"Constantine the Great used to come
here - so did Agrippa.
(N.B. - Try and find out something about
Agrippa.) Caesar had a good deal to do with the Rhine - also Nero's
mother."
(To the reader. - The brevity of these memoranda renders their
import, at times, confusing. For instance, this means that Caesar
and Nero's mother both had a good deal to do with the Rhine; not
that Caesar had a good deal to do with Nero's mother. I explain
this because I should be sorry to convey any false impression
concerning either the lady or Caesar. Scandal is a thing abhorrent
to my nature.)
Notes continued: "The Ubii did something on the right bank of the
Rhine at an early period, and afterwards were found on the other
side. (Expect the Ubii were a tribe; but make sure of this, as they
might be something in the fossil line.) Cologne was the cradle of
German art. Talk about art and the old masters. Treat them in a
kindly and gentle spirit. They are dead now. Saint Ursula was
murdered at Cologne, with eleven thousand virgin attendants. There
must have been quite a party of them. Draw powerful and pathetic
imaginary picture of the slaughter. (N.B. - Find out who murdered
them all.) Say something about the Emperor Maximilian. Call him
'the mighty Maximilian.' Mention Charlemagne (a good deal should be
made out of Charlemagne) and the Franks. (Find out all about the
Franks, and where they lived, and what has become of them.) Sketch
the various contests between the Romans and the Goths. (Read up
'Gibbon' for this, unless you can get enough out of Mangnall's
Questions.) Give picturesque account - with comments - of the battles
between the citizens of Cologne and their haughty archbishops.
(N.B. - Let them fight on a bridge over the Rhine, unless it is
distinctly stated somewhere that they didn't.) Bring in the Minne-
singers, especially Walter von Vogelweid; make him sing under a
castle-wall somewhere, and let the girl die. Talk about Albert
Durer. Criticise his style. Say it's flat. (If possible, find out
if it IS flat.) "The rat tower on the Rhine," near Bingen.
Describe the place and tell the whole story. Don't spin it out too
long, because everybody knows it. "The Brothers of Bornhofen,"
story connected with the twin castles of Sterrenberg and
Liebenstein, Conrad and Heinrich - brothers - both love Hildegarde.
She was very beautiful. Heinrich generously refuses to marry the
beautiful Hildegarde, and goes away to the Crusades, leaving her to
his brother Conrad. Conrad considers over the matter for a year or
two, and then HE decides that he won't marry her either, but will
leave her for his brother Heinrich, and HE goes off to the Crusades,
from whence he returns, a few years later on, with a Grecian bride.
The beautiful H., muddled up between the pair of them, and the
victim of too much generosity, gets sulky (don't blame her), and
shuts herself up in a lonely part of the castle, and won't see
anybody for years.
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