LETTER XLV.
WITTENBERG.
MY DEAR:--
I am here in the station house at Wittenberg. I have been seeing and
hearing to-day for you, and now sit down to put on paper the results
of my morning. "What make you from Wittenberg?" Wittenberg! name of
the dreamy past; dimly associated with Hamlet, Denmark, the moonlight
terrace, and the Baltic Sea, by one line of Shakspeare; but made more
living by those who have thought, loved, and died here; nay, by those
who cannot die, and whose life has been life to all coming ages.
How naturally, on reaching a place long heard of and pondered, do we
look round for something uncommon, quaint, and striking! Nothing of
the kind was here; only the dead flat of this most level scenery, with
its dreary prairie-like sameness. Certainly it was not this scenery
that stirred up a soul in Luther, and made him nail up his theses on
the Wittenberg church door.
"But, at any rate, let us go to Wittenberg," said I; "get a guide, a
carriage, cannot you?" as I walked to one window of the station house
and another, and looked out to see something wonderful. Nothing was in
sight, however; and after the usual sputter of gutturals which
precedes any arrangement in this country, we were mounted in a high,
awkward carriage, and rode to the town.
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