The Rhine!--How History is Written.--Complicated Villages.--How a Peaceful Community Was Very Much Upset.--The German Railway Guard.--His Passion for Tickets.--We Diffuse Comfort and Joy Wherever We Go, Gladdening the Weary, and Bringing Smiles to Them that Weep.--"Tickets, Please."--Hunting Experiences.--A Natural Mistake.--Free Acrobatic Performance by the Guard.--The Railway Authorities' Little Joke.--Why We Should Think of the Sorrows of Others.
We returned to the station just in time to secure comfortable seats, and at 5.10 steamed out upon our fifteen hours' run to Munich. From Bonn to Mayence the line keeps by the side of the Rhine nearly the whole of the way, and we had a splendid view of the river, with the old-world towns and villages that cluster round its bank, the misty mountains that make early twilight upon its swiftly rolling waves, the castled crags and precipices that rise up sheer and majestic from its margin, the wooded rocks that hang with threatening frown above its sombre depths, the ruined towers and turrets that cap each point along its shores, the pleasant isles that stud like gems its broad expanse of waters.
Few things in this world come up to expectation, especially those things of which one has been led to expect much, and about which one has heard a good deal. With this philosophy running in my head, I was prepared to find the Rhine a much over-rated river.
I was pleasantly disappointed. The panorama which unfolded itself before our eyes, as we sped along through the quiet twilight that was deepening into starry night, was wonderfully beautiful, entrancing and expressive.
I do not intend to describe it to you. To do justice to the theme, I should have to be even a more brilliant and powerful writer than I am. To attempt the subject, without doing it justice, would be a waste of your time, sweet reader, and of mine--a still more important matter.
I confess it was not my original intention to let you off so easily.
I started with the idea of giving you a rapid but glowing and eloquent word-picture of the valley of the Rhine from Cologne to Mayence. For background, I thought I would sketch in the historical and legendary events connected with the district, and against this, for a foreground, I would draw, in vivid colours, the modern aspect of the scene, with remarks and observations thereon.
Here are my rough notes, made for the purpose:-
Mems. for Chapter on Rhine: "Constantine the Great used to come here--so did Agrippa. (N.B.--Try and find out something about Agrippa.) Caesar had a good deal to do with the Rhine--also Nero's mother."
(To the reader.--The brevity of these memoranda renders their import, at times, confusing. For instance, this means that Caesar and Nero's mother both had a good deal to do with the Rhine; not that Caesar had a good deal to do with Nero's mother. I explain this because I should be sorry to convey any false impression concerning either the lady or Caesar. Scandal is a thing abhorrent to my nature.)
Notes continued: "The Ubii did something on the right bank of the Rhine at an early period, and afterwards were found on the other side. (Expect the Ubii were a tribe; but make sure of this, as they might be something in the fossil line.) Cologne was the cradle of German art. Talk about art and the old masters. Treat them in a kindly and gentle spirit. They are dead now. Saint Ursula was murdered at Cologne, with eleven thousand virgin attendants. There must have been quite a party of them. Draw powerful and pathetic imaginary picture of the slaughter. (N.B.--Find out who murdered them all.) Say something about the Emperor Maximilian. Call him 'the mighty Maximilian.' Mention Charlemagne (a good deal should be made out of Charlemagne) and the Franks. (Find out all about the Franks, and where they lived, and what has become of them.) Sketch the various contests between the Romans and the Goths. (Read up 'Gibbon' for this, unless you can get enough out of Mangnall's Questions.) Give picturesque account--with comments--of the battles between the citizens of Cologne and their haughty archbishops.
(N.B.--Let them fight on a bridge over the Rhine, unless it is distinctly stated somewhere that they didn't.) Bring in the Minne-singers, especially Walter von Vogelweid; make him sing under a castle-wall somewhere, and let the girl die. Talk about Albert Durer. Criticise his style. Say it's flat. (If possible, find out if it IS flat.) "The rat tower on the Rhine," near Bingen.
Describe the place and tell the whole story. Don't spin it out too long, because everybody knows it. "The Brothers of Bornhofen," story connected with the twin castles of Sterrenberg and Liebenstein, Conrad and Heinrich--brothers--both love Hildegarde.
She was very beautiful. Heinrich generously refuses to marry the beautiful Hildegarde, and goes away to the Crusades, leaving her to his brother Conrad. Conrad considers over the matter for a year or two, and then HE decides that he won't marry her either, but will leave her for his brother Heinrich, and HE goes off to the Crusades, from whence he returns, a few years later on, with a Grecian bride.
The beautiful H., muddled up between the pair of them, and the victim of too much generosity, gets sulky (don't blame her), and shuts herself up in a lonely part of the castle, and won't see anybody for years. Chivalrous Heinrich returns, and is wild that his brother C. has not married the beautiful H. It does not occur to him to marry the girl even then. The feverish yearning displayed by each of these two brothers, that the other one should marry the beloved Hildegarde, is very touching. Heinrich draws his sword, and throws himself upon his brother C. to kill him. The beautiful Hildegarde, however, throws herself between them and reconciliates them, and then, convinced that neither of them means business, and naturally disgusted with the whole affair, retires into a nunnery.
