LETTER II.
Wesel, Sept. 20th, 1826.
Beloved Friend,
After taking leave of Göthe and his family, and paying a last visit to a distinguished and charming artist in her ‘atélier,’ I quitted the German Athens, stored with pleasant recollections.
I staid only just so long in Götha as was necessary to visit an old friend and comrade, the minister and astronomer (heaven and earth in strange conjunction) Baron Von L——. I found him still suffering from the consequences of his unfortunate duel in Paris, but bearing this calamity with the calmness of a sage, which he has displayed in every circumstance of his life.
It was dark when I reached Eisenach, where I had a message to deliver to another old comrade from the Grand Duke. I saw his house brilliantly lighted up, heard the music of the dance, and was ushered into the midst of a large company, who looked astonished at my travelling costume. It was the wedding-day of my friend’s daughter, and heartily did he welcome me as soon as he recognized me. I apologized to the bride for my unbridal garments, drank a glass of iced punch to her health, another to that of her father, danced a Polonaise, and disappeared, ‘à la Française.’ Very shortly afterwards I made my night toilet, and laid myself comfortably to rest in my carriage.
When I awoke, I found myself a stage from Cassel, at the very place where, ten years ago, we made our strange ‘entrée,’ with the pole of our carriage standing erect, and the postilion apparently mounted upon it. I breakfasted here, and thought over many circumstances of that journey; drove through the pretty, melancholy little capital without stopping; then through a noble beech wood, which gleamed in the sunshine with a gold-green lustre; made romantic observations on a curious hill covered with the moss-grown ruins; and hurrying on through this monotonous district, reached the ancient see of Osnabruck at dinner-time.
One always sleeps better in a carriage the second night than the first; the motion acts upon one like that of a cradle upon children. I felt well and in good spirits next morning, and remarked that the whole face of the country began to assume a Dutch character. Antique houses, with numerous gables and windows; an unintelligible Platt Deutsch, which nowise yields in harmony to the Dutch; a more phlegmatic people; better furnished rooms, though still without Dutch cleanliness; tea instead of coffee; excellent fresh butter and cream; increased extortions of innkeepers;—all presented a new shade of this many-coloured world.
The country through which my road lay had a more agreeable and softer character, especially at Stehlen on the Ruhr, a place made for a man who wishes to retire from the tumult of the world to cheerful seclusion. I could not gaze my fill on the fresh succulent vegetation, the magnificent oak and beech woods which crowned the hills on the right and left, sometimes growing down to the very road, sometimes going off into the distance; everywhere skirting the most fruitful fields, shaded with red and brown where they had been newly ploughed, clothed in deep or tender green where they were covered by the young winter crops or the fresh clover. Every village is surrounded by a belt of beautiful trees, and nothing can exceed the luxuriance of the meadows through which the Ruhr winds in fantastic meanderings. Towards evening, as I was comparing this smiling landscape with our gloomy pine forests, a tongue of homelike land suddenly appeared as if by enchantment, with its sand, shingle, and arid stunted birch-trees, stretching across the road as far as the eye could reach. In ten minutes the green meadows and proud beeches greeted us again. What revolution was it that threw this tract of sand here?
A few miles from Wesel, however, the whole country becomes ‘tout de bon’ fatherlandish, and, as the ‘chaussée’ ends here, one wades once more through Berlin loose sand. I arrived unfortunately a day too late to sail from hence by the steamboat, otherwise I might have reached London from Weimar in four days and a half. Now I must travel by land to Rotterdam, and there wait the departure of the first vessel.