Gewandhaus

“ In Ghent there were other sounds besides music and laughter, and illuminations too fierce and ruddy in their glow to give me pleasure. At night I heard the screams of women. I had no need to ask the meaning of them. I had heard such screams before, when Pierre Nesle’s sister Marthe was in the hands of the mob. But one man told me, as though I did not know.
“They are cutting off some ladies’ hair. Six of them—the hussies. They were too friendly with the Germans, you understand? Now they are being stripped, for shame. There are others, monsieur. Many, many, if one only knew. ”

“ There is a tradition that she was connected with the royal house of Germany, at that time represented by the enlightened Otho the Great. Be this as it may, her life for us begins when, probably at an early age, she entered the Convent of Gandersheim. Gandersheim was a Benedictine nunnery in the Harz Mountains, founded in the ninth century by Liudolf, Duke of Saxony, and important enough to entitle its Abbess to a seat in the Imperial Diet, a right perhaps never exercised except by proxy. The story of its foundation, as told by Roswitha in the unique MS. of her works, is of strange beauty. ”

“ Then together they looked at the new buildings which Wegen had especially superintended, because Blanden, from horror of the masons' noise, had taken flight.
"The guest-chambers have been carried out according to your plans," said Wegen, "but I permitted myself to have them ornamented with a few elegant additions. It is too cruel the way guests are treated in most houses; one is shoved into a bare room, a sort of guard room, in any corner of the house, like an old travelling trunk or carpet-bag. ”

“ One thinks Heidelberg by day—with its surroundings—is the last possibility of the beautiful; but when he sees Heidelberg by night, a fallen Milky Way, with that glittering railway constellation pinned to the border, he requires time to consider upon the verdict.
One never tires of poking about in the dense woods that clothe all these lofty Neckar hills to their tops. The great deeps of a boundless forest have a beguiling and impressive charm in any country; but German legends and fairy tales have given these an added charm. ”

“ A new conception is here introduced: the Lord of the Castle [39] is an evil being, who holds captive fair dames and damsels; they it is, and not he, whom the hero must deliver, and the act of deliverance subjects him to trial and peril (supra, p. 14, Chr. Inc. 17) . Let us see if this form affords any explanation of the mysterious features of Heinrich's version. This incident may, it is easily conceivable, be treated in two ways; the hero may be a worthy knight and succeed, or a caitiff and fail. A story of this latter kind may throw some light upon Gawain's adventures at the Magic Castle. ”

“ He soon discovered that Zazo's hard skull was fit only for the helmet, not to carry a reed behind the ear. But you! I always felt as though I were going into a dungeon when I visited you in your gloomy, high-walled monastery, in the solitude of the desert. Many, many years you dreamed away there among the books--lost."
"Not lost!" replied Gibamund. "He found time to become the chief hero of his people. On him rests the hope of the Vandals."
"On the whole House of the Asdings! We are not degenerates," answered the King. ”

“ All the doors stood open; but one thing troubled Sir Gawain sore: there was never a living soul to be seen.
Then he said within himself, "Of a sooth, for love and kindness do they bear their lord, who but now hath entered the burg, company to the little castle yonder." Thus he went his way straight to that castle, and came within a goodly hall, both high and wide, and in length equal to a bowshot, On every daïs a linen cloth was spread, and sure never king nor count might eat off fairer or better wrought. All was made ready for meat, and the bread and wine set in readiness on the tables ”

“ Thy lands, and mine as well, shall lie alike; whether of us twain can triumph over the other, him shall both land and people serve."
Hagen and Gernot, too, straightway gainsaid this. "We have no wish," spake Gernot, "that we should conquer aught of lands, or that any man lie dead at hero's hands. We have rich lands, which serve us, as is meet, nor hath any a better claim to them than we."
There stood his kinsmen, grim of mood; among them, too, Ortwin of Metz. "It doth irk me much to hear these words of peace," spake he; "the mighty Siegfried hath defied you for no just cause. ”

