CHAPTER IX. THE SCENERY OF THE RHINE ANALOGOUS TO THE GERMAN LITERARYGENIUS.--THE DRACHENFELS.
ON leaving Cologne, the stream winds round among banks that do not yetfulfil the promise of the Rhine; but they increase in interest as youleave Surdt and Godorf. The peculiar character of the river does not,however, really appear, until by degrees the Seven Mountains, and "THECASTLED CRAG OF DRACHENFELS" above them all, break upon the eye. AroundNieder Cassel and Rheidt the vines lie thick and clustering; and, by theshore, you see from place to place the islands stretching their greenlength along, and breaking the exulting tide. Village rises uponvillage, and viewed from the distance as you sail, the pastoral errorsthat enamoured us of the village life crowd thick and fast upon us.So still do these hamlets seem, so sheltered from the passions of theworld,--as if the passions were not like winds, only felt where theybreathe, and invisible save by their effects! Leaping into the broadbosom of the Rhine come many a stream and rivulet upon either side.Spire upon spire rises and sinks as you sail on. Mountain and city,the solitary island, the castled steep, like the dreams of ambition,suddenly appear, proudly swell, and dimly fade away.
"You begin now," said Trevylyan, "to understand the character ofthe German literature. The Rhine is an emblem of its luxuriance, itsfertility, its romance. The best commentary to the German genius is avisit to the German scenery. The mighty gloom of the Hartz, the feudaltowers that look over vines and deep valleys on the legendary Rhine;the gigantic remains of antique power, profusely scattered over plain,mount, and forest; the thousand mixed recollections that hallow theground; the stately Roman, the stalwart Goth, the chivalry of the feudalage, and the dim brotherhood of the ideal world, have here alike theirrecord and their remembrance. And over such scenes wanders the youngGerman student. Instead of the pomp and luxury of the English traveller,the thousand devices to cheat the way, he has but his volume in hishand, his knapsack at his back. From such scenes he draws and hivesall that various store which after years ripen to invention. Hencethe florid mixture of the German muse,--the classic, the romantic, thecontemplative, the philosophic, and the superstitious; each the resultof actual meditation over different scenes; each the produce of separatebut confused recollections. As the Rhine flows, so flows the nationalgenius, by mountain and valley, the wildest solitude, the sudden spiresof ancient cities, the mouldered castle, the stately monastery, thehumble cot,--grandeur and homeliness, history and superstition, truthand fable, succeeding one another so as to blend into a whole.
"But," added Trevylyan, a moment afterwards, "the Ideal is passingslowly away from the German mind; a spirit for the more active and themore material literature is springing up amongst them. The revolutionof mind gathers on, preceding stormy events; and the memories thatled their grandsires to contemplate will urge the youth of the nextgeneration to dare and to act."*
* Is not this prediction already fulfilled?--1849.
Thus conversing, they continued their voyage, with a fair wave andbeneath a lucid sky.
The vessel now glided beside the Seven Mountains and the Drachenfels.
The sun, slowly setting, cast his yellow beams over the smooth waters.At the foot of the mountains lay a village deeply sequestered in shade;and above, the Ruin of the Drachenfels caught the richest beams of thesun. Yet thus alone, though lofty, the ray cheered not the gloom thathung over the giant rock: it stood on high, like some great name onwhich the light of glory may shine, but which is associated with acertain melancholy, from the solitude to which its very height above thelevel of the herd condemned its owner!
The Pilgrims of the Rhine Page 33