Part 4

And thus, from what has gone before, you may catch some idea of the persistency with which the little redskins have poked their noses into almost all the important celebrations of the Chinese life.

CURIOUS CLOCKS

BY CHARLES A. BRASSLER

Many of the German cities of the Middle Ages enjoyed great prosperity, which they liked to exhibit in the form of splendid churches and other public buildings; and each one tried to excel the others. When, therefore, in the year 1352, Strassburg was the first to erect a great cathedral clock, which not only showed the hour to hundreds of observers, but whose strokes proclaimed it far and near, there was a rivalry among the rich cities as to which should set up within its walls the most beautiful specimen of this kind.

The citizens of Nuremberg, who were renowned all over the European world for their skill, were particularly jealous of Strassburg's precedence over them.

In 1356, when the Imperial Council, or Reichstag, held in Nuremberg, issued the Golden Bull, an edict or so-called "imperial constitution" which promised to be of greatest importance to the welfare of the kingdom, a locksmith, whose name is unfortunately not recorded, took this as his idea for the decoration of a clock which was set up in the Frauenkirche in the year 1361. The emperor, Charles IV, was represented, seated upon a throne; at the stroke of twelve, the seven Electors, large moving figures, passed and bowed before him to the sound of trumpets.

This work of art made a great sensation.

Other European cities, naturally, desired to have similar sights, and large public clocks were therefore erected in Breslau in 1368, in Rouen in 1389, in Metz in 1391, in Speyer in 1395, in Augsburg in 1398, in Lübeck in 1405, in Magdeburg in 1425, in Padua in 1430, in Dantzic in 1470, in Prague in 1490, in Venice in 1495, and in Lyons in 1598.

Not all, of course, were as artistic as that of Nuremberg; but no town now contented itself with a simple clockwork to tell the hours. Some had a stroke for the hours, and some had chimes; the one showed single characteristic moving figures, while others were provided with great astronomical works, showing the day of the week, month, and year, the phases of the moon, the course of the planets, and the signs of the zodiac.

On the town clock of Compiègne, which was built in 1405, three figures of soldiers, or "jaquemarts," so-called (in England they are called "Jacks"), struck the hour upon three bells under their feet; and they are doing it still. The great clock of Dijon has a man and a woman sitting upon an iron framework which supports the bell upon which they strike the hours. In 1714 the figure of a child was added, to strike the quarters. The most popular of the mechanical figures was the cock, flapping his wings and crowing.

The clock on the Aschersleben Rathaus shows, besides the phases of the moon, two pugnacious goats, which butt each other at each stroke of the hour; also the wretched Tantalus, who at each stroke opens his mouth and tries to seize a golden apple which floats down; but in the same moment it is carried away again. On the Rathaus clock in Jena is also a representation of Tantalus, opening his mouth as in Aschersleben; but here the apple is not present, and the convulsive efforts of the figure to open the jaws wide become ludicrous.

One of the first clocks with which important astronomical works were connected is that of the Marienkirche in Lübeck, now restored. Below, at the height of a man's head, is the plate which shows the day of the week, month, etc.; these calculations are so reliable that the extra day of leap-year is pushed in automatically every four years. The plate is more than three meters in diameter. Above it is the dial, almost as large. The numbers from 1 to 12 are repeated, so that the hour-hand goes around the dial only once in twenty-four hours. In the wide space between the axis which carries the hand and the band where the hours are marked, the fixed stars and the course of the planets are represented. The heavens are here shown as they appear to an observer in Lübeck. In the old works the movement of the planets was given incorrectly, for they all were shown as completing a revolution around the sun in 360 days. Of course this is absurd. Mercury, for example, revolves once around the sun in eighty-eight days, while Saturn requires twenty-nine years and 166 days for one revolution. When this astronomical clock was repaired, some years ago, a very complicated system of wheels had to be devised to reproduce accurately the great difference in the movement of the planets. The work consumed two years. There are a great number of moving figures on the Lübeck clock, but they are not of the most conspicuous interest. In spite of this, however, they excite more wonder among the crowds of tourists who are always present when the clock strikes twelve than the really remarkable and admirable astronomical and calendar works.