“ A fierce little stream rushes down through the town, on its way turning wheels for flour mills, mechanic’s shops, little factories for making that ingenious Swiss wood work we so often see at home in our shops. We had in Nyon examples of old Swiss architecture, little bridges, nooks and corners, turrets and gables, curious windows and balconies, and those little fanciful additions which would appear to have been the sudden impulsive thought of the builder stuck on at an hour’s notice. All the world knows that Geneva is famed for its watches. ”

“ But Hagen and Gernot answered him back straightway. “We desire not,” said Gernot, “to win new kingdoms at the cost of dead heroes. Our land is rich, and we are the rightful lords. The folk desire none better.”
Grim and angered stood Gunther’s kinsmen. Amidst of them was Ortwin of Metz, who said, “This bargain pleaseth me little. Bold Siegfried hath challenged thee wrongfully. Were thou and thy brothers naked, and he with a whole king’s army at his back, I would undertake to show the overweening man he did well to abate his pride.” ”

“ The immediate environs of Geneva so closely resemble England, with their good macadamized roads, bordered by park palings and neat cottages with turf and flowers, and no apparent poverty, that with my back turned to Mont Blanc, I could have believed myself in my own country. The common people are remarkably industrious and certainly know the value of time,—for I constantly see young girls and old men also walking along with a load on their backs of fruit and vegetables to be sold in the town, perseveringly knitting the whole way. ”

“ So we left the valley and took quarters at the Schloss Hotel, on the hill, above the Castle.
Heidelberg lies at the mouth of a narrow gorge—a gorge the shape of a shepherd's crook; if one looks up it he perceives that it is about straight, for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to the right and disappears. This gorge—along whose bottom pours the swift Neckar—is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, steep ridges, a thousand feet high and densely wooded clear to their summits, with the exception of one section which has been shaved and put under cultivation. ”

“ We reached Geneva just in time to escape being drenched by a violent thunder shower, whose rise and disappearance threw expression into all the features of the scene.
Geneva reminds me of a New England village, as indeed there, and in the neighborhood, are many New Englanders of an excellent stamp, generous, intelligent, discreet, and seeking to win from life its true values. Such are much wanted, and seem like points of light among the swarms of settlers, whose aims are sordid, whose habits thoughtless and slovenly. ”

“ I have most successfully, and most agreeably, executed my plan of spending the month of March at Geneva, in the Necker house, and every circumstance that I had arranged turned out beyond my expectation; the freedom of the morning, the society of the table and drawing-room, from half an hour past two till six or seven; an evening assembly and card-party, in a round of the best company, and, except one day in the week, a private supper of free and friendly conversation. You would like Geneva better than Lausanne; there is much more information to be got among the men ”

“ In common with all progressive American towns, Geneva boasts of its school-house, a [Pg 15] large brick building, where rosy-cheeked children daily gather to receive the knowledge which is to fit them more thoroughly for the great battle of life, when the years shall have passed and they become men and women.
Here, too, are banking institutions and warehouses, and every element that contributes to the thrift and advancement of a happy, honest, hard-working and prosperous people. ”

“ Amongst these, I have been most interested by those delivered by the amiable and Christian archæologist, Troyon, on the remains of the dwellings and mode of life on the lakes, of the most eminent inhabitants of Switzerland. For the rest, it seems to me difficult to live in Geneva, without every day learning something new. The city is full of intellectual life, of many kinds,—ecclesiastical, political, and scientific, of interests and questions, of lectures, exhibitions, and sermons,—from which one can almost always learn something ”

“ We feel ill at ease in Geneva now, and still more ill in the midst of merrymakings than in the midst of trials. Would the duke and the bishop really succeed in stifling the new life which animated this little state? A great event will arise to give strength to liberty. She descended to the tomb with Berthelier, though still young; she will come forth again when, the gates of Switzerland opening wide, Geneva shall grasp the hand of the ancient champions of independence, and receive the words of Him who said: The truth shall make you free. ”

