The Rhine!—How History is Written.—Complicated Villages.—How a Peaceful Community Was Very Much Upset.—The German Railway Guard.—His Passion for Tickets.—We Diffuse¹ Comfort and Joy Wherever We Go, Gladdening the Weary, and Bringing Smiles to Them that Weep.—“Tickets, Please.”—Hunting Experiences.—A Natural Mistake.—Free Acrobatic Performance by the Guard.—The Railway Authorities’ Little Joke.—Why We Should Think of the Sorrows of Others.  
We returned to the station just in time to secure comfortable seats, and at 5.10 steamed out upon our fifteen hours’ run to Munich.  From Bonn to Mayence the line keeps by the side of the Rhine nearly the whole of the way, and we had a splendid view of the river, with the old-world towns and villages that cluster round its bank, the misty² mountains that make early twilight³ upon its swiftly rolling waves, the castled crags and precipices⁵ that rise up sheer and majestic⁶ from its margin⁷, the wooded rocks that hang with threatening frown above its sombre depths, the ruined towers and turrets⁸ that cap each point along its shores, the pleasant isles⁹ that stud like gems¹⁰ its broad expanse of waters.
 
Few things in this world come up to expectation, especially those things of which one has been led to expect much, and about which one has heard a good deal.  With this philosophy running in my head, I was prepared to find the Rhine a much over-rated river.
 
I was pleasantly disappointed.  The panorama¹¹ which unfolded itself before our eyes, as we sped along through the quiet twilight that was deepening into starry¹² night, was wonderfully beautiful, entrancing and expressive¹³.
 
I do not intend to describe it to you.  To do justice to the theme, I should have to be even a more brilliant and powerful writer than I am.  To attempt the subject, without doing it justice, would be a waste of your time, sweet reader, and of mine—a still more important matter.
 
I confess it was not my original intention to let you off so easily.  I started with the idea of giving you a rapid but glowing and eloquent¹⁴ word-picture of the valley of the Rhine from Cologne to Mayence.  For background, I thought I would sketch¹⁵ in the historical and legendary¹⁶ events connected with the district, and against this, for a foreground, I would draw, in vivid colours, the modern aspect of the scene, with remarks and observations thereon.
 
Here are my rough notes, made for the purpose:—
 
Mems. for Chapter on Rhine: “Constantine the Great used to come here—so did Agrippa.  (N.B.—Try and find out something about Agrippa.)  Cæsar had a good deal to do with the Rhine—also Nero’s mother.”
 
(To the reader.—The brevity of these memoranda¹⁷ renders their import, at times, confusing.  For instance, this means that Cæsar and Nero’s mother both had a good deal to do with the Rhine; not that Cæsar had a good deal to do with Nero’s mother.  I explain this because I should be sorry to convey any false impression concerning either the lady or Cæsar.  Scandal is a thing abhorrent¹⁸ to my nature.)
 
