It Was Raining Hard When We Reached Eisenach Station, And Engaged
A Carriage To Take Us To The Wartburg.
The mist, which wreathed
thickly around, showed us only glimpses as we wound slowly up the
castle hill - enough, however, to pique the imagination, and show how
beautiful it might be in fair weather.
The grounds are finely kept: winding paths invite to many a charming
stroll. When about half way up, as the rain had partially subsided, I
left the carriage, and toiled up the laborious steep on foot, that I
might observe better. You approach the castle by a path cut through
the rock for about thirty or forty feet. At last I stood under a low
archway of solid stone masonry, about twenty feet thick. There had
evidently been three successive doors; the outer one was gone, and the
two inner were wonderfully massive, braced with iron, and having each
a smaller wicket door swung back on its hinges.
As my party were a little behind, I had time to stop and meditate. I
fancied a dark, misty night, and the tramp of a party of horsemen
coming up the rocky path to the gateway; the parley at the wicket; the
unbarred doors, creaking on their rusty hinges, - one, two, three, - are
opened; in clatters the cavalcade. In the midst of armed men with
visors down, a monk in cowl and gown, and with that firm look about
the lips which is so characteristic in Luther's portraits. But here
our party came up, and the vision was dispelled. As none of us knew a
word of German, we stood rather irresolutely looking at the buildings
which, in all shapes and varieties, surround the court. I went into
one room - it was a pantry; into another - it was a wash room; into a
third - it was a sitting room, garnished with antlers, and hung round
with hard old portraits of princes and electors, and occupied by
Germans smoking and drinking beer. One is sure that in this respect
one cannot fail of seeing the place as it was in Luther's time. If
they were Germans, of course they drank beer out of tall, narrow beer
glasses; that is as immutable a fact as the old stones of the
battlement.
"H.," said C., "did the Germans use to smoke in Luther's day?"
"No. Why?"
"0, nothing. Only, what could they do with themselves?"
"I do not know, unless they drank the more beer."
"But what could they do with their chimney-hood?"
So saying, the saucy fellow prowled about promiscuously a while,
assailing one and another in French, to about as much purpose as one
might have tried to storm the walls with discharges of thistle down;
all smoked and drank as before. But as several other visitors arrived,
and it became evident that if we did not come to see the castle, it
was not likely we came for any thing else, a man was fished up from
some depths unknown, with a promising bunch of keys.
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