a fitting
drapery, and Nature has furnished that; she has robed the rugged mass in
flowers and verdure, and made it a charm to the eye. The standing half
exposes its arched and cavernous rooms to you, like open, toothless
mouths; there, too, the vines and flowers have done their work of grace.
The rear portion of the tower has not been neglected, either, but is
clothed with a clinging garment of polished ivy which hides the wounds
and stains of time. Even the top is not left bare, but is crowned with a
flourishing group of trees and shrubs. Misfortune has done for this old
tower what it has done for the human character sometimes--improved it.

A gentleman remarked, one day, that it might have been fine to live in
the castle in the day of its prime, but that we had one advantage which
its vanished inhabitants lacked--the advantage of having a charming ruin
to visit and muse over. But that was a hasty idea. Those people had the
advantage of US. They had the fine castle to live in, and they could
cross the Rhine valley and muse over the stately ruin of Trifels
besides. The Trifels people, in their day, five hundred years ago, could
go and muse over majestic ruins that have vanished, now, to the last
stone. There have always been ruins, no doubt; and there have always
been pensive people to sigh over them, and asses to scratch upon them
their names and the important date of their visit. Within a hundred
years after Adam left Eden, the guide probably gave the usual general
flourish with his hand and said: "Place where the animals were named,
ladies and gentlemen; place where the tree of the forbidden fruit stood;
exact spot where Adam and Eve first met; and here, ladies and gentlemen,
adorned and hallowed by the names and addresses of three generations of
tourists, we have the crumbling remains of Cain's altar--fine old ruin!"
Then, no doubt, he taxed them a shekel apiece and let them go.

An illumination of Heidelberg Castle is one of the sights of Europe.
The Castle's picturesque shape; its commanding situation, midway up the
steep and wooded mountainside; its vast size--these features combine to
make an illumination a most effective spectacle. It is necessarily an
expensive show, and consequently rather infrequent. Therefore whenever
one of these exhibitions is to take place, the news goes about in the
papers and Heidelberg is sure to be full of people on that night. I and
my agent had one of these opportunities, and impr