He Sallied Forth To That Part Of The Castle Which Is Undergoing Repairs.

Passing through bricks and mortar, under scaffolds, &c., we came to the armory, full of old knights and steeds in complete armor; that is to say, the armor was there, and, without peeping between the crevices, one could hardly tell that their owners were not at home in their iron houses.

There sat the Elector of Saxony, in full armor, on his horse, which was likewise cased in steel. There was the suit of armor in which Constable Bourbon fell under the walls of Rome, and other celebrated suits, some covered with fine engraved work, and some gilded. A quantity of banners literally hung in tatters, dropping to pieces with age. Here were the middle ages all standing.

Then we passed up to a grand hall, which is now being restored with great taste after the style of that day - a long, lofty room, with an arched roof, and a gallery on one side, and beyond, a row of Romanesque arched windows, commanding a view of the country around. Having finished the tour of this part, we went back, ascended an old, rude staircase, and were ushered into Luther's Patmos, about ten or twelve feet square. The window looked down the rocky sides into an ocean of seething mist. I opened it, but could see nothing of all those scenes he describes so graphically from this spot. I thought of his playful letter on the "Diet of the Rooks," but there was not a rook at hand to illustrate antiquity. There was his bedstead and footstool, a mammoth vertebra, and his writing table. A sculptured chair, the back of which is carved into a cherub's head, bending forward and shadowing with its wings the head of the sitter, was said to be of the time of Luther, but not _his_ chair. There were some of his books, and a rude, iron-studded clothes press.

Thus ended for me the Lutheran pilgrimage. I had now been perseveringly to all the shrines, and often inquired of myself whether our conceptions are helped by such visitations. I decided the question in the affirmative; that they are, if from the dust of the present we can recreate the past, and bring again before us the forms as they then lived, moved, and had their being. For me, I seem to have seen Luther, Cranach, Melanchthon, and all the rest of them - to have talked with them. By the by, I forgot to mention the portraits of Luther's father and mother, which are in his cell. They show that his _mother_ was no common woman. She puts me in mind of the mother of Samuel J. Mills - a strong, shrewd, bright, New England character.

I must not forget to notice, too, a little glitter of effect - a little, shadowy, fanciful phase of feeling - that came over me when in Luther's cell at Erfurt. The time, as I told you, was golden twilight, and little birds were twittering and chirping around the casement, and I thought how he might have sat there, in some golden evening, sad and dreamy, hearing the birds chirp, and wondering why he alone of all creation should be so sad.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 204 of 233
Words from 105232 to 105773 of 120793