We may remark, in conclusion, that, amongst the students, snuff-taking is much less common than smoking: and, having thus sufficiently described, to our fancy, the two most constant companions of the Son of the Muses, his dog and his pipe, we may now, without further care, leave him to follow his labours, and amusements in such good company.
[CHAPTER X.]
RURAL AND SUMMER AMUSEMENTS OF THE STUDENTS.
The natural beauties of Heidelberg are well known abroad. Who is he who has looked upon its picturesque environs with a healthful mind, and has not been enraptured with them? Therefore, the son of the Muses, who is here passing his student years, eagerly hastens out in the lovely days of summer into the free regions of nature that lie around. The walks in the immediate vicinity of the city are diligently trodden by him. Above all, the castle enjoys the frequent visits of the student youth in thronging numbers. The student is to be met here every hour of the day, but he still more loves to survey here the beauties of a moonlight night. Leaning over the terrace, he looks down upon the city as it lies in its solemn silence stretched along the bank of the Neckar. Its inhabitants, with all their troubles and pleasures,--his companions, with all the pursuits and passions of restless youth, are hushed into deep slumber. He only wakes, but the hours which he steals from sleep are not lost. He glances wide over the plain of the Pfalz, which, illuminated by the moon's uncertain light, offers to the eye no longer its boundary of hills. Opposite to him, the castle rears its gigantic pile, and varying its outlines with every change of the moonlight, challenges the imagination to equal its bold features in its highest flights. The moon now advances from behind some envious cloud, and the windows of the palace of Otto Heinrich appear magically lit up, and it seems again to stand in all the splendour of past ages. But the solitary watcher has unconsciously wandered forward till he finds himself standing close to the spot where Matthieson sung his elegy. Suddenly all falls back into shade, and before him stands a sublime image of the wrath and passions of man--the rifted tower--one part blown up and hurled, in one mighty mass, into the moat. In the vaulted chambers of the yet standing portion, the mysterious forms of heroes long gone down to the dust, seem to erect themselves, and to cry wo over the desolating fury of the French. The wanderer feels a momentary shiver pass through him--but he glances up to heaven, which expands above him in its glorious clearness--an image of divine peace and rest; the owl, with its dismal shout of joy, brings him back from his dreams, and in silence he descends to the silent city.
How sweet 'tis in the air!
No hateful tyrant there
Scathes Nature's fair reign.
No base adulator,
No slanderous traitor,
Empoisons the plain.
Salis.
The cool shades of the Wolfsbrunnen afford the student a delicious retreat in the heat of a summer's day; and many another spot of the vicinity are sought by him with equal delight, which have been already often sketched and described.