On the principle of rhetoric, that a description should end with that which leaves the deepest impression, I end my letter here, with the softened light of that Mausoleum falling on that breathing marble; for in all my memories of Berlin, no one thing—neither palace, nor museum, nor the statue of Frederick the Great, nor the Column of Victory—has left in me so deep a feeling as the silent form of that beautiful Queen. Queen Louise is a marked figure in German history, being invested with touching interest by her beauty and her sorrow, and early death. I like to think of such a woman as the mother of a royal race, now actors on the stage. It cannot but be that the memory of her beauty, associated with her patriotism, her courage, and her devotion, should long remain an inheritance of that royal line, and their most precious inspiration. May the young princes, growing up to be future kings and emperors, as they gather round her tomb, tenderly cherish her memory and imitate her virtues!
CHAPTER XV.
AUSTRIA—OLD AND NEW.
Vienna, August 12th.
We are taking such a wide sweep through Central Europe, travelling from city to city, and country to country, that my materials accumulate much faster than I can use them. There are three cities which I should be glad to describe in detail—Hamburg, Dresden, and Prague. Hamburg, to which we came from Amsterdam, perhaps appears more beautiful from the contrast, and remains in our memory as the fairest city of the North. Dresden, the capital of Saxony, is also a beautiful city, and attracts a great number of English and American residents by its excellent opportunities of education, and from its treasures of art, in which it is richer than any other city in Germany. Our stay there was made most pleasant by an American family whom we had known on the other side of the Atlantic, who gave us a cordial welcome, and under whose roof we felt how sweet is the atmosphere of an American home. The same friends, when we left, accompanied us on our way into the Saxon Switzerland, conducting us to the height of the Bastei, a huge cliff, which from the very top of a mountain overhangs the Elbe, which winds its silver current through the valley below, while on the other side of the river the fortress-crowned rock of Konigstein lifts up its head, like Edinburgh Castle, to keep ward and watch over the beautiful kingdom of Saxony.
And there is dear old Prague, rusty and musty, that in some quarters has such a tumble down air that it seems as if it were to be given up to Jews, who were going to convert it into a huge Rag Fair for the sale of old clothes, and yet that in other quarters has new streets and new squares, and looks as if it had caught a little of the spirit of the modern time. But the interest of Prague to a stranger must be chiefly historical—for what it has been rather than for what it is. These associations are so many and so rich, that to one familiar with them, the old churches and bridges, and towers and castles, are full of stirring memories. As we rode across the bridge, from which St. John of Nepomuc was thrown into the river, five hundred years ago, because he would not betray to a wicked king the secret which the queen had confided to him in the confessional, up to the Cathedral where a gorgeous shrine of silver keeps his dust, and perpetuates his memory, the lines of Longfellow were continually running in my mind:
I have read in some old marvellous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale