Rhinegold

“ The Rhineland, in spite of its minor vicissitudes of lordship, is and has always been Germanic, and its annals are part and parcel of those of the Teutonic Holy Roman Empire and of the German Empire that succeeded it. The marshes of the mouth of the Rhine early differentiated themselves both from Germany and from the Gallic provinces farther south; Dutch they were and Dutch they will ever remain; their history and their culture and their art are by themselves. The same is true of Champagne, Picardy, Burgundy, Bar, and of the lands between them and the Seine. ”

“ During the time of the Middle Ages, Germany had been filling up with towns and castles, feudal dungeons bearing aloft a helmet and a cross. The cross arose wherever two streets met in a city and at every cross-road in the country; the most beautiful cathedrals in the world and the most magnificent monasteries were reflected in her broad river; and still, in field and forest, in city and country, and along the banks of the Rhine, the false gods were worshipped in secret.
As the church taught that they were to be looked upon as demons, the people dared not treat them badly. ”

“ The Rhine! a blessing on the Rhine!"
O, the pride of the German heart in this noble river! And right it is; for, of all the rivers of this beautiful earth, there is none so beautiful as this. There is hardly a league of its whole course, from its cradle in the snowy Alps to its grave in the sands of Holland, which boasts not its peculiar charms. By heavens! If I were a German I would be proud of it too; and of the clustering grapes, that hang about its temples, as it reels onward through vineyards, in a triumphal march, like Bacchus, crowned and drunken. ”

“ Is more than I can tell.”
“There is a sadness in the bells of the Rhine,” continued Mr. Beal, “as they ring from old belfries at evening under the ruins of [240] the castles on the hills. The lords of the Rhine that once heard them are gone forever. The vineyards creep up the hills on the light trellises, and the sun and the earth, as it were, fill the grapes with wine. The woods are as green as of old. The rafts go drifting down the light waves as on feet of air. But the river of history is changed, and one feels the spirit of the change with deep sadness as one listens to the bells.” ”

“ Soon after passing the island of Sand, we had a perspective view of St. Goar, of the strong fortress of Rhinfels, on the rocks beyond, and of the small fortified town of Goarhausen, on the opposite bank. The mountains now become still more stupendous, and many rivulets, or becks, which latter is a German, as well as an English term, descend from them into the river, on either hand, some of which, in a season less dry than the present, roar with angry torrents. But the extreme violence, with which the Rhine passes in this district, left us less leisure than in others to observe its scenery. ”

“ Like other world-rivers, the Rhine has attracted to its banks a succession of races of widely divergent origin. Celt, Teuton, Slav, and Roman have contested for the territories which it waters, and if the most enduring of these races has finally achieved dominion over the fairest river-province in Europe, who shall say that it has emerged from the struggle as a homogeneous people, having absorbed none of the blood of those with whom it strove for the lordship of this vine-clad valley? ”

“ High above them rose the vast dismantled ruins of Rheinfels, the lightning darting through its shattered casements and broken arches, and brightening the gloomy trees that here and there clothed the rocks, and tossed to the angry wind. Swift wheeled the water-birds over the river, dipping their plumage in the white foam, and uttering their discordant screams. A storm upon the Rhine has a grandeur it is in vain to paint. Its rocks, its foliage, the feudal ruins that everywhere rise from the lofty heights, speaking in characters of stern decay of many a former battle against time and tempest ”

“ With this legend we close on a brighter and more hopeful note than is usually associated with legends of the Rhine. The reader may have observed in perusing these romances how closely they mirror their several environments. For the most part those which are gay and buoyant in spirit have for the places of their birth slopes where is prisoned the sunshine which later sparkles in the wine-cup and inspires song and cheerfulness. Those, again, which are sombre and tragic have as background the gloomy forest, the dark and windy promontory which overhangs the darker river, or the secluded nunnery. ”

