Wittenberg Is Now A Mean Little Town; All Looks Poor And Low; Yet It
Seems Like A Place That Has Seen Better Days.
Houses, now used as
paltry shops, have, some of them, carved oaken doors, with antic
freaks of architecture, which seem to signify that their former owners
were able to make a figure in the world.
In fact, the houses seem a
sort of phantasmagoria of decayed gentlefolk, in the faded, tarnished,
old-fashioned finery of the past. Our guide halts her trot suddenly
before a house, which she announces as that of Louis Cranach; then on
she goes. Louis is dead, and Magdalen, his wife, also; so there is no
one there to welcome us; on we go also. Once Louis was a man of more
consequence.
Now we come to Luther's house - a part of the old convent. Wide yawns
the stone doorway of the court; a grinning masque grotesquely looks
down from its centre, and odd carvings from the sides. A colony of
swallows have established their nests among the queer old carvings and
gnome-like faces, and are twittering in and out, superintending their
domestic arrangements. We enter a court surrounded with buildings;
then ascend, through a strange doorway, a winding staircase, passing
small, lozenge-shaped window. Up these stairs _he_ oft trod, in
all the moods of that manifold and wonderful nature - gay, joyous,
jocose, fervent, defiant, imploring; and up these stairs have trod
wondering visitors, thronging from all parts of the world, to see the
man of the age. Up these stairs come Philip Melanchthon, Lucas
Cranach, and their wives, to see how fares Luther after some short
journey, or some new movement. Now, all past, all solitary; the stairs
dirty, the windows dim.
[Illustration: _of Luther's room._]
And this is Luther's room. It was a fine one in its day, that is
plain. The arched recesses of the windows; the roof, divided in
squares, and, like the walls and cornice, painted in fresco; the
windows, with their quaint, round panes, - all, though now so soiled
and dim, speak plainly of a time when life was here, and all things
wore a rich and joyous glow. In this room that great heart rejoiced in
the blessedness of domestic life, and poured forth some of those
exulting strains, glorifying the family state, which yet remain. Here
his little Magdalen, his little Jacky, and the rest made joyous
uproar.
There stands his writing table, a heavy mass of wood; clumsy as the
time and its absurdities, rougher now than ever, in its squalid old
age, and partly chipped away by relic seekers. Here he sat; here lay
his paper; over this table was bent that head whose brain power was
the earthquake of Europe. Here he wrote books which he says were
rained, hailed, and snowed from the press in every language and
tongue. Kings and emperors could not bind the influence from this
writing table; and yet here, doubtless, he wrestled, struggled,
prayed, and such tears as only he could shed fell upon it.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 196 of 233
Words from 101045 to 101555
of 120793
