rvants who are putting it to rights and, as it were,
shifting the scenes, I get a glimpse of the reality of all the pomp
and parade of the services. At first I may be a little shocked with
the familiar manner in which the images and statues and the gilded
paraphernalia are treated, very different from the stately ceremony
of the morning, when the priests are at the altar, the choir is in the
organ-loft, and the people crowd nave and aisles. Then everything is
sanctified and inviolate. Now, as I loiter here, the old woman sweeps
and dusts about as if she were in an ordinary crockery store: the sacred
things are handled without gloves. And, lo! an unclerical servant,
in his shirt-sleeves, climbs up to the altar, and, taking down the
silver-gilded cherubs, holds them, head down, by one fat foot, while he
wipes them off with a damp cloth. To think of submitting a holy cherub
to the indignity of a damp cloth!

One could never say too much about the music here. I do not mean that of
the regimental bands, or the orchestras in every hall and beer-garden,
or that in the churches on Sundays, both orchestral and vocal. Nearly
every day, at half-past eleven, there is a parade by the Residenz, and
another on the Marian Platz; and at each the bands play for half an
hour. In the Loggie by the palace the music-stands can always be set
out, and they are used in the platz when it does not storm; and the
bands play choice overtures and selections from the operas in fine
style. The bands are always preceded and followed by a great crowd as
they march through the streets, people who seem to live only for this
half hour in the day, and whom no mud or snow can deter from keeping up
with the music. It is a little gleam of comfort in the day for the most
wearied portion of the community: I mean those who have nothing to do.

But the music of which I speak is that of the conservatoire and opera.
The Hof Theater, opera, and conservatoire are all under one royal
direction. The latter has been recently reorganized with a new director,
in accordance with the Wagner notions somewhat. The young king is
cracked about Wagner, and appears to care little for other music: he
brings out his operas at great expense, and it is the fashion here
to like Wagner whether he is understood or not. The opera of the
"Meister-Singer von Nurnberg," which was brought out last summer,
occupied over five hours in the representation, which is unbearable to
the Germans, who