Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. X., March 1851Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. X., March 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
Professor Vogel had promised that Moritz Retzsch should show us his
drawings; and we were full of hope that we should also have the
privilege of seeing this Album. The sunset had given promise of--
"A goodly day to-morrow."
And it was with no small delight that, on our return to our hotel, we
found an hour had been fixed for our visit to the village, or Weinberg,
and that Professor Vogel would be ready to accompany us at the time
appointed.
We were prepared to expect allegorical designs; and Mrs. Jameson has
long since converted us to a belief in the great power and benefit of
symbolic painting, particularly on the minds and imaginations of the
young. "To address the moral faculties through the medium of the
imagination," says this distinguished lady, "for any permanent or
beneficial purpose, is the last thing thought of by our legislators and
educators. Fable, except as a mere nomenclature of heathen gods and
goddesses, is banished from the nursery, and allegory in Poetry and the
Fine Arts is out of fashion;" and then she mingles her ink with gall,
and adds, "it is deemed the child's play of the intellect, fit only for
the days of Dante, or Spenser, or Michael Angelo."
Wearied with pleasure, we slept; but what we had seen and what we
anticipated rendered _repose_ impossible. The morning was bright, and
warm, and sunny; and when our kind friend entered the carriage, we felt
assured of a day's enjoyment. We soon skirted the city, and found
ourselves rolling in sight of the river; the road was overshadowed by
trees, which had not yielded a leaf to the insidious advances of autumn;
the villas--not certainly with shaven lawns and carefully-tended
gardens, were picturesque and charming from the novelty of their
construction, and not the less striking because the foliage was left to
twine about them in unconstrained luxuriance. We had become accustomed
to the wicker wagons, and the heavy oxen, and slow paces of men and
horses; but there is something always to admire in the broad faces of
the well-built Saxons, and the frank and kindly expression of their
clear blue eyes.
We soon reached the narrow roads that wound along the base of the
vine-clad hills, rising so abruptly as to form terrace after terrace,
until they achieved the topmost height. Nothing can be more delightful
than the situation of the houses at the foot of these hills, commanding,
as they do, the whole of the rich valley in which Dresden is placed.
"They call it Paradise," said our kind companion; "and truly it deserves
the name."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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