Bayard’s happy stay in Esslingen, and his word-pictures of its attractions, show the progress which he had already made in his love for that German poetry, of which he was to become so popular an expounder. He praises the river Neckar and its flowery banks, he lauds the people, he portrays the landscapes in the brightest colors which poetry may lend to prose. Bright day! one he never recalled without exclamations of pleasure! After such interest as he exhibited in the country of Schiller, it is no surprise, the next day after leaving Esslingen, to find him in Stuttgart, looking up into the pensive face of Thorwaldsen’s colossal statue of Schiller. So attracted and entranced was he by the interpretation of Schiller, made by the natives, the scenery, and the old home, that when beautiful Stuttgart opens its avenues, parks, cathedrals, palaces, and galleries to him, he forsakes and neglects them all for this huge but faithfully wrought counterfeit in stone of the persecuted singer. To his naturally sentimental and sensitive character, the German poet was revealed in ideals more fascinating than any realities. He studied the face of his brother poet, praised his beauty, repeated a broken stanza of “William Tell,” and left the other attractions of Stuttgart unseen. Passing the castle of Ludwigsburg, and skirting the village of Marbach, the birthplace of Schiller, a village then about the size of Kennett now, but obliged to push on for fear of starvation, he walked to Betigheim, and thence the next day to his first German home, Heidelberg. CHAPTER XII. Starts for Switzerland and Italy.—First View of the Alps.—The Falls of the Rhine.—Zurich.—A Poet’s Home.—Lake Lucerne.—Goethe’s Cottage.—Scenes in the Life of William Tell.—Ascent of the Alps at St. Gothard.—Descent into Italy.—The Cathedral at Milan.—Bayard’s Characteristics.—Tramp to Genoa.—Visits Leghorn and Pisa.—Lovely Florence.—Delightful Visits.—The Home of Art.