“ You will say—I have heard you say—that Heidelberg wants no beauty unborrowed of the eye; but if history had not clothed it in recollections, fancy must have invested it in its own dreams. It is true, that it is a mere modern edifice compared with all the classic, and most of the gothic ruins; yet over Heidelberg there hangs a terror and a mystery peculiar to itself: for the mind which acquiesces in decay, recoils from destruction. ”

“ Then King Arthur sprang from the daïs, and caught the child to him, and kissed it twenty times on face and eyes and mouth, and wept for very anger; nor for the blood on the child's face would he cease to caress it, so great love had he towards it, for he thought of a truth that he held again Gawain, whom he now counted for lost. He quoth, "Sir Bran de Lis, this little child is very fair; never in your life did ye do such villainy as to go near to slay so sweet a child, nor ought ye to have denied the request he made, for he asked naught outrageous. ”

“ The Savoyard agents, Balleyson, Saleneuve, and their soldiers, remained in the city to no purpose: Geneva awoke from her slumbers. ‘Friburg desires to know the real state of this city?’ said a few patriots to Sergine; ‘come, then, with us to the council—come and see for yourself.’ The most energetic men were still in Switzerland; but by degrees all in Geneva who loved liberty were seen to shake off the silence to which they had been reduced. They encouraged one another to make an imposing demonstration. ”

“ Besides this, Geneva has been made the residence and home of a great many moral and political writers within the last one or two centuries; for the country, being republican, is much more open and free than most of the other countries of Europe. Men who have incurred the displeasure of their own governments by their writings or their acts find a safe asylum in Geneva, where they can think and say what they please. ”

“ The affairs of this theatre, which must always be minute, are now grown so tame and tranquil, that they no longer deserve the historian's pen. The new constitution of Geneva is slowly forming, without much noise or any bloodshed; and the patriots, who have staid in hopes of guiding and restraining the multitude, flatter themselves that they shall be able at least to prevent their mad countrymen from giving themselves to France, the only mischief that would be absolutely irretrievable. ”

“ She protested that it was a bargain, and that her house was both better and less expensive than any one else's. There was none of the mist from the river with which the people down by the Elbe were troubled, and one also avoided the closeness of the valley. At such a height I should breathe pure Swiss air and have the best view in the village; lastly, there were the shady promenades belonging to the house, where the lodgers might walk when they did not care to go farther. ”

“ To-day, a busy active town, with more than five thousand inhabitants, a hundred business enterprises, great railroad facilities, and every element that conduces to prosperity, honesty and happiness.
Such is Geneva to-day, a substantial, bustling, thriving and progressive village of the west.
It is a hot, sultry day in August, 18—, and the shrill whistles from the factories have just announced the arrival of six o'clock. Work is suspended for the day, and the army of workmen are preparing for their homes after the labors of the day.
At the little bank in Geneva the day has been an active one. ”

“ The curious set of conditions which thus planted a colony of foreigners in the midst of a free polity, with a new doctrine and newer discipline, introduced into Europe a fresh type of character and manners. People declared they could recognise in the men of Geneva neither French vivacity, nor Italian subtlety and clearness, nor Swiss gravity. They had a zeal for religion, a vigorous energy in government, a passion for freedom, a devotion to ingenious industries, which marked them with a stamp unlike that of any other community. ”

“ A happy smile spread upon the face of Wulf, for now he knew that Godwin was himself again.
“Me sure enough,” he answered. “Dream-folk don’t have lame legs; they are the gifts of swords and men.”
“And Rosamund? What of Rosamund? Did the grey horse swim the creek, and how came we here? Tell me quick—I faint for news!”
“She shall tell you herself.” And hobbling to the curtained door, he called, “Rosamund, my—nay, our—cousin Rosamund, Godwin is himself again. Hear you, Godwin is himself again, and would speak with you!” ”