Here in Heidelberg at last, and a most glorious town it is. This is our
first morning in our new rooms, and the sun streams warmly in the
eastern windows as I write, while the old castle rises through the blue
vapor on the side of the Kaiserstuhl. The Neckar rushes on below, and
the Odenwald, before me, rejoices with its vineyards in the morning
light....

There is so much to be seen around this beautiful place that I scarcely
know where to begin a description of it. I have been wandering among the
wild paths that lead up and down the mountain-side or away into the
forests and lonely meadows in the lap of the Odenwald. My mind is filled
with images of the romantic German scenery, whose real beauty is
beginning to displace the imaginary picture which I had painted with the
enthusiastic words of Howitt. I seem to stand now upon the Kaiserstuhl,
which rises above Heidelberg, with that magnificent landscape around me
from the Black Forest and Strassburg to Mainz, and from the Vosges in
France to the hills of Spessart in Bavaria.

What a glorious panorama! and not less rich in associations than in its
natural beauty. Below me had moved the barbarian hordes of old, the
triumphant followers of Arminius and the cohorts of Rome, and later full
many a warlike host bearing the banners of the red cross to the Holy
Land, many a knight returning with his vassals from the field to lay at
the feet of his lady-love the scarf he had worn in a hundred battles and
claim the reward of his constancy and devotion. But brighter spirits had
also toiled below. That plain had witnessed the presence of Luther, and
a host who strove with him. There had also trodden the master-spirits of
German song--the giant twain with their scarcely less harmonious
brethren. They, too, had gathered inspiration from those scenes--more