rt of the
outer walls which was remarked to have a hollow sound, was taken down,
when there fell from a deep niche built therein, a skeleton, clad in a
suit of the old German armor. We followed a road through the woods to
the peak on which stand the ruins of St. Michael's chapel, which was
built in the tenth century and inhabited for a long time by a sect of
white monks. There is now but a single tower remaining, and all around
is grown over with tall bushes and weeds. It had a wild and romantic
look, and I sat on a rock and sketched at it, till it grew dark, when we
got down the mountain the best way we could.

We lately visited the great University Library. You walk through one
hall after another, filled with books of all kinds, from the monkish
manuscript of the middle ages, to the most elegant print of the present
day. There is something to me more impressive in a library like this
than a solemn Cathedral. I think involuntarily of the hundreds of mighty
spirits who speak from these three hundred thousand volumes--of the
toils and privations with which genius has ever struggled, and of his
glorious reward. As in a church, one feels as it were, the presence of
God; not because the place has been hallowed by his worship, but because
all around stand the inspirations of his spirit, breathed through the
mind of genius, to men. And if the mortal remains of saints and heroes
do not repose within its walls, the great and good of the whole earth
are there, speaking their counsels to the searcher for truth, with
voices whose last reverberation will die away only when the globe falls
into ruin.

A few nights ago there was a wedding of peasants across the river. In
order to celebrate it particularly, the guests went to the house where
it was given, by torchlight. The night was quite dark, and the bright
red torches glowed on the surface of the Neckar, as the two couriers
galloped along the banks to the bridegroom's house. Here, after much
shouting and confusion, the procession was arranged, the two riders
started back again with their torches, and the wagons containing the
guests followed after with their flickering lights glancing on the
water, till they disappeared around the foot of the mountain. The
choosing of Conscripts also took place lately. The law requires one
person out of every hundred to become a soldier, and this, in the city
of Heidelberg, amounts to nearly 150. It was a sad spectacle. The young
men, or rather