"'One hour from Hermannsburg above on the Oerze, two little rivers, the Oerze and Wieze, flow into one another. Such meetings of two rivers are called in High German Münden, in Low German Müden; so accordingly the village situated at the meeting of the two rivers above mentioned bears the name of Müden. Just a little above the place where the Wieze flows into the Oerze, in the middle of the latter river, lay a wonderfully beautiful little island, almost like an egg in circumference, which had a circuit of perhaps from ninety to a hundred paces. How often when I was a child have I visited that little island, and stayed there for hours at a time! In the whole surrounding region I knew no lovelier place, and it was always a particular delight to me when I could wander that way. On both sides of the island the swift-flowing, clear waters of the Oerze went rushing past, transparent to the very bottom, over the glistening sands of which, and among the long, thick, green tufts of the water ranunculus hosts of nimble trout played and darted about. A little bridge on each side connected the island with the two shores. If you crossed the bridge which spanned the left arm of the Oerze, you came into green meadows and the parsonage garden, which extended along the left bank of the river, enclosed with a hedge as high as the trees. If you went from the island over the bridge of the right arm of the Oerze, you were in the courtyard of the parsonage, where the pastor's dwelling stood. This island was entirely framed in with high oaks and alders; and a number of mighty old oaks, with large trunks, and lifting their heads high in air, grew on the island and wholly overshadowed it with their green roof of leaves. So still it was, so cool, and so secluded, upon this island that even the fiercest summer had no power over it; it was green and fresh when everything around it was withered and dried up by the hot sunbeams. And now as I write this it stirs me with pain to be forced to say that this island has disappeared! How can that have come about? It has fallen a sacrifice to the idol of Utility. The fine oaks have been felled, and used for building timber; the alders have been cut down and turned to firewood; the island is no more, for the two arms of the Oerze have been dammed up, and a straight river bed carries the Oerze now through green meadows which stretch along both shores. Yes, these are beautiful too, these green meadows, and they are very profitable also at the same time; but the wonderful beauty of the island is departed, vanished with no trace of it left; and in the entire valley of the Oerze there is not a place that can be compared to it. See, my dear readers, this is what is done by the much bepraised "Enclosings," which could have originated only in our earthly-minded age; and which spare nothing, neither right nor usage; respect no old legend, no old custom; have no eye at all for beauty, rate everything only according to