The Strassburg clock has, more than all others, an actually world-wide fame; and no traveler who visits the beautiful old city fails to see the curious and interesting spectacle which it offers daily at noontime. To quote from one such visitor: "Long before the clock strikes twelve, a crowd has assembled in the high-arched portico of the stately cathedral, to be sure of not missing the right moment. Men and women of both high and low degree, strangers and townspeople alike, await in suspense the arrival of the twelfth hour. The moment approaches, and there is breathless silence. An angel lifts a scepter and strikes four times upon a bell; another turns over an hour-glass which he holds in the hand. A story higher, an old man is seen to issue from a space decorated in Gothic style; he strikes four times with his crutch upon a bell, and disappears at the other side, while the figure of Death lets the bone in its hand fall slowly and solemnly, twelve times, upon the hour-bell. In still another story of the clock, the Saviour sits enthroned, bearing in the left hand a banner of victory, the right hand raised in benediction. As soon as the last stroke of the hour has died away, the apostles appear from an opening at the right hand of the Master. One by one they turn and bow before Him, departing at the other side. Christ lifts His hand in blessing to each apostle in turn, and when the last has disappeared, He blesses the assembled multitude. A cock on a side tower flaps his wings and crows three times. A murmur passes through the crowd, and it disperses, filled with wonder and admiration at the spectacle it has witnessed."

In 1574, the Strassburg astronomical clock replaced the older one. It was mainly the work of Dasypodius, a famous mathematician, and it ran until 1789. Later, the celebrated clock-maker, Johann Baptist Schwilgué (born December 18, 1772), determined to repair it. After endless negotiations with the church authorities, he obtained the contract, and on October 2, 1842, the clock, as made over, was solemnly reconsecrated.

In very recent days, the clock of the City Hall in Olmütz, also renovated, has become a rival to that of the Strassburg Cathedral. In the year 1560, it was described by a traveler as a true marvel, together with the Strassburg clock and that of the Marienkirche in Dantzic. But as the years passed, it was most inconceivably neglected, and everything movable and portable about it was carried off. Now, after repairs which have been almost the same as constructing it anew, it works almost faultlessly. In the lower part of the clock is the calendar, with the day of the year, month, and week, and the phases of the moon, together with the astronomical plate; a story higher, a large number of figures move around a group of angels, and here is also a good portrait of the Empress Maria Theresa. Still higher is an arrangement of symbolical figures and decorations, which worthily crowns the whole. A youth and a man, above at the left, announce the hours and quarters by blows of a hammer. The other figures go through their motions at noonday. Scarcely have the blows of the man's hammer ceased to sound, when a shepherd boy, in another wing of the clock, begins to play a tune; he has six different pieces, which can be alternated. As soon as he has finished, the chimes, sixteen bells, begin, and the figures of St. George, of Rudolph of Hapsburg, with a priest, and of Adam and Eve, appear in the left center. When they have disappeared, the chimes ring their second melody, and the figures of the right center appear,--the three Kings of the East, before the enthroned Virgin, and the Holy Family on the Flight into Egypt. When the bells ring for the third time, all the figures show themselves once more.

Clocks operated by electricity are, of course, the product of recent times.

England's largest electric clock was, as our illustration shows, recently christened in a novel manner. The makers, Messrs. Gent & Co., of Leicester, entertained about seventy persons at luncheon on this occasion, using one of the four mammoth dials as a dining-table, a "time table," as the guests facetiously styled it.

The clock was installed, 220 feet above the ground, in the tower of the Royal Liverpool Society's new building, in Liverpool. Each of the four dials, which weigh fifteen tons together, measure twenty-five feet in diameter, with a minute-hand fourteen feet long. The hands are actuated electrically by a master clock connected with the Greenwich Observatory. After dark, they are illuminated by electricity, and are visible at a great distance.

Still larger are the dials of the great electric clock, situated 346 feet high, in the tower of the Metropolitan Life Building, on Madison Square, New York City. They measure twenty-six and one half feet in diameter. The minute-hand is seventeen feet from end to end, and twelve feet from center to point, while the hour-hand measures thirteen feet four inches in all, and eight feet four inches from the center of the dial outward. These immense hands are of iron framework, sheathed in copper, and weigh 1000 and 700 pounds respectively.

The big clock and the ninety-nine other clocks in the building are regulated from a master clock in the Directors' Room, on the second floor, which sends out minute impulses, and is adjusted to run within five seconds per month.

At night, the dial, hands, and numerals are beautifully illuminated, of which we present a picture, the enlarged minute-hand showing the length of exposure. The time is also flashed all night in a novel manner from the great gilded "lantern" at the apex of the tower, 696 feet above the pavement. The quarter-hours are announced from each of the four faces of the lantern by a single red light, the halves by two red flashes, the three quarters by three flashes. On the hour, the white arc-lights are extinguished temporarily, and white flashes show the number of the hour.

This takes the place of the bells operated in the daytime. They are in four tones, G (1500 pounds), F (2000 pounds), E flat (3000 pounds), and B flat (7000 pounds), and each quarter-hour ring out the "Westminster Chimes," in successive bars. These are the highest chimes in the world, being situated on the forty-second floor, 615 feet above the street level; and they attract much attention from visitors.

