of an hour. In three-quarters of
an hour you can have seen each of the views considered fine and
accordingly provided with a seat, have said 'Oh there is Thiessow
again,' on looking over the sea to the east; and 'Oh there is Putbus
again,' on looking over the sea to the west; and 'Oh that must be
Greifswald,' on remarking far away in the south the spires of churches
rising up out of the water; you will have had ample time to smile at the
primitiveness of the bathing-hut on the east shore, to study the names
of past bathers scribbled over it, besides poems, valedictory addresses,
and quotations from the German classics; to sit for a little on the
rocks thinking how hard rocks are; and at length to wander round, in
sheer inability to fill up the last hour, to the inn, the only house on
the island, where at one of the tables under the chestnuts before the
door you would probably drink beer till the launch starts.

But that is not the way to enjoy Vilm. If you love out-of-door beauty,
wide stretches of sea and sky, mighty beeches, dense bracken, meadows
radiant with flowers, chalky levels purple with gentians, solitude, and
economy, go and spend a summer at Vilm. The inn is kept by one of Prince
Putbus's foresters, or rather by his amiable and obliging wife, the
forester's functions being apparently restricted to standing
picturesquely propped against a tree in front of the house in a nice
green shooting suit, with a telescope at his eye through which he
studies the approaching or departing launch. His wife does the rest. I
sat at one of the tables beneath the chestnuts waiting for my food--I
had to wait a very long while--and she came out and talked. The season,
she explained, was short, lasting two months, July and August, at the
longest, so that her prices were necessarily high. I inquired what they
were, and she said five marks a day for a front room looking over the
sea, and four marks and a half for a back room looking over the forest,
the price including four meals. Out of the season her charges were
lower. She said most of her visitors were painters, and she could put up
four-and-twenty with their wives. My luncheon came while she was still
trying to find out if I were a female painter, and if not why I was
there alone instead of being one of a batch, after the manner of the
circumspect-petticoated, and I will only say of the luncheon that it was
abundant. Its quality, after all, did not matter much. The rye grew up