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.
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