Carnegie Read Free Page B

understand my good English, Andy kindly stepped forward to the rescue with ‘Voulez vous forward the baggage to Mayence?’ It is, I expect, needless to tell you that in time I found my Portmanteau at its destination . . .
    Visited the theatre one evening to witness the performance of ‘The [
sic
] Biche au Bois’ [
The Hind of the Forest
] by Parisian Actors. This was by Andy’s desire, who, having seen it in Paris, was in raptures with it. Another evening a visit to the Theatre Royal to witness and hear the opera ‘La Traviata’ . . .
    Located in comfortable quarters on the Unter den Linden, seated in my sumptuously furnished bedroom, my friends seated on the velvet cushioned sofa and chairs, busily writing at a large round table in the centre of the room, we are all occupied in our usual Sunday avocation of established lines of communication to our respective homes. Harry is writing to his sister, Vandy to his brother, and Andy is engaged in communicating his constant experiences to the editor of the Pittsburgh ‘Commercial’. Behold us then in my room which presents, if not a ‘lettery’ at any rate a truly ‘littery’ appearance. What with Andy’s confident assumption of the French language, which he displays at every possible opportunity, to our great amusement, and what with the arguments we have upon most questions, social, political, etc., Andy brimming first upon one side, then upon the other, with admirable impartiality, and possibly to keep the balance even, it must be confessed, that upon the whole we make up a tolerably lively party . . .
    [Prague] On Friday last, we were up shortly after six and at half past seven were on our way to Brunn. A beautiful bright day made our journey cheerful, which was further enlivened by discussion of various subjects. Andy’s opinion and judgements, Vandy’s general abstinence from discussion, for which he was taken to task by Andy, Harry’s precipitate conclusions, then running onto politics and art. It was afterward varied by readings from [Lord Byron’s] ‘Childe Harold’ . . . Andy is so overflowing that it is extremely difficult to keep him within reasonable bounds, to restrain him within the limits of moderately orderly behaviour – he is so continually mischievous . . . 6
    Carnegie was particularly ebullient when they visited the Doge’s Palace in Venice; having placed his friends in poses among the Doge’s antique furniture, he declaimed a speech from
Othello
for effect.
    Franks was to offer a further interesting comment illustrating that business was never far from Carnegie’s thoughts: ‘The boys are elated by glorious news in letters of continued advance in prices, of stocks advancing, of their mills working double turns, of large orders pouring in, of new patents obtained and of still greater success looming in the future.’ 7
    Carnegie deemed the visit to Europe the most ‘instructive’ he had ever undertaken: ‘Up to this time I had known nothing of painting, or sculpture, but it was not long before I could classify the works of great painters . . . My visit to Europe also gave me my first great treat in music . . . Handel . . . at the Crystal Palace in London . . . I had never, up to that time . . . felt the power and majesty of music in such high degree.’ Even the choir of Pope Pius IX at Rome cut across his natural Scottish anti-Catholic bias to offer him ‘a grand climax to the whole’. 8
    Although Carnegie walked through the streets of Paris with wonderment, admiring the remodelling of the boulevards under the direction of Baron George Eugene Haussman (1809–91), the France of Napoleon III did not impress him as a whole, while Prussia, under its seventh king, Wilhelm I (the first German Emperor in 1871), was more to his liking. He wrote to his mother and brother:
    In France, all seems dead. The soil is miserably farmed, and one is at a loss to account for the leading position which the Gauls have attained. I am one of those who