Notes continued: “The Ubii did something on the right bank of the Rhine at an early period, and afterwards were found on the other side.  (Expect the Ubii were a tribe; but make sure of this, as they might be something in the fossil line.)  Cologne was the cradle of German art.  Talk about art and the old masters.  Treat them in a kindly¹⁹ and gentle spirit.  They are dead now.  Saint Ursula was murdered at Cologne, with eleven thousand virgin²⁰ attendants.  There must have been quite a party of them.  Draw powerful and pathetic imaginary picture of the slaughter²¹.  (N.B.—Find out who murdered them all.)  Say something about the Emperor Maximilian.  Call him ‘the mighty²² Maximilian.’  Mention Charlemagne (a good deal should be made out of Charlemagne) and the Franks.  (Find out all about the Franks, and where they lived, and what has become of them.)  Sketch the various contests between the Romans and the Goths.  (Read up ‘Gibbon’ for this, unless you can get enough out of Mangnall’s Questions.)  Give picturesque²³ account—with comments—of the battles between the citizens of Cologne and their haughty²⁴ archbishops.  (N.B.—Let them fight on a bridge over the Rhine, unless it is distinctly stated somewhere that they didn’t.)  Bring in the Minne-singers, especially Walter von Vogelweid; make him sing under a castle-wall somewhere, and let the girl die.  Talk about Albert Dürer.  Criticise²⁵ his style.  Say it’s flat.  (If possible, find out if it is flat.)  “The rat tower on the Rhine,” near Bingen.  Describe the place and tell the whole story.  Don’t spin it out too long, because everybody knows it.  “The Brothers of Bornhofen,” story connected with the twin castles of Sterrenberg and Liebenstein, Conrad and Heinrich—brothers—both love Hildegarde.  She was very beautiful.  Heinrich generously refuses to marry the beautiful Hildegarde, and goes away to the Crusades, leaving her to his brother Conrad.  Conrad considers over the matter for a year or two, and then he decides that he won’t marry her either, but will leave her for his brother Heinrich, and he goes off to the Crusades, from whence he returns, a few years later on, with a Grecian bride.  The beautiful H., muddled²⁶ up between the pair of them, and the victim of too much generosity²⁷, gets sulky (don’t blame her), and shuts herself up in a lonely part of the castle, and won’t see anybody for years.  Chivalrous²⁸ Heinrich returns, and is wild that his brother C. has not married the beautiful H.  It does not occur to him to marry the girl even then.  The feverish²⁹ yearning³⁰ displayed by each of these two brothers, that the other one should marry the beloved Hildegarde, is very touching³¹.  Heinrich draws his sword, and throws himself upon his brother C. to kill him.  The beautiful Hildegarde, however, throws herself between them and reconciliates them, and then, convinced that neither of them means business, and naturally disgusted with the whole affair, retires into a nunnery.  Conrad’s Grecian bride subsequently throws herself away on another man, upon which Conrad throws himself on his brother H.’s breast, and they swear eternal friendship.  (Make it pathetic.  Pretend you have sat amid the ruins in the moonlight, and give the scene—with ghosts.)  “Rolandseck,” near Bonn.  Tell the story of Roland and Hildegunde (see Baedeker, p. 66).  Don’t make it too long, because it is so much like the other.  Describe the funeral?  The “Watch Tower on the Rhine” below Audernach.  Query³², isn’t there a song about this?  If so, put it in.  Coblentz and Ehrenbreitstein.  Great fortresses³³.  Call them “the Frowning Sentinels of the State.”  Make reflections on the German army, also on war generally.  Chat about Frederick the Great.  (Read Carlyle’s history of him, and pick out the interesting bits.)  The Drachenfels.  Quote Byron.  Moralise about ruined castles generally, and describe the middle ages, with your views and opinions on same.”
 
There is much more of it, but that is sufficient to let you see the scheme I had in my head.  I have not carried out my scheme, because, when I came to reflect upon the matter, it seemed to me that the idea would develop into something that would be more in the nature of a history of Europe than a chapter in a tourist’s diary, and I determined³⁴ not to waste my time upon it, until there arose a greater public demand for a new History of Europe than there appears to exist at present.
 
“Besides,” I argued to myself, “such a work would be just the very thing with which to beguile³⁵ the tedium³⁶ of a long imprisonment³⁷.  At some future time I may be glad of a labour of this magnitude to occupy a period of involuntary inaction.”
 
“This is the sort of thing,” I said to myself, “to save up for Holloway or Pentonville.”
 
It would have been a very enjoyable ride altogether, that evening’s spin along the banks of the Rhine, if I had not been haunted at the time by the idea that I should have to write an account of it next day in my diary.  As it was, I enjoyed it as a man enjoys a dinner when he has got to make a speech after it, or as a critic enjoys a play.
 
We passed such odd little villages every here and there.  Little places so crowded up between the railway and the river that there was no room in them for any streets.  All the houses were jumbled³⁸ up together just anyhow, and how any man who lived in the middle could get home without climbing over half the other houses in the place I could not make out.  They were the sort of villages where a man’s mother-in-law, coming to pay him a visit, might wander around all day, hearing him, and even now and then seeing him, yet never being able to get at him in consequence of not knowing the way in.
 
A drunken man, living in one of these villages, could never hope to get home.  He would have to sit down outside, and wait till his head was clear.
 
We witnessed the opening scenes of a very amusing little comedy at one of the towns where the train drew up.  The chief characters were played by an active young goat, a small boy, an elderly man and a woman, parents of the small boy and owners of the goat, and a dog.
 
First we heard a yell, and then, from out a cottage opposite the station, bounded an innocent and happy goat, and gambolled³⁹ around.  A long rope, one end of which was fastened to his neck, trailed behind him.  After the goat (in the double sense of the phrase) came a child.  The child tried to catch the goat by means of the rope, caught itself in the rope instead, and went down with a bump and a screech⁴⁰.  Whereupon a stout⁴¹ woman, the boy’s mother apparently⁴², ran out from the cottage, and also made for the goat.  The goat flew down the road, and the woman flew after it.  At the first corner, the woman trod on the rope, and then she went down with a bump and a screech.  Then the goat turned and ran up the street, and, as it passed the cottage, the father ran out and tried to stop it.  He was an old man, but still seemed to hav............