But these are, comparatively, every-day objects.  A much more interesting source of observation, to my mind, were the very few existing relics of the once celebrated monastery of St. Emmeram—­and a great portion of the remains of another old monastery, called St. James—­which latter may indeed be designated the College of the Jacobites; as the few members who inhabit it were the followers of the house and fortunes of the Pretender, James Stuart.  The Monastery or Abbey of St. Emmeram was one of the most celebrated throughout Europe; and I suspect that its library, both of MSS. and printed books, was among the principal causes of its celebrity.  Of all interesting objects of architectural antiquity in Ratisbon, none struck me so forcibly—­and, indeed, none is in itself so curious and singular—­as the Monastery of St. James.  The front of that portion of it, connected with the church, should seem to be of an extremely remote antiquity.  It is the ornaments, or style of architecture, which give it this character of antiquity.  The ornaments, which are on each side of the doorway, or porch, are quite extraordinary.

[Footnote A:  From “A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour,” published in 1821.]

[Footnote B:  Ratisbon has now (1914) a population of 53,000.  Its manufactured products consist chiefly of pottery and lead pencils.]

IV

BERLIN AND ELSEWHERE

A LOOK AT THE GERMAN CAPITAL[A]

BY THEOPHILE GAUTIER

The train spins along across great plains gilded by the setting sun; soon night comes, and with it, sleep.  At stations remote from one another, German voices shout German names; I do not recognize them by the sound, and look for them in vain upon the map.  Magnificent great station buildings are shown up by gaslight in the midst of surrounding darkness, then disappear.  We pass Hanover and Minden; the train keeps on its way; and morning dawns.

On either side stretched a peat-moss, upon which the mist was producing a singular mirage.  We seemed to be upon a causeway traversing an immense lake whose waves crept up gently, dying in transparent folds along the edge of the embankment.  Here and there a group of trees or a cottage, emerging like an island, completed the illusion, for such it was.  A sheet of bluish mist, floating a little above the ground and curling up along its upper surface under the rays of the sun, caused this aqueous phantasmagoria, resembling the Fata Morgana of Sicily.  In vain did my geographical knowledge protest, disconcerted, against this inland sea, which no map of Prussia indicates; my eyes would not give it up, and later in the day, when the sun, rising higher, had dried up this imaginary lake, they required the presence of a boat to make them admit that any body of water could be real.

Suddenly upon the left were massed the trees of a great park; Tritons and Nereids appeared, dabbling in the basin of a fountain; there was a dome and a circle of columns rising above extensive buildings; and this was Potsdam....