and
invariably the same--'Behind Stobzenfels, on the Rhine.'"

It would be difficult better to illustrate German veneration and
affection for the Rhine, than by the above passages from one of the most
intellectual female writers of the day--a writer whose works will bear
comparison with those of George Sand for genius and masculine vigour of
style, (exempt, however, from much that is objectionable in the
French-woman;) while for elegance, taste, and a fine feeling for art and
poetry, they may be placed on the same line with those of our own
"Ennuyee." What the Countess Hahn Hahn feels and expresses with all the
fervour of a poetical imagination--the sort of exhilarating and exulting
love for the most classical stream of modern story--is felt in a greater
or less degree by all intellectual classes of Germans. Their veneration
for the old river that waters one of the sunniest and fairest districts
of the Vaterland, is profound; their admiration of the natural beauties,
and of the vestiges of days gone by, that abound upon its banks,
unceasing. German patriotism is comprehensive: it hails as one country
all the wide lands in which the Teuton tongue is spoken; and in nearly
all those lands is the Rhine thought and talked of with an admiration
amounting to enthusiasm. By a contradiction, however, of not unfrequent
occurrence, the people who seem least capable of sharing this feeling,
are those who ought to be most under its influence--the inhabitants of
the Rhine-country itself. The well known and often quoted passage of
Jean Jacques, applied by him to the dwellers on the shores of Lake
Leman, is equally applicable to the denizens of the Rhineland. "Je
dirois volontiers a ceux qui ont du gout et sont sensibles--allez a
Vevey, visitez le pays, examinez les sites, promenez vous sur le lac; et
dites si la nature n'a pas fait ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une
Claire, et pour un St Preux; mais---- ne les y cherchez pas." In like
manner we would say--Visit the Rhine, not as most tourists do, by
rushing in a steam-boat from Rotterdam or Cologne to Basle or Baden, but
deliberately, on shore as well as on the water, climbing the mountains
and strolling through the valleys, seeking out the innumerable and
enchanting points of view, and contemplating them by sunset and sunrise,
in the broad glare of noon and by the subdued evening light; and then
say whether such a country is not worthy of different inhabitants from
the mongre