hat the other one should marry the beloved
Hildegarde, is very touching. 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. Query, isn't there a
song about this? If so, put it in. Coblentz and Ehrenbreitstein. Great
fortresses. 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 determined 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 beguile the tedium of a long imprisonment. 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 af