We passed the night in an agreeable hotel, Roi de Prusse, at Cassel.
By the way, it occurred to us that this was where the Hessians came
from in the old revolutionary times.
Tuesday, August 16. A long, dull ride from Cassel to Dusseldorf.
Wednesday, August 17. Whittridge came at breakfast. The same mellow,
friendly, good-humored voice, and genial soul, I had loved years ago
in the heart of Indiana. We had a brief festival of talk about old
times, art, artists, and friends, and the tide of time rolled in and
swept us asunder. Success to his pencil in the enchanted glades of
Germany! America will yet be proud of his landscapes, as Italy of
Claude, or England of Turner.
Ho for Anvers! (Antwerp.) Through Aix-la-Chapelle, Liege, Malines,
till nine at night.
Thursday, August 18. What gnome's cave is this Antwerp, where I have
been hearing such strange harmonies in the air all night? We drive to
the cathedral, whose tower reminded Napoleon of Mechlin lace. What a
shower of sprinkling music drops comes from the sky above us! We must
go up and see about this. We spiralize through a tubular stairway to
an immense height - a tube of stone, like a Titanic organ pipe, filled
with waves of sound pouring down like a deluge.
