, enduring sickening fatigues and dangerous exposure, he reached the Brocken mountain, where, through thickets, rocks, chasms, snow and cold, he at last rested in a cottage at its summit, amid the associations awakened by the weird tales of witches and the superstitious explanations of that singular illusion,—the “Spectre of the Brocken.” If he had any “wish” on that “Walpurgis night,” which he passed on the highest mountain of the Hartz range, it was probably to be relieved of the tortures which his weak frame endured, and from which the physician had failed to relieve him. It would not be surprising if he recited from “Faust” the words of scene IV.:—
“Through some familiar tone, retrieving
My thoughts from torment, led me on,
And sweet, clear echoes came, deceiving
A faith bequeathed from childhood&............