rive up the
broad Place de Meir to our hotel, and take rooms that look out to the
lace-like spire of the cathedral, which is sharply defined against the
red western sky.
Antwerp takes hold of you, both by its present and its past, very
strongly. It is still the home of wealth. It has stately buildings,
splendid galleries of pictures, and a spire of stone which charms more
than a picture, and fascinates the eye as music does the ear. It still
keeps its strong fortifications drawn around it, to which the broad and
deep Scheldt is like a string to a bow, mindful of the unstable state
of Europe. While Berlin is only a vast camp of soldiers, every less city
must daily beat its drums, and call its muster-roll. From the tower
here one looks upon the cockpit of Europe. And yet Antwerp ought to have
rest: she has had tumult enough in her time. Prosperity seems returning
to her; but her old, comparative splendor can never come back. In the
sixteenth century there was no richer city in Europe.
We walked one evening past the cathedral spire, which begins in the
richest and most solid Gothic work, and grows up into the sky into an
exquisite lightness and grace, down a broad street to the Scheldt. What
traffic have not these high old houses looked on, when two thousand and
five hundred vessels lay in the river at one time, and the commerce
of Europe found here its best mart. Along the stream now is a not very
clean promenade for the populace; and it is lined with beer-houses,
shabby theaters, and places of the most childish amusements. There is
an odd liking for the simple among these people. In front of the booths,
drums were beaten and instruments played in bewildering discord. Actors
in paint and tights stood without to attract the crowd within. On one
low balcony, a copper-colored man, with a huge feather cap and the
traditional dress of the American savage, was beating two drums; a
burnt-cork black man stood beside him; while on the steps was a woman,
in hat and shawl, making an earnest speech to the crowd. In another
place, where a crazy band made furious music, was an enormous "go-round"
of wooden ponies, like those in the Paris gardens, only here, instead
of children, grown men and women rode the hobby-horses, and seemed
delighted with the sport. In the general Babel, everybody was
good-natured and jolly. Little things suffice to amuse the lower
classes, who do not have to bother their heads with elections and mass
meetin
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