MOTORING THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE--PART I

BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

It was some time in June when we found ourselves drifting about Normandy in our motor-car, and one peaceful evening we came to Bayeux and stopped there for the night. Bayeux, which is about sixty miles from Cherbourg, was intimately associated with the life of William the Conqueror, and is to-day the home of the famous Bayeux tapestry, a piece of linen two hundred and thirty feet long and eighteen inches wide, on which is embroidered in colored wool the story of William's conquest of England.

William's queen, Matilda, is supposed to have designed this marvelous pictorial document, and even executed it, though probably with the assistance of her ladies. Completed in the eleventh century, it would seem to have been stored in the Bayeux cathedral, where it lay, scarcely remembered, for a period of more than six hundred years. Then attention was called to its artistic and historic value, and it became still more widely known when Napoleon brought it to Paris and exhibited it at the Louvre. Now it is back in Bayeux, and has a special room in the museum there and a special glass case so arranged that you can walk around it and see each of its fifty-eight tableaux.

Matilda was ahead of her time in art. She was a futurist--anybody could see that who had been to one of the recent exhibitions. But she was exactly abreast in the matter of history. It is likely that she embroidered the events as they were reported to her, and her records are beyond price to-day. I suppose she sat in a beautiful room with her maids about her, all engaged at the great work, and I hope she looked as handsome as she looks in the fine painting that hangs above the case containing her masterpiece.

It was the closing hour when we got to the Bayeux museum, but the guardian generously gave us plenty of time to walk around and look at all the marvelous procession of horses and men, whose outlines have remained firm and whose colors have stayed fresh for more than eight hundred years. There is something fine and stirring about Matilda's tapestry. No matter if Harold does seem to be having an attack of pleurisy, when he is only putting on his armor, or if the horses appear to have detachable legs. I could see that the Joy, who is a judge of horses, did not think much of Queen Matilda's drawing, and their riders were not much better. Still, it was wonderful how they did seem to "go" in some of the battles, and they made that old story seem very real to us. Tradition has it that the untimely death of Matilda left the tapestry unfinished, for which reason William's coronation does not appear.

Next day, at Caen, we visited Matilda's tomb, in a church which she herself founded. Her remains have never been disturbed. We also visited the tomb of the Conqueror, on the other side of the city at the church of St. Etienne. But the Conqueror's bones are not there now; they were scattered by the Huguenots in 1562.

We enjoyed Caen. We wandered about among its ancient churches and still more ancient streets. At one church a wedding was going on, and Narcissa and I lingered a little, to assist. One does not get invited to a Normandy wedding every day, especially in the old town where William I organized his followers to invade England. No doubt this bride and groom were descendants of some of William's wild Normans, but they looked very mild and handsome and modern, to us.

Caen became an important city under William the Conqueror. Edward III of England captured and pillaged it about the middle of the fourteenth century, at which time it was larger than any city in England, except London. To-day, Caen has less than fifty thousand inhabitants, and is mainly interesting for its art treasures and its memories.

Our travel program included Rouen, Amiens, and Beauvais, cathedral cities lying more to the northward. It was at Rouen that we started to trace backward the sacred footsteps of Joan of Arc, saint and savior of France. For it is at Rouen that the pathway ends. When we had visited the great cathedral, whose fairylike façade is one of the most beautiful in the world, we drove to a corner of the old market-place and stopped before a bronze tablet which tells that on this spot on a certain day in May, 1431 (it was the 29th), a young girl who had saved her country from an invading and conquering enemy was burned at the stake. That was five hundred years ago, but time has not dulled the tragedy of the event, its memory of suffering, its humiliation. All those centuries since, the nation that Joan saved has been trying to atone for her death. Streets have been named for her and statues have been set up for her in public squares all over France.

There is little in Rouen to-day that Joan saw. The cathedral was there in her time, but she was never permitted to enter it. There is a wall which was a part of the chapel where she had her final hearing before her judges; there are some houses which she must have passed, and there is a tower which belonged to the castle in which she was imprisoned, though it is not certain that it is Joan's tower. There is a small museum in it, and among its treasures we saw the manuscript article "St. Joan of Arc," by Mark Twain, who, in the "Personal Recollections," has left to the world the loveliest picture of that lovely life.

It was our purpose to leave Rouen by the Amiens road, but when we got to it and looked up a hill that, about half-way to the zenith, arrived at the sky, we decided to take a road that led off toward Beauvais. We could have climbed that hill well enough, and I wished later we had done so. As it was, we ran along pleasantly during the afternoon, and attended evening services in an old church at Grandvilliers, a place that we had never heard of before, but where we found an inn as good as any in Normandy.

