Every German town of any size has three or four of these little journals of flying leaves, which are excellent papers in every respect, except that they look like badly printed handbills, and have very little news and no editorials worth speaking of.An exception to these in Bavaria is the "Allgerneine Zeitung" of Augsburg, which is old and immensely respectable, and is perhaps, for extent of correspondence and splendidly written editorials on a great variety of topics, excelled by no journal in Europe except the London "Times." It gives out two editions daily, the evening one about the size of the New York "Nation;" and it has all the telegraphic news.
It is absurdly old-grannyish, and is malevolent in its pretended conservatism and impartiality.Yet it circulates over forty thousand copies, and goes all over Germany.
But were we not saying something about moving? The truth is, that the best German families did not respond to our appeal with that alacrity which we had no right to expect, and did not exhibit that anxiety for our society which would have been such a pleasant evidence of their appreciation of the honor done to the royal city of Munich by the selection of it as a residence during the most disagreeable months of the year by the advertising undersigned.Even the young king, whose approaching marriage to the Russian princess, one would think, might soften his heart, did nothing to win our regard, or to show that he appreciated our residence "near" his court, and, so far as I know, never read with any sort of attention our advertisement, which was composed with as much care as Goethe's "Faust," and probably with the use of more dictionaries.And this, when he has an extraordinary large Residenz, to say nothing about other outlying palaces and comfortable places to live in, in which Iknow there are scores of elegantly furnished apartments, which stand idle almost the year round, and might as well be let to appreciative strangers, who would accustom the rather washy and fierce frescoes on the walls to be stared at.I might have selected rooms, say on the court which looks on the exquisite bronze fountain, Perseus with the head of Medusa, a copy of the one in Florence by Benvenuto Cellini, where we could have a southern exposure.Or we might, so it would seem, have had rooms by the winter garden, where tropical plants rejoice in perennial summer, and blossom and bear fruit, while a northern winter rages without.Yet the king did not see it "by those lamps;" and I looked in vain on the gates of the Residenz for the notice so frequently seen on other houses, of apartments to let.And yet we had responses.The day after the announcement appeared, our bell ran perpetually; and we had as many letters as if we had advertised for wives innumerable.The German notes poured in upon us in a flood; each one of them containing an offer tempting enough to beguile an angel out of paradise, at least, according to our translation: they proffered us chambers that were positively overheated by the flaming sun (which, I can take my oath, only ventures a few feet above the horizon at this season), which were friendly in appearance, splendidly furnished and near to every desirable thing, and in which, usually, some American family had long resided, and experienced a content and happiness not to be felt out of Germany.
I spent some days in calling upon the worthy frauen who made these alluring offers.The visits were full of profit to the student of human nature, but profitless otherwise.I was ushered into low, dark chambers, small and dreary, looking towards the sunless north, which I was assured were delightful and even elegant.I was taken up to the top of tall houses, through a smell of cabbage that was appalling, to find empty and dreary rooms, from which I fled in fright.We were visited by so many people who had chambers to rent, that we were impressed with the idea that all Munich was to let; and yet, when we visited the places offered, we found they were only to be let alone.One of the frauen who did us the honor to call, also wrote a note, and inclosed a letter that she had just received from an American gentleman (I make no secret of it that he came from Hartford), in which were many kindly expressions for her welfare, and thanks for the aid he had received in his study of German; and yet Ithink her chambers are the most uninviting in the entire city.There were people who were willing to teach us German, without rooms or board; or to lodge us without giving us German or food; or to feed us, and let us starve intellectually, and lodge where we could.
But all things have an end, and so did our hunt for lodgings.Ichanced one day in my walk to find, with no help from the advertisement, very nearly what we desired,--cheerful rooms in a pleasant neighborhood, where the sun comes when it comes out at all, and opposite the Glass Palace, through which the sun streams in the afternoon with a certain splendor, and almost next door to the residence and laboratory of the famous chemist, Professor Liebig; so that we can have our feelings analyzed whenever it is desirable.