Neckar

“ And when the eye turns to the valley of the Neckar, how truly charming are those soft hills interspersed with orchards and vineyards, and watered by gentle streams and rivulets; the whole being blessed by a mild climate and a good race of people!"
"Yes, indeed," said the countryman, "this is a fine country; but it is not to be compared to the neighbourhood of Stuttgardt, the true lowland! There it is a real pleasure to wander about in summer or spring, on the banks of the Neckar; nature is prolific in all her bounties of cultivation; the vine grows to a large size and plentiful on the hills ”

“ We saw it in their friendly greetings and open, expressive countenances; it is shown in their love for their beautiful homes and the rapture and reverence with which they speak of their country's bards. No river in the world, equal to the Neckar in size, flows for its whole course through more delightful scenery, or among kinder and happier people.
After leaving Esslingen, we followed its banks for some time, at the foot of an amphitheatre of hills, covered to the very summit, as far as the eye could reach, with vineyards. The morning was cloudy, and white mist-wreaths hung along the sides. ”

“ HEIDELBERG. N Heidelberg. Think of it! What an energetic idler I am grown! The Neckar lies a pistol-shot from my windows; high hills rise on the thither side, looking so home-like—Maysville home, like Mr. W.’s, where you came once upon a time. When my glance darts out the windows and rests upon them, suddenly I catch my breath, and I am not sure whether it is pain or pleasure I feel. Half way up they are cultivated, but the tops are wooded. Just over my head the old castle looms up among the trees. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Along the Rhine and Neckar,
No town like thee is found.
Thou town of merry fellows,
Of wisdom full and wine,
Clear flows thy placid river,
Blue eyes therein do shine.
When from the south is spreading
Spring's smile o'er hill and lea,
He out of blossoms weaveth
A bridal robe for thee.
Thee as a bride I fondly
Enshrine within my heart;
Like early love's sweet echoes,
Thy name doth joy impart.
Become life's cares too burning,
And all abroad looks bare,
I'll spur my good horse homeward
To the Neckar vale so fair. ”

“ In the evening, when the sun has got behind the mountain, it is delightful to sit on the stone steps and watch the golden light creeping up the side of the Kaiserstuhl, till at last twilight begins to darken in the valley and a mantle of mist gathers above the Neckar. ”

“ From the platform where we stood, the eye (overlooking the city, bridge, and the deep vale, to the point where the Neckar is concealed from view by its winding to the left) is carried across the plain to the dim stream of the Rhine, perceived under the distant hills. The pleasure-grounds are the most delightful I ever beheld; the happiest mixture of wildness, which no art could overcome, and formality, often necessary to conduct you along the ledge of a precipice—whence you may look down upon the river, enlivened by boats, and on the rich vale, or to the more distant scenes before mentioned. ”

“ And Gertrude sleeps on the spot where she wished her last couch to be made; and far—oh, far dearer, is that small spot on the distant banks of the gliding Neckar to Trevylyan’s heart than all the broad lands and fertile fields of his ancestral domain. The turf too preserves its emerald greenness; and it would seem to me that the field flowers spring up by the sides of the simple tomb even more profusely than of old. A curve in the bank breaks the tide of the Neckar ”

“ On one side was the castle, the dark mass standing out boldly against the whiteness,—on the other, far below, the city, its steep, high roofs snow-white, its three church-spires rising towards cold, gray skies; beyond, the frozen Neckar, then Heiligenberg, its white vineyards contrasting with the dusky fir-forests, and, far away as one could see, the great plain of the Rhine, with the line of the Haardt Mountains barely perceptible in the distance and the dim light. ”

“ We arrived late, after an exquisite drive; the castle grows on one, the more one looks at it; its vastness is surprising, and the beauty of its site, and trees, and gardens, and terraces, is striking; but the Neckar, though pretty, is not large enough for such an edifice, it should have been the Rhine. ”

“ There is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a raft that is gliding down the winding Neckar past green meadows and wooded hills, and slumbering villages, and craggy heights graced with crumbling towers and battlements. ”

“ BADEN-BADEN. S a reward for your reformation I write to you on this precious sheet. You see I have come to be wonderfully attached to Heidelberg, the beautiful, the quaint, the historically poetic, learned and picturesque old town on the Neckar. It seems like another home. ”

“ They passed the ruined house where Martin Luther lay concealed after the Diet of Worms, and through the village of Handschuhsheimer, as old as the days of King Pepin the Short,--a hamlet, lying under the hills, half-buried in blossoms and green leaves. Close on the right rose the mountains of the mysterious Odenwald; and on the left lay the Neckar, like a steel bow in the meadow. Farther westward, a thin, smoky vapor betrayed the course of the Rhine; beyond which, like a troubled sea, ran the blue, billowy Alsatian hills. ”

“ In the afternoon, as he did not feel strong enough to mount the hill to the castle, he took a short walk over the bridge along the northern banks of the Neckar, and appeared much to enjoy the beautiful scenery that encircles this spot, and is indeed every where to be found around Heidelberg. From this side one sees the ancient ruin with its mouldering towers, backed by a lofty amphitheatre of finely wooded mountains, with the town standing immediately under it, and the broad river rushing through its light and airy bridge, often foaming over many a rugged rock. ”

