HEIDELBERG AND THE RHINE TO PARIS
Otto, Max Carl
HEIDELBERG AND THE RHINE TO PARIS La Follette Statue One of Worlds Greatest By MAX CARL OTTO P1"- ,~l[HE 0THKR VAY a young man from _ T the Middle West landed in Paris. U He had come from the...
...If he wants to go to the devil, that's his affair...
...The rugged faces one sees there...
...And since we did not stop to Jook at battlefields, we saw no sign of war...
...Perhaps the cold wind and the raw day had something to do with our impression, or it may be that we are not sufficiently sensitive to the effect created by ruined castles...
...During our stay-in Bonn he was constantly finding new reasons why we should be proud to be Americans...
...thwarted," "brow-beaten," as if he were bent lipon destroying their force forever...
...Therefore-it is not possible to instill into words the romantic quality of this lovely city, nestled between noble green hills, on the banks of the quiet Neckar...
...A large bust of the elder Rockefeller in natural colors is so like life as to be uncanny...
...The devotion one witnesses three, not satisfied with kneeling but prostrating itself to the ground...
...This statue will take its place, I believe, with the few...
...Much move tuilding was going on than in Austria or Germany...
...The ride into Paris was much like riding into our American cities, through unprepossessing tjuarters...
...You look at it from one side and you see what a lighter he was...
...He said nothing about buildings, or gardens, or art gardens...
...The original is to be in the Capitol at Washington...
...Some are still courageous and cross the English Channel...
...The dress of Heidelberg was made in heaven and imported direct...
...Something else ¦was on his mind and one got the purport of this ¦weJl enough...
...An English writer recently explaining why American tourists much prefer Paris to the cities of his own country, gave as an important reason the fact that \ "Paris is the one city of all others where the lid most naturally and safely flies oft...
...indeed, a great deal of it was going on...
...Not for all of it...
...It is unlikely that one who is no longer young when he first comes upon this phenomenon can appreciate its significance...
...Everything looked prosperous...
...Somehow the keen intelligence, the extraordinary force of will of the Senator have been caught...
...You look at it from another side and you are aware of his warm emotional life...
...And above it all you are conscious that he is rising to attack the enemies of his beloved people, to define and defend their rights...
...corridor, if one was fortunate enough to approach it in the right way...
...There aren't really many great statues in the world...
...It's what I've longed for since my kid days without knowing exactly what I wanted...
...How glad we were that our men were at home...
...And what a blustering d;n k was we chose for the crossing...
...Moreover, cities like Mainz and Koblenz were ruined for us by the presence of French, English and Belgian soldiers, thousands of them...
...Fears or regrets, induced by the conflict between the behavior he observes and habits he has formed, will blur his vision...
...No one who ha...
...The sun was setting (which it does much later over here than at ,home) when we were* swallowed up in the city we had been headed for these months...
...We had altered our whole plan to hear the violinist, Fritz Busch, and to attend one more Beethoven centenary, our fourth, and were richly repaid...
...Four weeks is quite a time to devote to one city and yet one leaves Paris reluctantly however long one stays...
...Once in France, we began to notice-things we had missed before—numerous cattle in the pas-lures, for example...
...But I'm weakening...
...Still, only one of our party had been in Heidelberg in those ('o\s and we were now unanimous in our delight...
...The more one sees, the more ene realizes that fact...
...And believe me, 1 like the change...
...The sculptor is himself a man of rare charm and his work combines delicacy and strength to a most unusual degree...
...There can be no doubt that this young man expressed a xery general attitude, nor that the freedom he praised accounts, to a considerable extent, for the fascination of Paris...
...And such music as we heard there...
...But there is no ¦"end...
...Heidelberg captures at once and surpasses its image which reports had created...
...Yet the part it plays in charming the Americans of both sexes and of all ages is not easy to exaggerate...
...We were greatly relieved to find Bonn no longer ocjmpied by troops...
...Xot that he stopped talking, though he was not the talkative type, but what he said lacked a little in coherence...
...A wonderful river, to be sure, and very beautiful stretches here and there, but as a whole the journey was just a bit monotonous...
...That's the big question," he replied...
...We came to Paris by way of Heidelberg and the Rhine, a beautiful journey...
...I eould stay here^ a long time without half trying...
