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spirit of that knight in the solitary Thuringian fastness, and there he wrought toward a noble and beautiful result.

Wolfram's work is variously judged. Though full of grace, it is certainly of wearisome length, and so entangled with episode and incident that to give the story, even in abstract, is far from easy. Parzival, the hero, spends his youth isolated from the world, of whose ways he learns nothing. A high yearning drives him forth to adventures. The guardianship of the Holy Grail has been destined for him; he reaches Montsalvage and beholds its splendor, but, in ignorance, misses his destiny. Purified and exercised in long trials, in his manly ripeness he becomes capable of the sublime office, attaining at last the Grail and the highest bliss.1 I find the Parzival characterized as a psychological epic, representing the purifying of a soul through battle with the world and itself. A mystic symbolism runs through it, such as belongs to the writers of the Romantic School," a class to be hereafter considered, who flourished in the first years of the nineteenth century, and whom Wolfram surprisingly resembles. Taking the story of Arthur as a type of cheerful worldly life, connecting it with the story of the Grail, a symbol of spiritual life, he illustrates the parallels and contrasts of the two directions. So he sought to penetrate into the depths of the spiritual world and find mystical relations, losing himself sometimes in a haze of unintelligibility.

1 Wackernagel.

Yet it is right to say that he surpasses all the poets of his class in fulness and depth of thought; that he possesses a noble moral earnestness, a fine sensibility toward things high and beautiful, the most humane impulses. Many a page is radiant with poetic splendor. The "Romantic School," in modern times, has accorded to him the highest praise, its founder and leader1 calling him the greatest of German poets.

Arriving at Eisenach from the north, I spent the night at the "Anker," and in the morning of a bright July day went out for my first view of the Wartburg. There it hung, upon the summit of the swelling hill, six hundred feet above the town, the winding path-trodden by such multitudes of historic men-leading to it through the forest. There, in 1817, met the high-hearted German youth, assembling from the universities to demand of the temporizing princes of the Holy Alliance the fulfilment of their pledges, - pledges made in the great "Freedom War," to win the help of the people, and which, now that the end was gained, they had no desire to fulfil. Up this path again, three hundred years before, hurried the friendly captors of great Martin Luther, with pretended roughness haling their prisoner to the stronghold, there to reveal themselves to him, and bolt out in his behalf a hostile world, which reached for faggots to burn him. And, in a still older time, down the hill walked, on errands of mercy, the beautiful Saint

1 Friedrich Schlegel.

Elizabeth of Hungary,-loveliest of saints, perhaps all the more attractive for her naive insincerities, in which, according to the story, Heaven was her ally. There are these associations, and others as interesting, none finer, however, than this: That the court here of the Landgrave Hermann, in the Hohenstauffen days, more than any spot of that world perhaps, was a centre of light; the castle hall ringing ever with the sound of minstrelsy, the portcullis ever rising to admit the wandering singer, the hospitable roof sheltering many a busy brain, elaborating lyric and romance. In my pilgrimage I climbed the path to the castle, magnificent to-day as ever, for its princely owner has restored it entirely in the ancient taste. I stood in the hall in which the knights banqueted, where so much of the medieval poetry had its first rehearsal, after the flagons were filled, the landgrave and his knights sitting attentive. On the wall was painted the strife of the Minnesingers, of which, says the legend, the hall was the scene, -the song-battle, in which the conquered were to suffer death,the figures of the Hungarian minstrel Klingsor, of Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Wolfram von Eschenbach looking from the fresco into the broad spaces that had really known their figures in life. Where was it among the nooks of the castle that Wolfram dreamed and dictated? No one can tell the precise spot, but I could be sure, as from the castle height my eye went forth over Thuringia, the wooded hills heaving high, now and then from the valley a flash of light from a blue

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stream, upon isolated peaks here and there a crumbling tower,—that it was this landscape which refreshed him, and which he wrought into his poem.

I climbed down from the castle by a mountain road into the pleasant Anna-thal, crossing the Coburg highway; then through the ravine of the dragon, into the woodlands beyond. Turning among the thickets, I got my farewell glimpse of the Wartburg, at a distance of several miles. The foliage was dense, but through a circular break appeared, high in the air, the summit of the rock, and the Wartburg, rising from it, relieved against the heavens. The green in which the view was framed cut off from the vision all connection with the earth; the distance was great enough to soften all outlines, veiling with summer haze the lofty walls, till they seemed mysterious and almost spiritual. Buttress, bastion, and high-soaring tower,held for the moment in the blue bosom of the heavens, indistinct through a league of intervening vapory atmosphere, seen when the heart was touched by the multitude of memories! So upon Montsalvage, before the eye of some aspiring knight, might have towered the shrine of the Holy Grail, and the home of that troop of chivalry who were set apart, through pure-minded manhood, to be its guardians!

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CHAPTER VI.

DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE.

There is no spot in Germany where a pilgrim feels so strongly the might and majesty of the medieval emperors as in the cathedral of Speyer. Its corner-stone was laid in 1030, by the Emperor Konrad I., and it became in succeeding years the scene of a large part of what was most brilliant and important in the world. Here kings plighted faith to their queens; here Peter the Hermit preached the Crusade; here came popes from Rome to give dignity to coronations. In its crypts were buried eight emperors. Their graves, to be sure, have been desecrated, and the roof above them burned, by the vandal armies of Louis XIV.; but in our century an art-loving king has restored the ruin to more than its old splendor.

One day I passed into the city of Speyer through a picturesque gateway, high above which rose an ancient watch-tower, then along a modern street, at the end of which was the cathedral front. Through the rounded arch that formed the portal I stepped into the vestibule, and found myself in an august presence-chamber. Before me rose, in imposing presentment, the forms of the emperors who were here laid to rest. They stood in the armor of their

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