Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
Austria -- Description and travel; Germany -- Description and travel; Switzerland -- Description and travel
We went a long way through the suburbs one bright afternoon to a little
cemetery about a mile from the city to find the grave of Beethoven. On
ringing at the gate a girl admitted us into the grounds, in which are
many monuments of noble families who have vaults there. I passed up the
narrow walk, reading the inscriptions, till I came to the tomb of Franz
Clement, a young composer who died two or three years ago. On turning
again my eye fell instantly on the word "Beethoven" in golden letters on
a tombstone of gray marble. A simple gilded lyre decorated the pedestal,
above which was a serpent encircling a butterfly--the emblem of
resurrection. Here, then, moldered the remains of that restless spirit
who seemed to have strayed to earth from another clime, from such a
height did he draw his glorious conceptions.
The perfection he sought for here in vain he has now attained in a
world where the soul is freed from the bars which bind it in this. There
were no flowers planted around the tomb by those who revered his genius;
only one wreath, withered and dead, lay among the grass, as if left long
ago by some solitary pilgrim, and a few wild buttercups hung with their
bright blossoms over the slab. It might have been wrong, but I could not
resist the temptation to steal one or two while the old gravedigger was
busy preparing a new tenement. I thought that other buds would open in a
few days, but those I took would be treasured many a year as sacred
relics. A few paces off is the grave of Schubert, the composer whose
beautiful songs are heard all over Germany.
We visited the imperial library a day or two ago. The hall is two
hundred and forty-five feet long, with a magnificent dome in the center,
under which stands the statue of Charles V., of Carrara marble,
surrounded by twelve other monarchs of the house of Hapsburg. The walls
are of variegated marble richly ornamented with gold, and the ceiling
and dome are covered with brilliant fresco-paintings. The library
numbers three hundred thousand volumes and sixteen thousand manuscripts,
which are kept in walnut cases gilded and adorned with medallions. The
rich and harmonious effect of the whole can not easily be imagined. It
is exceedingly appropriate that a hall of such splendor should be used
to hold a library. The pomp of a palace may seem hollow and vain, for
it is but the dwelling of a man; but no building can be too magnificent
for the hundreds of great and immortal spirits to dwell in who have
visited earth during thirty centuries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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