It is curious with what exactness fate times its conclusions. If we had left Grandvilliers a few seconds earlier or later, it would have made all the difference, or if I had not pulled up a moment to look at a lovely bit of brookside planted with poplars, or if I had driven the least bit slower or the least bit faster during the first five miles; or--

Oh, never mind--what happened was this: we had just mounted a long steep hill on high speed and I had been bragging of the car,--always a dangerous thing to do,--when I saw ahead of us a big two-wheeled cart going in the same direction as ourselves, and, beyond it, a large car approaching. I could have speeded up and cut in ahead of the cart, but I was feeling well, and I thought I should do the courteous thing, the safe thing. So I fell in behind it. Not far enough behind, however, for as the big car came opposite, the sleepy driver of the cart awoke, pulled up his horse short, and we were not far enough behind for me to get the brakes down hard and suddenly enough to stop before we touched him. It was not a smash--it was just a push. But it pushed a big hole in our radiator, smashed up one of our lamps, and crinkled up our left mud-guard. The radiator was the worst. The water poured out. Our car looked as if it had burst into tears.

We were really stupefied at the extent of our disaster.

The big car at once pulled up to investigate and console us. The occupants were Americans, too, from Washington--kindly people who wanted to shoulder some of the blame. Their chauffeur, a Frenchman, bargained with the cart driver who had wrecked us to tow us to the next town, where there were garages. Certainly, pride goes before a fall. Five minutes earlier we were sailing along in glory, exulting over the prowess of our vehicle. Now, all in the wink of an eye, our precious conveyance, stricken and helpless, was being towed to the hospital, its owners trudging mournfully behind.

The village was Poix; and if one had to be wrecked anywhere, I cannot think of a lovelier spot for disaster than Poix de la Somme. It is just across in Picardy, and the river Somme is a little brook that ripples and winds through poplar-shaded pastures, sweet meadows, and deep groves. In every direction are the loveliest walks, with landscape pictures at every turn. The village itself is drowsy, kindly, simple-hearted. The landlady at our inn was a large, motherly soul that, during the week of our stay, the Joy learned to love, and I to be grateful to.

For the others did not linger. Paris was not far away, and had a good deal to recommend it. The new radiator ordered from London might be delayed. So, early next morning they were off for Paris by way of Amiens and Beauvais, and the Joy and I settled down to such employments and amusements as we could find while waiting for repairs. We got acquainted with the garage man's family, for one thing. They lived in the same little court with the shop, and we exchanged Swiss French for their Picardese and were bosom friends in no time. We spruced up the car, too, and every day took long walks, and every afternoon took some luncheon and our spirit-stove and followed down the Somme to a little bridge and there made our tea. Then, sometimes, we read; and once, when I was reading aloud from "Joan of Arc" and had finished the great battle of Patay, we suddenly remembered that it had happened on the very day on which we were reading, the eighteenth of June.

How little we guessed that in such a short time our peaceful little river would give its name to a battle a thousand times greater than any that Joan ever fought!

One day I hired a bicycle for the Joy, and entertained the village by pushing her around the public square until she learned to ride alone. Then I hired one for myself, and we went out on the road together.

About the end of the third day we began to look for our radiator, and visited the express-office with considerable regularity. Presently the village knew us, why we were there, and what we were expecting. They became as anxious about it as ourselves.

One morning, as we started toward the express-office, a man in a wagon passed and called out something. We did not catch it; but presently another met us, and, with a glad look, told us that our goods had arrived and were now in the delivery wagon on the way to the garage. We did not recognize either of those good souls, but they were interested in our welfare. Our box was at the garage when we arrived there. It was soon opened and the new radiator in place. The other repairs had been made, and once more we were complete. We decided to start next morning to join the others in Paris.

Morning comes early on the longest days of the year, and we had eaten our breakfast, had our belongings put into the car, and were ready to be off by seven o'clock. What a delicious morning it was! Calm, glistening, the dew on everything. As long as I live I shall remember that golden morning when the Joy, age eleven, and I went gipsying together, following the winding roads and byways that led us through pleasant woods, under sparkling banks, and along the poplar-planted streams of Picardy. We did not keep to highways at all. We were in no hurry, and we took any lane that seemed to lead in the right direction, so that much of the time we appeared to be crossing fields--fields of flowers, many of them, scarlet poppies, often mingled with blue corn-flowers and yellow mustard--fancy the vividness of that color!

Traveling in that wandering fashion, it was noon before we got down to Beauvais, where we stopped for luncheon supplies and to see what is perhaps the most remarkable cathedral in the world. It is one of the most beautiful, and, though it consists only of choir and transepts, it is one of the largest. Its inner height, from floor to vaulting, is 158 feet. The average ten-story skyscraper could be set inside of it. There was once a steeple that towered to the giddy height of five hundred feet, but in 1573, when it had been standing three hundred years, it fell down from having insufficient support. The inner work is of white stone,--marble,--and the whole place seems filled with light.