but in the last degree picturesque. The stage
scenery was ruined, trap-doors were so swollen that they wouldn't work
for a week afterward, the fine costumes were spoiled, and no end of
minor damages were done by that remarkable storm.

It was a royal idea--that storm--and royally carried out. But observe
the moderation of the King; he did not insist upon his encore. If he had
been a gladsome, unreflecting American opera-audience, he probably would
have had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned all those
people.

CHAPTER XI

[I Paint a "Turner"]

The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilled
trainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in the
right condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours; we were well
satisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language,
[1. See Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue.] and
more than satisfied with what we had accomplished in art. We had had the
best instructors in drawing and painting in Germany--Haemmerling, Vogel,
Mueller, Dietz, and Schumann. Haemmerling taught us landscape-painting.
Vogel taught us figure-drawing, Mueller taught us to do still-life,
and Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in two
specialties--battle-pieces and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in Art I owe to
these men. I have something of the manner of each and all of them;
but they all said that I had also a manner of my own, and that it
was conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about my
style--insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest type of a dog, I
should be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog which
would keep him from being mistaken for the creation of any other artist.
Secretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings, but I could not; I
was afraid that my masters' partiality for me, and pride in me, biased
their judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown to
any one, I painted my great picture, "Heidelberg Castle Illuminated"--my
first really important work in oils--and had it hung up in the midst
of a wilderness of oil-pictures in the Art Exhibition, with no name
attached to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognized
as mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came from
neighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any other
work in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of all was, that
chance st