On this occasion it took only two days for William to start on from London for the Rhine, Nüremburg, and Vienna; then to Venice, where he idled for the first half of October. After this short pause he returned to Prague; and then, working northward, consumed the autumn in visiting the universities of Dresden, Berlin, Leipzig, Liège and Paris. Intimate letters to his wife, who had remained in Cambridge with their two little boys, are almost the only ones that survive. A few passages from these will therefore be included.
...I wish you could have been with me yesterday to see some French pictures at the "Internationale Kunst Ausstellung"; they gave an idea of the vigor of France in that way just now. One, a peasant woman, in all her brutish loutishness sitting staring before her at noonday on the grass she's been cutting, while the man lies flat on his back with straw hat over face. She with such a look of infinite unawakenedness, such childlike virginity under her shapeless body and in her face, as to make it a poem.[61] Dear, perhaps the deepest impression I've got since I've been in Germany is that made on me by the indefatigable beavers of old wrinkled peasant women, striding like men through the streets, dragging their carts or lugging their baskets, minding their business, seeming to notice nothing, in the stream of luxury and vice, but belonging far away, to something better and purer. Their poor, old, ravaged and stiffened faces, their poor old bodies dried up with ceaseless toil, their patient souls make me weep. "They are our conscripts." They are the venerable ones whom we should reverence. All the mystery of womanhood seems incarnated in their ugly being--the Mothers! the Mothers! Ye are all one! Yes, Alice dear, what I love in you is only what these blessed old creatures have; and I'm glad and proud, when I think of my own dear Mother with tears running down my face, to know that she is one with these.[62] Good-night, good-night!...
...As for Prague, _veni, vidi, vici_. I went there with much trepidation to do my social-scientific duty. The mighty Hering in especial intimidated me beforehand; but having taken the plunge, the cutaneous glow and "euphoria" (_vide_ dictionary) succeeded, and I have rarely enjoyed a forty-eight hours better, in spite of the fact that the good and sharp-nosed Stumpf (whose book "Über die Raumvorstellungen" I verily believe thou art capable of never having noticed the cover of!) insisted on trotting me about, day and night, over the whole length and breadth of Prague, and that [Ernst] Mach (Professor of Physics), genius of all trades, simply took Stumpf's place to do the same. I heard [Ewald] Hering give a very poor physiology lecture and Mach a beautiful physical one. I presented them with my visiting card, saying that I was with their "Schriften sehr vertraut und wollte nicht eher Prague verlassen als bis ich wenigstens ein Paar Worte mit ihnen umtauschte," etc.[63] They received me with open arms. I had an hour and a half's talk with Hering, which cleared up some things for me. He asked me to come to his house that evening, but I gave an evasive reply, being fearful of boring him. Meanwhile Mach came to my hotel and I spent four hours walking and supping with him at his club, an unforgettable conversation. I don't think anyone ever gave me so strong an impression of pure intellectual genius. He apparently has read everything and thought about everything, and has an absolute simplicity of manner and winningness of smile when his face lights up, that are charming.