Also! Sie muessen so freundlich sein,
und verzeih mich die interlarding von ein oder zwei
Englischer Worte, hie und da, denn ich finde dass die
deutsche is not a very copious language, and so when
you've really got anything to say, you've got to draw
on a language that can stand the strain.
Wenn haber man kann nicht meinem Rede Verstehen, so werde
ich ihm spaeter dasselbe uebersetz, wenn er solche Dienst
verlangen wollen haben werden sollen sein haette. (I don't
know what wollen haben werden sollen sein haette means,
but I notice they always put it at the end of a German
sentence - merely for general literary gorgeousness,
I suppose.)
This is a great and justly honored day - a day which is
worthy of the veneration in which it is held by the true
patriots of all climes and nationalities - a day which
offers a fruitful theme for thought and speech; und meinem
Freunde - no, meinEN FreundEN - meinES FreundES - well,
take your choice, they're all the same price; I don't
know which one is right - also! ich habe gehabt haben
worden gewesen sein, as Goethe says in his Paradise
Lost - ich - ich - that is to say - ich - but let us change cars.
Also! Die Anblich so viele Grossbrittanischer und Amerikanischer
hier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar
a welcome and inspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you
to it? Can the terse German tongue rise to the expression of
this impulse? Is it Freundschaftsbezeigungenstadtverordneten-
versammlungenfamilieneigenthuemlichkeiten? Nein,
o nein! This is a crisp and noble word, but it fails
to pierce the marrow of the impulse which has gathered
this friendly meeting and produced diese Anblick - eine
Anblich welche ist gut zu sehen - gut fuer die Augen
in a foreign land and a far country - eine Anblick solche
als in die gewoehnliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein
"schoenes Aussicht!" Ja, freilich natuerlich wahrscheinlich
ebensowohl! Also! Die Aussicht auf dem Koenigsstuhl
mehr groesser ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht so
schoen, lob' Gott! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen,
in Bruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feirn,
whose high benefits were not for one land and one locality,
but have conferred a measure of good upon all lands
that know liberty today, and love it. Hundert Jahre
vorueber, waren die Englaender und die Amerikaner Feinde;
aber heut sind sie herzlichen Freunde, Gott sei Dank!
May this good-fellowship endure; may these banners here
blended in amity so remain; may they never any more wave
over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which
was kindred, is kindred, and always will be kindred,
until a line drawn upon a map shall be able to say:
"THIS bars the ancestral blood from flowing in the veins
of the descendant!"
APPENDIX E
Legend of the Castles
Called the "Swallow's Nest" and "The Brothers,"
as Condensed from the Captain's Tale
In the neighborhood of three hundred years ago the Swallow's
Nest and the larger castle between it and Neckarsteinach
were owned and occupied by two old knights who were
twin brothers, and bachelors. They had no relatives.
They were very rich. They had fought through the wars
and retired to private life - covered with honorable scars.
They were honest, honorable men in their dealings,
but the people had given them a couple of nicknames which
were very suggestive - Herr Givenaught and Herr Heartless.
The old knights were so proud of these names that if
a burgher called them by their right ones they would
correct them.
The most renowned scholar in Europe, at the time, was the
Herr Doctor Franz Reikmann, who lived in Heidelberg.
All Germany was proud of the venerable scholar, who lived
in the simplest way, for great scholars are always poor.
He was poor, as to money, but very rich in his sweet
young daughter Hildegarde and his library. He had been
all his life collecting his library, book and book,
and he lived it as a miser loves his hoarded gold.
He said the two strings of his heart were rooted,
the one in his daughter, the other in his books; and that
if either were severed he must die. Now in an evil hour,
hoping to win a marriage portion for his child, this simple
old man had entrusted his small savings to a sharper to be
ventured in a glittering speculation. But that was not
the worst of it: he signed a paper - without reading it.
That is the way with poets and scholars; they always sign
without reading. This cunning paper made him responsible
for heaps of things. The rest was that one night he
found himself in debt to the sharper eight thousand
pieces of gold! - an amount so prodigious that it simply
stupefied him to think of it. It was a night of woe in
that house.
"I must part with my library - I have nothing else.
So perishes one heartstring," said the old man.
"What will it bring, father?" asked the girl.
"Nothing! It is worth seven hundred pieces of gold;
but by auction it will go for little or nothing."
"Then you will have parted with the half of your heart
and the joy of your life to no purpose, since so mighty
of burden of debt will remain behind."
"There is no help for it, my child. Our darlings must
pass under the hammer. We must pay what we can."
"My father, I have a feeling that the dear Virgin will
come to our help. Let us not lose heart."
"She cannot devise a miracle that will turn NOTHING into
eight thousand gold pieces, and lesser help will bring
us little peace."
"She can do even greater things, my father.
