They went to see the statue of Erasmus, and the house in which he was born. Vane had a certain admiration for Erasmus which his companions did not share; he liked the quiet irony of the sage, and his knowledge of the world; and, besides, Vane was at that time of life when philosophers become objects of interest. At first they are teachers; secondly, friends; and it is only a few who arrive at the third stage, and find them deceivers. The Dutch are a singular people. Their literature is neglected, but it has some of the German vein in its strata,--the patience, the learning, the homely delineation, and even some traces of the mixture of the humorous and the terrible which form that genius for the grotesque so especially German--you find this in their legends and ghost-stories. But in Holland activity destroys, in Germany indolence nourishes, romance. They stayed a day or two at Rotterdam, and then proceeded up the Rhine to Gorcum. The banks were flat and tame, and nothing could be less impressive of its native majesty than this part of the course of the great river. “I never felt before,” whispered Gertrude, tenderly, “how much there was of consolation in your presence; for here I am at last on the Rhine,--the blue Rhine, and how disappointed I should be if you were not by my side!” “But, my Gertrude, you must wait till we have passed Cologne, before the _glories_ of the Rhine burst upon you.” “It reverses life, my child,” said the moralizing Vane; “and the stream flows through dulness at first, reserving its poetry for our perseverance.” “I will not allow your doctrine,” said Trevylyan, as the ambitious ardour of his native disposition stirred within him. “Life has always action; it is our own fault if it ever be dull: youth has its enterprise, manhood its schemes; and even if infirmity creep upon age, the mind, the mind still triumphs over the mortal clay, and in the quiet hermitage, among books, and from thoughts, keeps the great wheel within everlastingly in motion. No, the better class of spirits have always an antidote to the insipidity of a common career, they have ever energy at will--” “And never happiness!” answered Vane, after a pause, as he gazed on the proud countenance of Trevylyan, with that kind of calm, half-pitying interest which belonged to a character deeply imbued with the philosophy of a sad experience acting upon an unimpassioned heart. “And in truth, Trevylyan, it would please me if I could but teach you the folly of preferring the exercise of that energy of which you speak to the golden luxuries of REST. What ambition can ever bring an adequate reward? Not, surely, the ambition of letters, the desire of intellectual renown!”