...When I asked him to tell more precisely what he meant, lie grew less articulate...
...Perhaps this judgment is not entirely objective...
...Here a man is left to his own responsibility...
...Powerful mind, great heart, unwearied devotion, it all speaks out of that mass of marble...
...The Rhine did not quite meet our expectations...
...There are, however, those that do, and one goes to see them again and again...
...we asked in the course of conversation...
...Why, I never dreamed thru- was such a place," he went on, growing enthusiastic...
...Most famous places fall short of expectations...
...yet it would have been extremely bard to have seen our soldiers occupying, choice quarters in these cities or strolling in large numbers through the parks and streets...
...And they aren't so quick to decide that that's his aim as they are in the town I come from...
...Such a practical- people," he would say, "you know how to apply your knowledge, not just spin it out into theories...
...His enthusiasm was u-ally touching...
...Perhaps that is wliat a professor in one of the American universities was thinking of when he wrote: ""France is the out free country left in this world and therefore it must more and more become the mecca of all freedom-loving people...
...The newsjufcs brought to us by a young physician who saw in it only another evidence of the great people we were...
...a dark purple background at the end of -a lonj...
...These he seemed literally to jam into words opposed to them, such as "repressed...
...A bronze replica of this extraordinary creation ought to stand in Madison, as an evidence of our grateful memory as well as of our artistic taste.' From Paris it is not far to London, and more people are flying over every year...
...Still, if it is his wont to speculate upon what he experiences, he can hardly refrain from doing so in the presence of this so challenging contrast to conditions and customs familiar to him...
...They were "release," "freedom," "self-confidence," "uninhibited," and the like...
...There were striking plaques and beautifully modelled torsos and symbolic figures of marvelous power...
...And so one takes away for life an image of that exquisite statue, the Venus de Milo, las seen against...
...Nearly ten years afier the peace and no news yet as to exactly what the terms are on which they stay...
...To sit writing on the bank of the beautiful stream along which one loved to wander before one's serious work in life had begun, is an experience which no doubt influences the eye and the heart...
...there is something to be overlooked or forgotten before they can work their charm upon the visitor...
...They give up a good deal to make the journey in that way, and most of the courage goes along with the rest...
...strolled in the Champs Elysees or along the Seine could dream of saying such a thing...
...A beautiful city is Bonn j.nd beautifully situated...
...One of our best adventures was an hour in Jo Davidson's studio...
...It came like a series of explosions or a* if he were coughing it out of the deepest recesses of his soul...
...It may be put in this way: "I'm Kick of being watched and forced to adjust my life to the ideas of others...
...I'm for cutting them all out and spending my whole time in Paris...
...They don't seem to have it on their minds as they do at home...
...U He had come from the ship as diII rffg, rectly as possible and when we met \ him had been in the city two or ^Hfcjyil three days...
...There seems every probability that more and more people, especially young people, will be coming abroad...
...Perhaps he may come to a new appreciation of the amount of hypocrisy which results from the unwillingness of Americans to face moral facts-frankly and their refusal or, perhaps we had better say their inability, to live their lives openly before men...
...My plans were to take a little jaunt through France, Germaoy, Switzerland, Italy, and then to sail home from England...
...It transpired that he hadn't seen anything of these as yet...
...It was in Bonn, too, that weNheard of Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic...
...In my eyes, however, the studio was dominated by the seated statue of former Senator La Follette...
...In Paris you are free-from all that...
...And he may come to the conclusion that there is something vi-orse than disregarding a set code of right and wrong, namely, to live a life which, however correct outwardly, secretly undermines the integrity of one's personality...
...One good effect of this will be, let us hope, that our ¦\\hole moral outlook^will become more rational, more imaginative and healthy...
...And for the lover of art where is there a place like the Louvre...
...No credit to our government is implied in this...
...Where do you go L====;-dJ from here...
...We missed the good music of Germany, but on Sundays we could go- to the Russian orthodox church and hear the best singing we have heard tnywhere...
...Unfortunately here, as everywhere, pictures that do not touch one, outnumber by hundreds those that do...
...Certain words he kept repeating...
...none is deserved...
...Out of the sight of buildings and the flaming red poppies one could have imagined oneself in Wisconsin...
Vol. 19 • September 1927 • No. 9
