, or to escape the influence of that wild German spirit which
I have sought to transfer to a colder tongue.

I have made the experiment of selecting for the main interest of my
work the simplest materials, and weaving upon them the ornaments given
chiefly to subjects of a more fanciful nature. I know not how far I have
succeeded, but various reasons have conspired to make this the work,
above all others that I have written, which has given me the most
delight (though not unmixed with melancholy) in producing, and in which
my mind for the time has been the most completely absorbed. But the
ardour of composition is often disproportioned to the merit of the
work; and the public sometimes, nor unjustly, avenges itself for
that forgetfulness of its existence which makes the chief charm of an
author's solitude,--and the happiest, if not the wisest, inspiration of
his dreams.

PREFACE.

WITH the younger class of my readers this work has had the good fortune
to find especial favour; perhaps because it is in itself a collection of
the thoughts and sentiments that constitute the Romance of youth. It has
little to do with the positive truths of our actual life, and does not
pretend to deal with the larger passions and more stirring interests
of our kind. It is but an episode out of the graver epic of human
destinies. It requires no explanation of its purpose, and no analysis of
its story; the one is evident, the other simple,--the first seeks but
to illustrate visible nature through the poetry of the affections; the
other is but the narrative of the most real of mortal sorrows, which the
Author attempts to take out of the region of pain by various accessories
from the Ideal. The connecting tale itself is but the string that binds
into a garland the wild-flowers cast upon a grave.

The descriptions of the Rhine have been considered by Germans
sufficiently faithful to render this tribute to their land and
their legends one of the popular guide-books along the course it
illustrates,--especially to such tourists as wish not only to take
in with the eye the inventory of the river, but to seize the peculiar
spirit which invests the wave and the bank with a beauty that can only
be made visible by reflection. He little comprehends the true charm of
the Rhine who gazes on the vines on the hill-tops without a thought of
the imaginary world with which their recesses have been peopled by the
graceful credulity of old; who surveys th