cturesque medieval
castle, with many towers and turrets, in as perfect preservation as when
feudal flags floated over it. And so on, slowly, with long stops at many
stations, to give opportunity, I suppose, for the honest passengers to
take in supplies of beer and sausages, to Nuremberg.

A CITY LIVING ON THE PAST

Nuremberg, or Nurnberg, was built, I believe, about the beginning of
time. At least, in an old black-letter history of the city which I have
seen, illustrated with powerful wood-cuts, the first representation
is that of the creation of the world, which is immediately followed
by another of Nuremberg. No one who visits it is likely to dispute its
antiquity. "Nobody ever goes to Nuremberg but Americans," said a cynical
British officer at Chamouny; "but they always go there. I never saw
an American who had n't been or was not going to Nuremberg." Well, I
suppose they wish to see the oldest-looking, and, next to a true Briton
on his travels, the oddest thing on the Continent. The city lives in the
past still, and on its memories, keeping its old walls and moat entire,
and nearly fourscore wall-towers, in stern array. But grass grows in
the moat, fruit trees thrive there, and vines clamber on the walls. One
wanders about in the queer streets with the feeling of being transported
back to the Middle Ages; but it is difficult to reproduce the impression
on paper. Who can describe the narrow and intricate ways; the odd
houses with many little gables; great roofs breaking out from eaves to
ridgepole, with dozens of dormer-windows; hanging balconies of stone,
carved and figure-beset, ornamented and frescoed fronts; the archways,
leading into queer courts and alleys, and out again into broad streets;
the towers and fantastic steeples; and the many old bridges, with
obelisks and memorials of triumphal entries of conquerors and princes?

The city, as I said, lives upon the memory of what it has been, and
trades upon relics of its former fame. What it would have been without
Albrecht Durer, and Adam Kraft the stone-mason, and Peter Vischer the
bronze-worker, and Viet Stoss who carved in wood, and Hans Sachs the
shoemaker and poet-minstrel, it is difficult to say. Their statues are
set up in the streets; their works still live in the churches and city
buildings,--pictures, and groups in stone and wood; and their statues,
in all sorts of carving, are reproduced, big and little, in all the
shop-windows, for sale. So, l