"America is too raw."
"America _is_ young. She's a child compared with your old nations, but a
promising, glorious child. Her faults are only the faults of youth," we
respond with some difficulty as to our pronouns and adjectives.
"She's a very bad child. She needs a whipping," chuckles our saucy
neighbor.
America's banner trails in the dust, and Helvetia triumphs over all
foes. In silence and chagrin America's feeble champion retires to the
window, watches the birds picking up bread-crumbs on the balcony, and
meditates a grand revenge when her German vocabulary shall be equal to
her zeal. Helvetia's son being, in this instance, a very clever, merry
boy, soon laughingly sues for reconciliation, on the ground that, "after
all, sister republics must not quarrel," and the two, in noble alliance,
advance with renewed vigor, and speedily sweep from the face of the
earth all tyrannous monarchical governments.
Is it not, by the way, thoroughly German, that down in its last corner
the Heidelberg daily paper prints each day, "Remember the poor little
birds"? And indeed they are remembered well; and there are few casements
here that do not open every morning, that the birdies' bread may be
thrown upon the snow.
And is there nothing else here in winter beside the innocent pastimes
mentioned? There are wonderful views to be gained by those who have the
courage to climb the winding silvery paths that lead up the Gaisberg and
Heiligenberg. And then there is--majesty comes last!--the castle.
Ah! here lies the magic of the place. This is why people love
Heidelberg. It is because that wonderful old ruin is everywhere present,
whatever one does, wherever one goes, binding one's heart to itself. You
cannot forget that it stands there on the hill, sad and stately and
superb. Lower your curtains, turn your back to the window, read the last
novel if you will, still you will see it. I defy you to lose your
consciousness of it. It will always haunt you, until it draws you out of
the house--out into the air--through the rambling streets--up the hill
past the queer little houses--to the spot where it stands, and then it
will not let you go. It holds you there in a strange enchantment. You
wander through chapel and banquet-hall, through prison-vault and pages'
chamber, from terrace to tower, where you go as near the edge as you
dare,--_nearer_ than you dare, in fact,--and look down upon the trees
growing in the moat. Because you never, in all your life, saw anything
like a "ruin," and because there is but one Heidelberg Castle in the
world, you take delight in simply wandering up and down long dark
stairways, with no definite end in view. You may be hungry and cold, but
you never know it. You are unconscious of time, and after hours of
dream-life you only turn from gazing when somebody forcibly drags you
away because the man is about to close the gates.
I cannot discourse with ease upon quadrangles and facades. I am doubtful
about finials, and my ideas are in confusion as to which buttresses fly
and which hang; but it is a blessed fact that one need not be very
learned to care for lovely things, and while I live I shall never forget
how the castle looked the first time I approached it.
Some people say it is loveliest seen at sunset from the "Philosopher's
Walk," on Heiligenberg across the Neckar, and some say it is like
fairy-land when it is illuminated (which happens once or twice in a
summer,--the last time, before the students go away in August, and leave
the old town in peace and quiet), and when one softly glides in a little
boat from far up the Neckar, down, down, in the moonlight, until
suddenly the castle, blazing with lights, is before you.
But though I should see it a thousand times with summer bloom around,
with the charm of fair skies and sunshine, soft green hills and flowing
water, or in the moonlight, with happy voices everywhere, and strains of
music sounding sweet and clear in the evening air, I can never be sorry
that, first of all, it rose in its beauty, before my eyes, out of a sea
of new-fallen snow.
O, the silence and the whiteness of that day!
We entered the grounds and passed through broad walks, among shadowy
trees whose every twig was snow-covered, and by the snow-crowned
Princess Elizabeth Arch. On we went in silence,--only once did any sound
break the stillness, when a little laughing child, in a sleigh drawn by
a large black dog, aided by a good-natured half-breathless servant,
dashed by and disappeared among the trees. Soon we stood on the terrace
overlooking the city and 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. All was so white
and still! Only the brave ivy, glossy and green and fresh on the old
walls and amid this frozen nature, spoke of life and hope. All else told
of sadness, and of peace it may be, but of the peace that follows
renunciation.
But to stand on the height--to look so far--to be in that white, holy
stillness! It was wonderful. It was too beautiful for words.