MARK TWAIN

tcenth, Sunday, went on board flagship Trenton, dined
that evening with Consul Stewart and some officers of
the Trenton and the Alliance. Took the family and break-
fasted on board the Trenton, Monday, i4th. Admiral
Rowan arrived during the meal. I smoked on the Ad-
miral's side of the deck, not knowing it was sacred, by
naval etiquette.

In Brussels Cathedral heard the most majestic organ
music and men's voices ever listened to. Never heard any-
thing that rose to the sublimity of those sounds. The
jingling of a little bell occasionally, the distant booming
of the great bells in the steeple, the remote bowing and
mumming, the faint clouds and puffs of incense rising
from swinging censers, the dim distances, the picture
windows, the going and coming kneelers, the high miracu-
lously made and miracle working Virgin, the old women
selling candles, were all highly impressive.

No wonder William III pined for Holland—the country
is so green and lovely and quiet and pastoral and home-
like. Boats sailing through the prairies and fat cows and
quaint windmills everywhere.

At The Hague visited Museum and saw Rembrandt's
School of Anatomy and Potter's Bull (flies visible under
the hairs). This is absolute nature—in some other pic-
tures too close a copy of nature is called a fault.

Drove out to a country palace where Motley used to
visit long at a time with the Royal Family. Good portrait
of him there. Also some Frescoes which can't be told from
stone, high relief across the room. Drove there through
about the noblest woods I ever saw.

We have been obliged to keep fires going constantly
ten months steadily—from the igth September to the
I$th of July—in Italy, Bavaria, France, Holland and
Belgium.

IS4