: Schöne Aussicht: A Journal of Our Trip Abroad by Spilker Louise - Europe Description and travel

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Transcriber's Note

Sch?ne Aussicht

A Journal of Our Trip Abroad

Illustrated by the Author

New York The Knickerbocker Press 1901

PREFACE

Sooner or later the average mortal must be tempted in order to see whether or not he will be found wanting. Naturally the sooner the ordeal is over, the better. Just now it is a consuming desire to record my first impressions abroad, to convince myself, if no one else in this cold and venal world, that while enjoying this privilege of foreign sights, I lived with my eyes open, trying to see things intelligently and thoughtfully. Not enough of a travelled worldling to be able to assimilate new impressions and views of life, or to be modified by new surroundings without yielding to this temptation, I have had recourse to the English language , whose words are cheap and easy substitutes for thought. However, it is not written with the determination to give information, or to temper it with any sort of humor or guide-book instruction; but mitigated by actual knowledge of the places and things talked about. It may prove that I really think I can tell what I saw, just as a color-blind man thinks he can pick out red or blue; but the color-blind man, be he ever so teachable, can never know what he misses; and likewise the writer, without a heaven-sent sense or birthright for book-making, never knows how ineffective her narration of sights in book-form really is. It may be equally obvious that the gift has not been cultivated with zeal or properly directed; but whoever reads, I trust, will be born with the precious gift of sympathy.

It is amazing that one is not discouraged as they think of the better utterances upon these same subjects, which have become so constant, so multiplied, diffused, reported, repeated, stereotyped, telegraphed, published, and circulated, that books, pamphlets, speeches and reviews and reports are things that one tries to escape from. This effort will be characterized by haste and superficiality, caused partly by the lack of time and thought necessary to condense, or possibly a fear that its substance might disappear in a process of condensation. He who runs may read. In that great day of reckoning there will be charged to me so many golden hours lost between sunrise and sunset, for persistency in writing monotonous emotions while crossing the Atlantic for the first time.

NEVER MIND

Whatever your work and whatever its worth, No matter how strong and clever, Some one will sneer if you pause to hear, And scoff at your best endeavor. For the target art has a broad expanse, And wherever you chance to hit it, Though close be your aim to the bulls-eye fame There are those who will never admit it. Though the house applauds while the artist plays And a smiling world adores him, Somebody is there with an ennuied air To say that the acting bores him. For the tower of art has a lofty spire, With many a stair and landing, And those who climb seem small of time To one at the bottom standing. So work along in your chosen niche With a steady purpose to nerve you; Let nothing men say who pass your way Relax your courage or swerve you. The idle will flock by the Temple of Art For just the pleasure of gazing, But climb to the top and do not stop Though they may not be all praising.

For fear some of you may be deceived about this Atlantic, which was so serenely peaceful and angelic in disposition when crossing on board the Hamburg-American liner "Pennsylvania," July 14, 1900, I will record later impressions and tell you what a wild, treacherous person she is. From July 14th to July 26th, was one of the smoothest, most placid mill-ponds you could ever imagine, in spite of the fact that we started on the voyage Friday, the 13th, from the Hoboken dock, where the greatest of sea disasters had taken place but a few hours previous.

"Worlds of water heaped up on high, Rolling like mountains in wild wilderness, Horrible, hideous, roaring with hoarse cry."

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