Than noblest objects utterly decay'd."
Close to the ruins of poor Elizabeth's palace, there where the effigies of her handsome husband, and his bearded ancestor Louis V. look down from the ivy-mantled wall, you remember the beautiful terrace towards the west? It is still,—after four centuries of changes, of disasters, of desolation,—the garden of Clara. When Frederic the Victorious assumed the sovereignty, in a moment of danger and faction, he took, at the same time, a solemn vow never to marry, that the rights of his infant nephew, the son of the late palatine, should not be prejudiced, nor the peace of the country endangered by a disputed succession. He kept his oath religiously, but at that very time he loved Clara Dettin de Wertheim, a young girl of plebeian origin, and a native of Augsburg, whose musical talents and melody of voice had raised her to a high situation in the court of the late princess palatine. Frederick, with the consent of his nephew, was united to Clara by a left-hand marriage, an expedient still in use in Germany, and, I believe, peculiar to its constitution; such a marriage is valid before God and man, yet the wife has no acknowledged rights, and the offspring no supposed existence. Clara is celebrated by the poets and chroniclers of her time, and appears to have been a very extraordinary being in her way. In that age of ignorance, she had devoted herself to study—she could sympathize in her husband's pursuits, and share the toils of government—she collected round her the wisest and most learned men of the time—she continued to cultivate the beautiful voice which had won the heart of Frederic, and her song and her lute were always ready to soothe his cares. Tradition points out the spot where it is said she loved to meditate, and, looking down upon the little hamlet, on the declivity of the hill, to recall her own humble origin; that little hamlet, embowered in foliage, and the remembrance of Clara, have survived the glories of Heidelberg. Her descendants became princes of the empire, and still exist in the family of Lowenstein.
Then, for those who love the marvellous, there is the wild legend of the witch Jetta, who still flits among the ruins, and bathes her golden tresses in the Wolfsbrunnen; but why should I tell you of these tales—you, whose head is a sort of black-letter library?
MEDON.
True; but it is pleasant to have one's old recollections taken down from their shelves and dusted, and placed in a new light; only do not require, even if I again visit Heidelberg, that I should see it as you have beheld it, with your quick spirit of association, and clothed in the hues of your own individual mind. While you speak, it is not so much the places and objects you describe, as their reflection in your own fancy, which I see before me; and every different mind will reflect them under a different aspect. Then, where is truth? you say. If we want information as to mere facts—the situation of a town, the measurement of a church, the date of a ruin, the catalogue of a gallery—we can go to our dictionaries and our guides des voyageurs. But if, besides form and outline, we must have colouring too, we should remember that every individual mind will paint the scene with its own proper hues; and if we judge of the mind and the objects it represents relatively to each other, we may come at the truth, not otherwise. I would ask nothing of a traveller, but accuracy and sincerity in the expression of his opinions and feelings. I have then a page out of the great book of human nature—the portrait of a particular mind; when that is fairly before me I have a standard by which to judge: I can draw my own inferences. Will you not allow that it is possible to visit Heidelberg, and to derive the most intense pleasure from its picturesque beauty, without dreaming over witches and warriors, palatines and princes? Can we not admire and appreciate the sculpture in the palace of Otho-Henry, without losing ourselves in vague, wondering reveries over the destinies of the sculptors?
ALDA.
Yes; but it is amusing, and not less instructive, to observe the manner in which the individual character and pursuits shall modify the impressions of external things; only we should be prepared for this, as the pilot makes allowance for the variation of the needle, and directs his course accordingly. It is a mistake to suppose that those who cannot see the imaginative aspect of things, see, therefore, the only true aspect; they only see one aspect of the truth. Vous étes orfêvre, Monsieur Josse, is as applicable to travellers as to every other species of egotist.
Once, in an excursion to the north, I fell into conversation with a Sussex farmer, one of that race of sturdy, rich, and independent English yeomen, of which I am afraid few specimens remain: he was quite a character in his way. I must sketch him for you; but only Miss Mitford could do him justice. His coat was of the finest broad-cloth; his shirt-frill, in which was stuck a huge agate pin, and his neckcloth, were both white as the snow; his good beaver shone in all its pristine gloss, and an enormous bunch of gold seals adorned his watch-chain; his voice was loud and dictatorial, and his language surprisingly good and flowing, though tinctured with a little coarseness and a few provincialisms. He had made up his mind about the Reform Bill—the Catholic Question—the Corn Laws—and about things in general, and things in particular; he had doubts about nothing: it was evident that he was accustomed to lay down the law in his own village—that he was the tyrant of his own fire-side—that his wife was "his horse, his ox, his ass, his any thing," while his sons went to college, and his daughters played on the piano. London was to him merely a vast congregation of pestilential vapours—a receptacle of thieves, cut-throats and profligates—a place in which no sensible man, who had a care for his life, his health, or his pockets, would willingly set his foot; he thanked God that he never spent but two nights in the metropolis, and at intervals of twenty-seven years: the first night he had passed in the streets, in dread of fire and vermin; and on the last occasion, he had not ventured beyond Smithfield. What he did not know, was to him not worth knowing; and the word French, which comprised all that was foreign, he used as a term, expressing the most unbounded abhorrence, pity, and contempt. I should add, that though rustic, and arrogant, and prejudiced, he was not vulgar. We were at an inn, on the borders of Leicestershire, through which we had both recently travelled; my farmer was enthusiastic in his admiration of the country. "A fine country, madam—a beautiful country—a splendid country!"
"Do you call it a fine country?" said I, absently, my head full of the Alps and Appenines, the Pyrenean, and the river Po.