We ascended the mountain a few days ago.  There is a path which leads up through the forest, but we took the shortest way, directly up the side, though it was at an angle of nearly fifty degrees.  It was hard enough work, scrambling through the thick broom and heather, and over stumps and stones.  In one of the stone-heaps I dislodged a large orange-colored salamander, seven or eight inches long.  They are sometimes found on these mountains, as well as a very large kind of lizard, called the eidechse, which the Germans say is perfectly harmless, and if one whistles or plays a pipe, will come and play around him.  The view from the top reminded me of that from Catskill Mountain House, but is on a smaller scale.  The mountains stretch off sideways, confining the view to but half the horizon, and in the middle of the picture the Hudson is well represented by the lengthened windings of the “abounding Rhine.”  Nestled at the base below us, was the little village of Handschuhheim, one of the oldest in this part of Germany.  The castle of its former lords has nearly all fallen down, but the massive solidity of the walls which yet stand, proves its antiquity.  A few years ago, a part of the outer walls which was remarked to have a hollow sound, was taken down, when there fell from a deep niche built therein, a skeleton, clad in a suit of the old German armor.  We followed a road through the woods to the peak on which stand the ruins of St. Michael’s chapel, which was built in the tenth century and inhabited for a long time by a sect of white monks.  There is now but a single tower remaining, and all around is grown over with tall bushes and weeds.  It had a wild and romantic look, and I sat on a rock and sketched at it, till it grew dark, when we got down the mountain the best way we could.

We lately visited the great University Library.  You walk through one hall after another, filled with books of all kinds, from the monkish manuscript of the middle ages, to the most elegant print of the present day.  There is something to me more impressive in a library like this than a solemn Cathedral.  I think involuntarily of the hundreds of mighty spirits who speak from these three hundred thousand volumes—­of the toils and privations with which genius has ever struggled, and of his glorious reward.  As in a church, one feels as it were, the presence of God; not because the place has been hallowed by his worship, but because all around stand the inspirations of his spirit, breathed through the mind of genius, to men.  And if the mortal remains of saints and heroes do not repose within its walls, the great and good of the whole earth are there, speaking their counsels to the searcher for truth, with voices whose last reverberation will die away only when the globe falls into ruin.