In August (1880) the Burtons paid a visit to Ober Ammergau, which was just then attracting all eyes on account of its Passion Play.  Burton’s object in going was “the wish to compare, haply to trace some affinity between, this survival of the Christian ‘Mystery’ and the living scenes of El Islam at Mecca,” while Mrs. Burton’s object may be gauged by the following prayer which she wrote previous to their departure from Trieste:  “O Sweet Jesu. ..  Grant that I, all unworthy though I be, may so witness this holy memorial of thy sacrificial love, Thy glorious victory over death and hell, that I may be drawn nearer to Thee and hold Thee in everlasting remembrance.  Let the representation of Thy bitter sufferings on the cross renew my love for Thee, strengthen my faith, and ennoble my life, and not mine only, but all who witness it.”  Then follows a prayer for the players.

Burton found no affinity between the scenes at Ober Ammergau and those at Mecca, and he was glad to get away from “a pandemonium of noise and confusion,” while Mrs. Burton, who was told to mind her own business by a carter with whom she remonstrated for cruelly treating a horse, discovered that even Ober Ammergau was not all holiness.  Both Burton and his wife recorded their impressions in print, but though his volume[FN#326] appeared in 1881, hers[FN#327] was not published till 1900.

100.  Mrs. Burton’s Advice to Novelists. 4th September 1880.

The following letter from Mrs. Burton to Miss Stisted, who had just written a novel, A Fireside King,[FN#328] gives welcome glimpses of the Burtons and touches on matters that are interesting in the light of subsequent events.  “My dearest Georgie, On leaving you I came on to Trieste, arriving 29th May, and found Dick just attacked by a virulent gout.  We went up to the mountains directly without waiting even to unpack my things or rest, and as thirty-one days did not relieve him, I took him to Monfalcone for mud baths, where we passed three weeks, and that did him good.  We then returned home to change our baggage and start for Ober Ammergau, which I thought glorious, so impressive, simple, natural.  Dick rather criticises it.  However, we are back. ...  I read your book through on the journey to England.  Of course I recognised your father, Minnie,[FN#329] and many others, but you should never let your heroine die so miserably, because the reader goes away with a void in his heart, and you must never put all your repugnances in the first volume, for you choke off your reader. ...  You don’t mind my telling the truth, do you, because I hope you will write another, and if you like you may stand in the first class of novelists and make money and do good too, but put your beasts a little further in towards the end of the first volume.  I read all the reviews that fell in my way, but though some were spiteful that need not discourage ...  Believe me, dearest G., your affectionate Zookins.”