CHAP. II - First Day. The Oratorio—the Dinner

Summary

By six o'clock A.M. on the first morning of the Festival, there was no possibility of sleeping in Brunswick. Not only was the entire “Blue Angel” stirring and clamorous for its breakfast —the whole town was blithely alive. In every room of the opposite four-story house, which seemed nodding into my little light chamber, the work of adorning was busily going on:—in one window, the first flourish of the razor; in another, the last shoulder-knot pinned on, or the sash tied. But neither gentlemen nor ladies denied themselves the pleasure of throwing wide the casements, and leaning out into the fresh autumnal sunshine, so often as the frequent sound of creaking springs and jingling wheels, the leisurely trot of horses, or the eager bawling of their drivers, announced that another cargo of pleasurers was coming in to enjoy the execution of Mendelssohn's “St. Paul.”

The equipages were things to admire. The old Irish postchaise, out of which, upon its being rolled from the coach-house, three hens flew, leaving an egg behind them, would have figured as a vehicle of worship among some of the machines which deposited their full freight beneath my windows.