“ As the Rhine flows, so flows the national genius, by mountain and valley, the wildest solitude, the sudden spires of ancient cities, the mouldered castle, the stately monastery, the humble cot,—grandeur and homeliness, history and superstition, truth and fable, succeeding one another so as to blend into a whole.
“But,” added Trevylyan, a moment afterwards, “the Ideal is passing slowly away from the German mind; a spirit for the more active and the more material literature is springing up amongst them. The revolution of mind gathers on, preceding stormy events ”

“ Are German little boys endowed with virtue of such abnormal quality that they survive the chronic temptations to which they must be subjected in the matter of pears, and apples, and plums? Even the ingenious theory that the apples are cooking ones, designed if stolen to inflict adequate punishment on youthful stomachs, cannot explain away these innumerable orchards and long avenues of fruit trees. The Rhineland is a garden of enchantment when the blossom is in flower. It is a hard saying that any sight on earth can be more beautiful than an English spring at its best. ”

“ The Drachenfels is the loftiest of the Seven Mountains, and its summit commands one of the finest prospects on the Rhine. In the ruins of the old castle, ingenious and progressive man has seen fit to ignore sentiment, and thrust a modern restaurant, where in spite of his shocked sensibilities, the weary traveller may in return for German marks, rest and refresh himself with sparkling wine which is famous for its fine quality and flavor, while the cool breezes fan his brow and soothe his excited brain. ”

“ ART IN THE RHINELAND FROM Charlemagne’s ambitious centre at Aix-la-Chapelle the influence of a new culture went west rather than east, and it is not until the eleventh century that we can look for art of any sort along the valley of the Rhine and in the lands of old Lorraine. There was little enough elsewhere, but when, at the finger-touch of a new monasticism calling a new northern blood to action, civilisation began again in Normandy and then in the Île de France, its echo in the Rhineland was far and long delayed, and never more than an echo at most. ”

“ Its quays, extending far along the bank, its lofty ramparts, shaded with old chesnuts, and crowned by many massy towers, black with age; the old gateways opening to the Rhine, and the crowd of steeples, overtopping all, give it a venerable and picturesque character. But, however thronged the city now was, the shore without was silent and almost deserted; the sentinels, watching at the gates and looking out from the ramparts, or a few women gliding beneath, wrapt in the nun-like scarf, so melancholy in its appearance and so generally worn at Cologne, were nearly the only persons seen. ”

“ The Ill and the Rhine, two lovely rivers, enliven this dark mass with their plashing waters, so clear and green. Beyond the walls, as far as the eye can reach, stretches an immense country richly wooded and dotted with villages. The Rhine, which flows within a league90 of the town, winds through the landscape. In walking around this bell-tower you see three chains of mountains—the ridges of the Black Forest on the north, the Vosges on the west, and the Alps in the centre....
The sun willingly makes a festival for those who are upon great heights. ”

“ The changing hues, evanescent shadows and glimpses of the rising hills—who can ever forget them?
Many people who have looked on the wonderful scenery of the Hudson still long for the time when they shall behold the Rhineland. They will find that legends and traditions, more than the wonderful scenery, give to the Rhine country an added charm. Every hilltop there is surmounted by a storied castle, which is falling into decay along with so many Old World institutions that have been kept green by the ivy of custom and tradition, which can scarcely keep them from tumbling. ”

“ Of all places that suggest Chaos, a poor bare beginning of things, that place is the desolate spot in which the Hinter Rhine takes its rise. It is called Paradise, and if ever man required to cheer himself with a euphemism, it might be here. From Splügen to Hinterrhein extends a flat tract of country on every inch of which nature has left an impression as of exhausted powers. And yet, under those external marks of sterility, lurks the beginning of a great thing, the Rhine, its fruitful valleys, its grandeur, its world-renowned towns. ”

