We took a drive about the city, which is a long, narrow place sandwiched in between the river Neckar and the hills, on the highest one of which stands the ruins of the old castle. We were driven through a long avenue, with pretty trees on each side and some residences, but more stores, and the sidewalks filled with people. This street is called the Anlage; and is the principal boulevard of the city. We saw the ‘Helig Geist Kirche’--Church of the Holy Ghost, into which the people of Heidelberg were driven, crowded in like animals, so closely that they could not move, by the French army in the time of Louis XIV., and left there to suffer, until the steeple took fire as the town was being burned. This old structure has had many critical changes in its history, and is now divided by a thick wall, on one side of which the Roman Catholics worship, and on the other the Protestants. Our driver was a talker, and told us much we understood, and more that we did not, of the places of interest we passed. ‘Now show us the university buildings,’ we said, and he soon halted in front of an old, plastered or stuccoed structure, that resembled barracks more than a renowned seat of learning, and was a great disappointment to us. A drive over an old stone bridge, from the farther end of which we had a charming view of the castle perched on the mountain side, overhanging the town, with its towers, battlements and arches, a regal ruin in truth, and back to our hotel, ended our first sight of Heidelberg.
We had scarcely entered our room when a band of musicians stationed themselves directly under our window and struck up the ‘Wedding March’ from Lohengrin, and it was exquisitely played too, and on fine instruments. We came to the conclusion that we were supposed to be brides on our wedding tour, and had commenced disciplining our ‘better halves’ by leaving them at home, as we find it is a source of great wonder to the Europeans, and especially to the English and the Germans, that the American wives travel about so much without their husbands. One lovely German lady, in Baden, in speaking on this subject, said to me, ‘And what do these husbands left alone do?’ ‘Do?’ I answered, ‘why, they not only attend to their own business matters, but they run the house, take care of the children, and write daily love letters to their absent wives, and love them better than ever, if possible, when they reach home again. You must believe,’ I said, ‘that American husbands are the best in the world, and that with us, in all grades of life, wives are treated with tenderness and consideration, and as equals.’ She looked a little incredulous, and I could not wonder when I thought of the pitiable sights of her country, that are before us daily, of women, bronze faced, half dressed, working in the fields, digging, hoeing, pushing the plough; in the towns breaking stone, sawing wood, and bending beneath heavy loads of many kinds, carried on head or back, while their husbands take their ease, at the barracks, perhaps, and when at home take the money earned by their wives. One of the worst features, too, of this condition of things is that the women do not rebel; if their husbands take them into the gardens on Sunday, and drink beer with them, often paid for with the little earnings of the overworked wives, they are satisfied. Poor things, they have never known anything better. Amongst the poor of Germany, matrimony was not commenced right. I think the military laws of the country are to blame greatly for the degradation of the women of the so-called lower classes. A man who is or has been in the army considers it beneath him to do honest labor, but not beneath him to allow his wife to do it.