“ The navigable part of the Neckar here is very limited, and the deeper channel is so narrow that the rafts of timber which descend the stream are most attenuated, consisting of two trees abreast, and of such length that they wind down the river like a snake. The activity and ingenuity of the raftsmen in guiding them are very striking. But the charming river, however shallow, spreads and frolics in a cradle of vine-clad hills ”

“ We turned in among the inclosing hills, as we approached Heidelberg. The road lay on the right bank of the Neckar, and at every step the scenery acquired new beauty. Heidelberg is on the left bank; to our right, that is, as we advanced up the stream; and is situated on a sort of narrow platform between the river and the hill on which the castle stands. The town itself has a wholly different appearance from those we had recently passed. It has an ancient, picturesque, inartificial look, more consonant with our ideas of German romance. ”

“ For there are no “sights” here, the castle excepted. The quaint old town is friendly and genial, though not more so than many others of this comfortable German father-land; nor is the serene Neckar so exceptional as to occasion pilgrimage.
Heidelberg’s appeals are to the mind, the heart, and the senses: the mind is inspired by her impressive achievements in learning; the heart is touched by her tragic history; and the senses are spellbound by the exceptional charm of her natural beauty. She is never so fair as in the early evening. ”

“ From Esslingen the Neckar becomes broader and deeper and its valley very picturesque, and after passing Cannstatt, from which point it is navigable for small craft, it flows through vine-clad hills by the pleasant village of Marbach, Schiller's birthplace, receives at Besigheim the waters of its most considerable tributary, the Enz, swirls down by Lauifen, and enters the beautiful vale of Heilbronn. ”

“ You must peep into the tiniest of chapels, resplendent with banners of red and gold and a profusion of fresh flowers, all ready for the morning, which will be a high feast-day. You must pass through a village where women and children are grouped round the largest, oldest well you ever saw, with a great crossbeam and an immense bucket swinging high in the air. And at last you must sit in a garden on a height overlooking the Neckar. There must be a charming village opposite, with an old, old church, and pretty trees about you partly concealing the ruins of some old knight's abode. ”

“ Here in Heidelberg at last, and a most glorious town it is. This is our first morning in our new rooms, and the sun streams warmly in the eastern windows as I write, while the old castle rises through the blue vapor on the side of the Kaiserstuhl. The Neckar rushes on below, and the Odenwald, before me, rejoices with its vineyards in the morning light.... ”

“ From the north cage one looks up the Neckar gorge; from the west one he looks down it. This last affords the most extensive view, and it is one of the loveliest that can be imagined, too. Out of a billowy upheaval of vivid green foliage, a rifle-shot removed, rises the huge ruin of Heidelberg Castle, [2] with empty window arches, ivy-mailed battlements, moldering towers—the Lear of inanimate nature,— deserted, discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still, and beautiful. It is a fine sight to see the evening sunlight ”

“ My old castle-building propensities came back upon me in an instant, and I pictured myself, with Lady Jane as my companion, wandering among the beautiful scenery of the Neckar, beneath the lofty ruins of Heidelberg, or skimming the placid surface of the Rhine, while, "mellowed by distance," came the rich chorus of a student's melody, filling the air with its flood of song. How delightful, I thought, to be reading the lyrics of Uhland, or Buerger, with one so capable of appreciating them, with all the hallowed associations of the "Vaterland" about us! ”

“ At Heidelberg, after looking over the University, which seemed to me dull and out of date, and the Tun, which was certainly large, and the Schloss, a most beautiful and impressive ruin, we climbed the mountain which rises from the Neckar in order that we might get a view of the Valley of the Rhine and the Neckar and the Taunus mountains. On the way up we overtook Catharine Grimm, a woman of about forty, who twice a week carried upon her head all of the supplies needed for the inn at the crest from the city below. She wanted us to take her home with us, poor woman, and little wonder. ”

“ A still more tragic scene had been that evening enacted in Heidelberg. Just as the sun set, two female figures walked along the romantic woodland path-way, leading to the Angel's Meadow, a little green opening on the brow of one of the high hills, which see themselves in the Neckar and hear the solemn bells of Kloster-Neuburg. The evening shadows were falling broad and long ”

“ Now if one turns and looks up the gorge once more, he will see the Schloss Hotel on the right perched on a precipice overlooking the Neckar—a precipice which is so sumptuously cushioned and draped with foliage that no glimpse of the rock appears. The building seems very airily situated. It has the appearance of being on a shelf half-way up the wooded mountainside; and as it is remote and isolated, and very white, it makes a strong mark against the lofty leafy rampart at its back. ”

“ German etiquette forbids a lady to take the arm of a male friend, unless she is betrothed to him; talking is allowed, fortunately.
As we climbed to the terraces of the castle, we could see the thread of the Rhine, in the distance, sparkling through the haze. The light air which came down the Neckar was fragrant with pine and the first falling leaves of summer trees. The vineyards below us were beginning to look crisp and brown, but hanging from stake to stake the vines were bent down by blue clusters, with the bloom still upon them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The lamps of the city rim the river below, and villas beyond the farther bank are marked by tiny dots of lights in the purple of the groves behind Neuenheim. Across the Neckar-cut gulf of shadow the chestnut-crowned summit of the Heiligenberg stares down solemnly at us, and not all the songs of its blithest [255] nightingales can banish thoughts of its ancient Roman sacrifices nor divert the credulous from vigils over the blue grave lights around the Benedictine cloister where they buried the sainted Abbot of Hirschau. ”