“ A great many people merely pass up or down the river in a steamer, in a day and a night, and only see the ruins and the other scenery by gazing at them from the deck of the vessel. But in this case they get no idea whatever of the Rhine. It is necessary to travel slowly, to stop frequently at the towns on the bank, to make excursions along the shores and into the interior, and to ascend to the sites of the ruins, and to other elevated points, so as to view the valley and the stream meandering through it from above, or you obtain no correct idea whatever of travelling on the Rhine. ”

“ We are all natives of one or the other bank of this great river Rhine, and feel towards each other, whether we live on the right or the left bank, very much like school-boys whose friendship is cemented by many a battle royal.
Being a Frenchman, I feel that I am about to [065] pay a visit to my paternal ancestors—for the Franks have given us our name. No wonder that I feel deeply moved.
I examine the low huts of the village, if village it can be called, and find that they are separated from each other by commons and by fields, and that they finally lose themselves in the open country. ”

“ Many counts and barons found on that day a grave in the land of the Swiss, and sounds of mourning were to be heard in many a German castle. But to Castle Rheinfels no traveller brought any tidings either of weal or woe, and we can imagine with what sickness of heart the maiden waited, and how her hope faded as the days and weeks slipped past. It was so long since the ill-fated army had set out against the Forest Cantons, and now the thoughts of men were turned in other directions, while the Swiss peasants were quietly allowed to reap the fruits of their bravery. ”

“ A mile or more below the Hohenzollern bridge, where four kings of Prussia on their bronze horses survey a world fashioned now on other lines than those contemplated by Prussian arrogance, the Rhine flows along a ribbon of green strand which serves as a recreation ground for the children of the district. Here on a summer evening we sometimes walk and watch young Germany at play: children of all ages bathing, paddling, shouting, laughing, amusing themselves in a hundred different ways, while their parents sit in little groups, the women sewing or knitting, the men with their pipes. ”

“ And now Roland neared the place where the stream reaches the end of the Rhine Valley, and where the seven giants are to be seen, the summit of one of which is crowned with a castle; there they stand like the seven knights who in later times stood weeping round the holy remains of the German emperor.
[Pg 169] A wooded island lay in the deep-blue waters. The setting sun threw a golden light over the hills. ”

“ Rheinfels grows up from the river's edge, and is, indeed, the rock of the Rhine. The fortifications were immense, and this is the most wonderful ruin on the river. A confederacy of German and Rhenish cities broke up this fortress at the close of the thirteenth century, and long afterwards it was made a modern defence. Here the river seems pent up, almost; and just above St. Goar there rises from the water a lofty precipice, called the Lurley Rock. Nearly opposite, a man lives, who, when the boat passes, fires a pistol, and a very singular echo follows, as we can testify. ”

“ The magic of Father Rhine will certainly exercise its power upon the Crown Prince likewise. And when you joyfully pass the cup and sing a new song, then I hope that your spirits may rise and enjoy the beautiful moments as becomes happy German youths! But may the source from which you draw your joys be as clear and pure as the golden juice of the grape, may it be deep and constant as Father Rhine! If we look about us in the joyous Rhineland, our history rises up before us in very palpable form. ”

“ The congress of Vienna (1815) restored the lower part of the Rhenish valley to Germany, but it was not till the war of 1870-71 that the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine made the Rhine once more “Germany's river, not Germany's frontier.” In the military history of all these centuries constant allusion is made to the Rhine, its passages and its fortresses. Every general who has fought in its neighbourhood has at one time or another had to provide for a crossing of the Rhine, from Julius Caesar, who crossed it twice, down to our own time. ”

“ When the great sun sets behind the mountains, the Rhine sometimes turns red as blood. Then a strange warm glow, like fire, falls across the lonely Rat Tower. This fierce, red glare, the peasants say, is sent as a warning against cruelty to God's poor and hungry children.
Slowly it dies away. Over the crumbling walls of the castle glide long gray shadows. Upward they creep — higher — higher — higher. They reach the dark tower. Through door and windows, through chink and crevice and keyhole they steal. ”