The Harz Mountains, their legends and songs, have been so often written of there is danger of stupid repetition if one goes over the ground.
A novel experience for an American is to have an attack of rheumatism in the house of an old Polish major in midsummer, in Wernigerode, and be attended by the physician of Count Von Stolberg. To inform those who may be so unfortunate as to meet with a similar fate what will become of them, I would simply remark that the subterfuge of every German doctor, when he finds a case getting beyond his control, is to recommend a water-cure. The one at Magdeburg being the nearest to Wernigerode, is the one which Count Von Stolburg’s physician would be best acquainted with, so off to the old city and farewell to the Harz! What rheumatic patient cares for a view of a fine old cathedral from a window, or to be informed that the city has existed since the eighth century? Do these facts lessen the pain or quiet the nerves? After the bath has restored the patient, and he or she can walk out and examine the cathedral, and read of the sufferings of the people in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, and again how the Austrian army was resisted by Wallenstein for seven months, and how the French besieged and took it in 1806, and again in 1813—thus there is diversion in finding oneself on such historic grounds and picturesque surroundings.
Ye flowers in your wonderful silence, Ye birds with your wonderful sound, The love of my God are declaring; For ye are the language he found.
Ye smile to the eye of my spirit, Ye sing to the ear of my soul; Ye waken soft echoes of anthems Which over God’s Paradise roll.
Ye bloom as ye bloomed once in Eden, Make holy and sacred the sod; Ye sing as you sang when in rapture Man counted you angels of God.
By you—common things of the desert— God’s love has this miracle wrought: Ye fill me with exquisite gladness, With worship which silences thought. —_London Sunday Magazine._
REPUBLICS where high birth gives no right to the government of the state, are in that respect the most happy; for the people have less reason to envy an authority which they confer on whom they will, and which they can again take away when they choose.—_Montesquieu._