Algernon Blackwood

“ The tall, straight pines that guard the dark interior of the Schwarzwald seem to demand of us the respect due to the ancient home of so many wild and beautiful legends, of so many deeds of valour and renown.
The ever-increasing stream of tourists that yearly tramp through the more accessible portions of the forest would certainly seem to be driving to the remoter regions those customs and practices which are more especially peculiar to the people. ”

“ The tourist who loves to study the thousand different effects of light on forest scenery, and to converse with nature face to face under some of her most seductive aspects, cannot do better than spend a month or two in this little Moravian settlement, away from the world of noise and fashion, and surrounded by the most typical effects of Black Forest scenery. ”

“ In the early spring, too, when the pines are tipped with the exquisite fresh green that comes but once a year, we would willingly take our readers to many a quaint village and farmhouse, peeping in upon the woodcarvers and the clockmakers at work, and watching the old sawmills cut up the fragrant pine logs. ”

“ So huge, so white, so grandiose do they appear that to one who has been used to the subdued tints of the surrounding Schwarzwald they come like a revelation. They seem to be suspended in the lofty atmosphere like the phantom mountains of some shadowy ghost-land, and one feels that at any moment they may suddenly melt away like a dream. ”

“ However this may be, the belief in those picturesque forms of the supernatural⁠—gnomes, fairies, wizards and water nixies⁠—still clings to the haunts that for centuries have been their home. In many a village and farmhouse the past yet lives on in the present, clinging to the hearts of the simple-minded folk that love to cherish it. ”

“ With what pleasure would we again stand on the spur of hills that skirts the great plain of the Rhine, where lie the fortified old cities of Strassburg and Rastatt; and from our elevated stand point watch the sunlight gleam on the distant stretches of the Rhine, lighting up the fertile country for many a wide league. ”

“ But the weird loveliness of the Schwarzwald can only be appreciated by those who have watched the changes that grow upon its stern face under the wondrous lights of sunrise or sunset; or as night creeps slowly over its hills or villages, investing them with a blackness all their own ”

“ Outside the village for some distance one notices the picturesque forms of those huge, unwieldy farmhouses, with barns attached. The wooden walls, darkened with age and weather, are in great part covered with the most curious, and oftentimes the most beautiful lichens ”

“ It would seem that the Alps thus occasionally seen are in reality too far below the horizon to be ever actually visible, and that it is only a strong refraction caused by a certain state of the atmosphere that renders them visible at such a height above the horizon. ”