The Writings of Carl Schurz
TO CHARLOTTE VOSS[1]
Philadelphia, October 20, 1852.[2]
Doubtless you expected that I should be pleased with the United States. If Margarethe [Mrs. Schurz] occasionally has her little jests with me for thinking every shanty charming and heavenly, it is only because I am interested in every little thing that is characteristic. You know how she imagined this wild America would be. The facts quickly undeceived her. During the last few days of our voyage the monotonous sea became animated by the signs of distant land;[3] even the sky prepared us for new sights. The vast horizon, the deep transparent blue of the heavens and an unusually brilliant atmosphere announced the vicinity of land. At last one evening the purple hills of New Jersey appeared on the horizon. At night the brilliant illumination of light-houses surrounded us in a wide semicircle; and the rising sun, seeming to come up out of
- ↑ An intimate friend of Mrs. Schurz from girlhood and who a little later married Friedrich Althaus, Schurz's fellow-student at Bonn. Schurz had been in the United States only since Sept. 17, 1852. His arrival and early experiences are described in his Reminiscences, vol. ii., chap. i.
- ↑ Translated from the German. See Preface as to the translators and the translations.
- ↑ They came in a large sailing-vessel and the voyage occupied twenty-eight days.
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