I Never Look At One Of Them Without Feeling That Gravitation Of Soul
Towards Its Artist Which Poetry Always Excites.
Often the artist is
unknown; here we know him; Erwin von Steinbach, poet, prophet, priest,
in architecture.
We visited his house - a house old and quaint, and to me _full_ of
suggestions and emotions. Ah, if there be, as the apostle vividly
suggests, houses not made with hands, strange splendors, of which
these are but shadows, that vast religious spirit may have been
finding scope for itself where all the forces of nature shall have
been made tributary to the great conceptions of the soul.
Save this cathedral, Strasbourg has nothing except peaked-roofed
houses, dotted with six or seven rows of gable windows.
LETTER XL.
HEIDELBERG.
MY DEAR: -
To-day we made our first essay on the Rhine. Switzerland is a poor
preparation for admiring any common scenery; but the Rhine from
Strasbourg to Manheim seemed only a muddy strip of water, with low
banks, poplars, and willows. If there was any thing better, we passed
it while I was asleep; for I did sleep, even on the classic Rhine.
Day before yesterday, at Basle, I went into the museum, and there saw
some original fragments of the Dance of Death, and many other pictures
by Holbein, with two miniature likenesses of Luther and his wife, by
Lucas Cranach; they are in water colors. Catharine was no beauty at
that time, if Lucas is to be trusted, and Luther looks rather savage.
But I saw a book of autographs, and several original letters of
Luther's. I saw the word "Jesus" at the top of one of them, thus, "J.
U. S." The handwriting was fair, even, and delicate.
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