The Solitude is not far from here. Built first for a hunting-lodge between 1763 and 1767, it was gradually improved, enlarged, and beautified, grew into a pleasure palace, had its time of brilliant life and of decay; and now, renovated by the king's command, is a place where people go for the walk and the view, and where in summer a few visitors live quietly in pure air, and drink milk, it being a Cur-Anstalt. The adjacent buildings were used as a hospital during the late war. The Solitude is not in itself an interesting structure; it is in rococo style, having a large oval hall with a high dome, adjoining pavilions, and it looks white and gold, and bare and cold, and disappointing to most people. There is nothing especial to see,—a little fresco, a little old china, some immensely rich tapestry, white satin embroidered with gold, adorning one of those pompous, impossible beds, in which it seems as if nobody could ever have slept. But there is enough to feel, as there must always be in places where the damp atmosphere is laden with secrets a century old, and the walls whisper strange things. There are narrow, triangular cabinets and boudoirs with nothing at all in them, which, however, make you feel that you will presently stumble upon something amazing. All of Bluebeard's wives hanging in a row would hardly surprise one here. The place is full, in spite of its emptiness. It seems scarcely fitting that the many mirrors should reflect a little band of tourists in travelling suits and with umbrellas, instead of stately dames and cavaliers affecting French manners and French morals, and gleaming in satin and jewels beneath the glass chandeliers. There is a walk, always cool even in the hottest summer days, where in a double alley of superb pines the company used to seek shade and rest, and the fair ladies paced slowly up and down in their long trains, and fluttered their fans and heard airy nothings whispered in their ears. Wooded slopes rise high around, and this walk, deep down in a narrow valley, being quite invisible from the ordinary paths, is called the Underground Way. The breath of the old days is here especially subtle and suggestive.
The map of the place, as it was, tells of orangeries, pleasure pavilions, rose and laurel gardens, labyrinths, artificial lakes and islands, and many things of whose magnificence few traces remain. The common-looking buildings, formerly dwellings of the cavaliers in attendance, stand in a row; there are a few small houses with queer roofs; the Schloss itself stands on its height in the centre of an open space, fine old woods around, and an unusually extended view, from its cupola, of a broad, peaceful plain, a village or two, the Suabian Alb to the south; a straight, white-looking road intersects the meadows and woods, and leads to Ludwigsburg. This road was made by Carl Eugen, to avoid passing through Stuttgart, his choleric highness having had a grudge against the city at that time,—and indeed it has a spiteful air, with its utter disregard of hills and valleys, going straight as an arrow flies, never turning out for obstructions any more than the haughty duke would have turned aside for a subject. Fabulous stories are told of the speed with which his horse's hoofs used to clatter over this turnpike, and the incredibly short time in which, by frequently changing horses, he would arrive at his destination.
The romantic story of Francisca von Hohenheim and many interesting facts in Schiller's early life, during his attendance at the Carlsschule, a famous military academy, instituted by, and under the patronage of, Carl Eugen, are inevitably interwoven in any history of the Solitude; but both need more time than can be given at the close of so hasty a sketch. And indeed, from almost any point that might be taken here, threads wind off into a mass of stories and traditions far too wide-reaching to be more than hinted at when one is only making a little Ausflug and carelessly following one's will on a fair April day.
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A DAY IN THE BLACK FOREST.
“Zu Hirsau in den Trümmern
Da wiegt ein Ulmenbaum
Frischgrünend seine Krone
Hoch überm Giebelsaum.”
—Uhland.
One of the loveliest spots in all Würtemberg is Hirsau. It lies deep down in a valley on the Nagold, over which is a pretty stone bridge. High around rise the noble pines of the Black Forest, whose impenetrable gloom contrasts with the tender green of spring meadows basking in the sunshine, and makes, with the fringe of elms and birches and willows along the banks of the stream, a most magical effect of light and shade.
Blessings on the one of us who first said, “Let us see the old cloister at Hirsau!” An ideal spring day, a particularly well-chosen few, a trip by rail to Alt-Hengstett, then a long, lovely tramp over the moss carpet of the Black Forest, inhaling the sweet breath of the pines, finding each moment a more exquisite flower, catching bewitching glimpses between the trees of silver streams hurrying along far down below us,—this is what it was like; but the softness, the sweetness, the exhilaration of it all is not easy to indicate. The name itself, “Black Forest,” sounds immensely gloomy and mysterious. Goblins and witches and shrieks and moans and pitfalls and all uncanny weird things haunted the Black Forest of which we used to read years ago. And what does it mean to us now? Magnificent old woods, paths that beckon and smile, softly whispering, swaying tree-tops, turf like velvet, sunlight playing fitfully among the stately pines, seeking entrance where it may, and air that must bring eternal youth in its caresses. It means forgetfulness of trammels and all sordid, petty things, and being in tune with the harmonies of nature. It means freedom and peace; a “temple,” indeed, with the pines continually breathing their sweet incense and singing their sacred chants. There were in our party a professor or two, more than one poet,—indeed, it is said every other man in Suabia is a poet,—and a world-renowned art scholar and critic. They shook the dust of every-day life from their feet, and were happy as boys; one of them lay among the daisies, smiling like a child with the pure delight of living in such air and amid such peaceful beauty.
At the little Gasthaus in Hirsau, with the sign of the swan, we refreshed ourselves after our tramp. It is remarkable that poets, like clergymen, must also eat. After a few merry, graceful toasts and cooling draughts of the pleasant Landwein, we went to the cloister ruins. The work of excavation is still going on, much that we saw being but recently brought to the light. There were a few massive old walls at wide distances apart; the pavement of the aisles quite grass-grown between the low, broad, gray stones; fair fields of tall grass bright with daisies and buttercups, and starry white flowers,—a fascinating mass of variegated brightness, catching the sunshine and swaying in the breeze; a row of fine old Gothic windows; a tower in the Romanisch style of the twelfth century, which we, I believe, call Norman; a deep cellar where the monks of old stored their wines. Up a flight of stairs is a great bare room, where against the walls stand heavy wooden cases with carved borders, and in the ceiling is the same quaint carving slightly raised on a darker ground.
The whole effect of the ruins conveys the idea of immense size. The church was, indeed, the largest in Germany except the cathedral at Ulm. It is here an unusually lovely, peaceful scene. The cloister ruins would be, anywhere, picturesque and interesting in themselves; lying as they do above the village, framed by the beautiful Schwarzwald, they form a picture not easily forgotten. No far-extending view, nothing grand or imposing, only the exquisite, peaceful picture shut in by the dark-green hills; quaint homes nestling among rosy apple-blossoms; the great gray stone Brünnen, where for years and years maidens have come to fill their buckets and chat in the twilight after the day's work is done; the Nagold, silver in the sunlight; the cloister, with its old-time traditions,—all so very, very far from the madding crowd.