Our boat seemed to be the only floating thing for miles!
Had it not been for an occasional twinkle from the far-off window of some riparian villa, and the “whish” of a startled swan as it swerved aside to allow the boat to sweep by, we might easily have imagined ourselves traversing the bosom of one of those vast, solitary rivers of the wilderness across the sea.
The children were nearly all asleep, tired out with happiness in excess; and, most of us were silent, being awed by the beauty of the evening into voiceless admiration.
A little girl near us, wakeful still, was breaking one of the daisy-chains that Min had woven her at Richmond, and casting the pieces one by one into the current as it hurried along:—the daisy cups sometimes keeping pace with us, as our tow-rope slackened, and then falling astern, on our horse trotting ahead once more.
“Don’t you remember,” said I to Min, “those lines of Schiller’s Der Jungling am Bache? They seem appropriate to that little incident,”—I continued, pointing to the small toddlekin, who was destroying the daisy-chain:—
“‘An der Quelle sass der Knabe
Blumen wand er sich zum Kranz,
Und er sah sie fortgerissen
Treiben in den wellen Tanz.
Und so fleihen meine Tage,
Wie die quelle rastlos hin!
Und so bleichet meine Jugend,
Wie die Kränze schnell verblühn!’”
“They are very pretty,” said Min. “Still, do you know, as a rule I do not think German poetry nice. It always sounds so harsh and guttural to me, however tender and sentimental the words may be.”
“That may be true in some respects,” I answered; “but if you hear it well read, or sung, there is much more pathos and softness about it than one is able to discern when simply skimming it over to oneself. Some of Goethe’s little ballads, for instance, such as ‘The Erl King,’ and others that Walter Scott has translated, are wonderfully beautiful; not to speak of Uhland’s poetry, and La Motte Fouque’s charming Undine, which is as pretty a poem as I have ever read.”
“I confess,” said Min, “that I have not had any general experience of German literature. Indeed, I have quite neglected it since I left school; and then I only studied heavy books—such as The History of Frederick the Great, that wearisome Jungfrau von Orleans, and others of Schiller’s plays.”
“Ah!” I replied, “that accounts for it, then. The more you read German, the more you will like it. I think our schoolmasters and schoolmistresses make a great mistake, generally, in the books they select for the instruction and familiarising of their pupils with foreign languages. They appear, really, to choose the driest authors they can pick out! If I had anything to do with ‘teaching the young idea how to shoot,’ I should adopt a very different plan.”