About noon, from the top of the last range of hills, we had a glorious view.  The line of the distant Alps could be faintly traced high in the clouds, and all the heights between were plainly visible, from the Lake of Constance to the misty Jura, which flanked the Vosges on the west.  From our lofty station we overlooked half Switzerland, and, had the air been a little clearer, we could have seen Mont Blanc and the mountains of Savoy.  I could not help envying the feelings of the Swiss who, after long absence from their native land, first see the Alps from this road.  If to the emotions with which I then looked on them were added the passionate love of home and country which a long absence creates, such excess of rapture would be almost too great to be borne.

[Footnote A:  From “Views Afoot.”  Published by G.P.  Putnam’s Sons.]

II

NUREMBERG

AS A MEDIEVAL CITY[A]

BY CECIL HEADLAM

In spite of all changes, and in spite of the disfigurements of modern industry, Nuremberg is and will remain a medieval city, a city of history and legend, a city of the soul.  She is like Venice in this, as in not a little of her history, that she exercises an indefinable fascination over our hearts no less than over our intellects.  The subtle flavor of medieval towns may be likened to that of those rare old ports which are said to taste of the grave; a flavor indefinable, exquisite.  Rothenburg has it; and it is with Rothenburg, that little gem of medievalism, that Nuremberg is likely to be compared in the mind of the modern wanderer in Franconia.  But tho Rothenburg may surpass her greater neighbor in the perfect harmony and in the picturesqueness of her red-tiled houses and well-preserved fortifications, in interest at any rate she must yield to the heroine of this story.

For, apart from the beauty which Nuremberg owes to the wonderful grouping of her red roofs and ancient castle, her coronet of antique towers, her Gothic churches and Renaissance buildings or brown riverside houses dipping into the mud-colored Pegnitz, she rejoices in treasures of art and architecture and in the possession of a splendid history such as Rothenburg can not boast.  To those who know something of her story Nuremberg brings the subtle charm of association.  While appealing to our memories by the grandeur of her historic past, and to our imaginations by the work and tradition of her mighty dead, she appeals also to our senses with the rare magic of her personal beauty, if one may so call it.  In that triple appeal lies the fascination of Nuremberg....