The Pilgrims of the Rhine Read online

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  THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE

  TO WHICH IS PREFIXED THE IDEAL WORLD

  By Edward Bulwer Lytton (Lord Lytton)

  THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE

  TO HENRY LYTTON BULWER.

  ALLOW me, my dear Brother, to dedicate this Work to you. The greaterpart of it (namely, the tales which vary and relieve the voyages ofGertrude and Trevylyan) was written in the pleasant excursion we madetogether some years ago. Among the associations--some sad and somepleasing--connected with the general design, none are so agreeable tome as those that remind me of the friendship subsisting between us, andwhich, unlike that of near relations in general, has grown strongerand more intimate as our footsteps have receded farther from the fieldswhere we played together in our childhood. I dedicate this Work to youwith the more pleasure, not only when I remember that it has alwaysbeen a favourite with yourself, but when I think that it is one of mywritings most liked in foreign countries; and I may possibly, therefore,have found a record destined to endure the affectionate esteem whichthis Dedication is intended to convey.

  Yours, etc.

  E. L. B. LONDON, April 23, 1840.

  ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.

  COULD I prescribe to the critic and to the public, I would wish thatthis work might be tried by the rules rather of poetry than prose,for according to those rules have been both its conception and itsexecution; and I feel that something of sympathy with the author'sdesign is requisite to win indulgence for the superstitions he hasincorporated with his tale, for the floridity of his style, and theredundance of his descriptions. Perhaps, indeed, it would be impossible,in attempting to paint the scenery and embody some of the Legends ofthe Rhine, not to give (it may be, too loosely) the reins to theimagination, or to escape the influence of that wild German spirit whichI have sought to transfer to a colder tongue.

  I have made the experiment of selecting for the main interest of mywork the simplest materials, and weaving upon them the ornaments givenchiefly to subjects of a more fanciful nature. I know not how far I havesucceeded, but various reasons have conspired to make this the work,above all others that I have written, which has given me the mostdelight (though not unmixed with melancholy) in producing, and in whichmy mind for the time has been the most completely absorbed. But theardour of composition is often disproportioned to the merit of thework; and the public sometimes, nor unjustly, avenges itself forthat forgetfulness of its existence which makes the chief charm of anauthor's solitude,--and the happiest, if not the wisest, inspiration ofhis dreams.

  PREFACE.

  WITH the younger class of my readers this work has had the good fortuneto find especial favour; perhaps because it is in itself a collection ofthe thoughts and sentiments that constitute the Romance of youth. It haslittle to do with the positive truths of our actual life, and does notpretend to deal with the larger passions and more stirring interestsof our kind. It is but an episode out of the graver epic of humandestinies. It requires no explanation of its purpose, and no analysis ofits story; the one is evident, the other simple,--the first seeks butto illustrate visible nature through the poetry of the affections; theother is but the narrative of the most real of mortal sorrows, which theAuthor attempts to take out of the region of pain by various accessoriesfrom the Ideal. The connecting tale itself is but the string that bindsinto a garland the wild-flowers cast upon a grave.

  The descriptions of the Rhine have been considered by Germanssufficiently faithful to render this tribute to their land andtheir legends one of the popular guide-books along the course itillustrates,--especially to such tourists as wish not only to takein with the eye the inventory of the river, but to seize the peculiarspirit which invests the wave and the bank with a beauty that can onlybe made visible by reflection. He little comprehends the true charm ofthe Rhine who gazes on the vines on the hill-tops without a thought ofthe imaginary world with which their recesses have been peopled by thegraceful credulity of old; who surveys the steep ruins that overshadowthe water, untouched by one lesson from the pensive morality of Time.Everywhere around us is the evidence of perished opinions anddeparted races; everywhere around us, also, the rejoicing fertility ofunconquerable Nature, and the calm progress of Man himself through theinfinite cycles of decay. He who would judge adequately of a landscapemust regard it not only with the painter's eye, but with the poet's.The feelings which the sight of any scene in Nature conveys to themind--more especially of any scene on which history or fiction has leftits trace--must depend upon our sympathy with those associations whichmake up what may be called the spiritual character of the spot. Ifindifferent to those associations, we should see only hedgerows andploughed land in the battle-field of Bannockburn; and the travellerwould but look on a dreary waste, whether he stood amidst the piles ofthe Druid on Salisbury plain, or trod his bewildered way over the broadexpanse on which the Chaldaean first learned to number the stars.

  To the former editions of this tale was prefixed a poem on "The Ideal,"which had all the worst faults of the author's earliest compositionsin verse. The present poem (with the exception of a very few lines) hasbeen entirely rewritten, and has at least the comparative merit of beingless vague in the thought, and less unpolished in the diction, than thatwhich it replaces.