delicious temperature of our Indian
summer joined to the life and freshness of spring, add to this a sky of
the purest azure, and a breeze filled with the odor of violets,--the
most exquisite of all perfumes--and you have some idea of it. The
meadows are beginning to bloom, and I have already heard the larks
singing high up in the sky. Those sacred birds, the storks, have
returned and taken possession of their old nests on the chimney-tops;
they are sometimes seen walking about in the fields, with a very grave
and serious air, as if conscious of the estimation in which they are
held. Everybody is out in the open air; the woods, although they still
look wintry, are filled with people, and the boatmen on the Main are
busy ferrying gay parties across. The spring has been so long in coming,
that all are determined to enjoy it well, while it lasts.

We visited the cemetery a few days ago. The dead-house, where corpses
are placed in the hope of resuscitation, is an appendage to cemeteries
found only in Germany. We were shown into a narrow chamber, on each side
of which were six cells, into which one could distinctly see, by means
of a large plate of glass. In each of these is a bier for the body,
directly above which hangs a cord, having on the end ten thimbles, which
are put upon the fingers of the corpse, so that the slightest motion
strikes a bell in the watchman's room. Lamps are lighted at night, and
in winter the rooms are warmed. In the watchman's chamber stands a clock
with a dial-plate of twenty-four hours, and opposite every hour is a
little plate, which can only be moved two minutes before it strikes. If
then the watchman has slept or neglected his duty at that time, he
cannot move it afterwards, and his neglect, is seen by the
superintendent. In such a case, he is severely lined, and for the second
or third offence, dismissed. There are other rooms adjoining, containing
beds, baths, galvanic battery, &c. Nevertheless, they say there has been
no resuscitation during the fifteen years it has been established.

We afterwards went to the end of the cemetery to see the bas-reliefs of
Thorwaldsen, in the vault of the Bethmann family. They are three in
number, representing the death of a son of the present banker, Moritz
von Bethmann, who was drowned in the Arno about fourteen years ago. The
middle one represents the young man drooping in his chair, the beautiful
Greek Angel of Death standing at his back, with one arm ov