the folk-song
knows how to reveal poetically many a tender charm of the beauty of
nature; but, on the other hand, he very seldom has an eye for the
picturesque beauty of natural scenery. As regards the latter it is with
him as with the late Pastor Schmidt of Werneuchen who when describing in
hexameters the spectacle of a barley field to the Berliners, called it
"a marvelous view." When the forest was still the rule in Germany and
the field the exception, the uprooted parts of the forest, the oases of
cleared land, the free open spaces, undoubtedly passed for the most
attractive landscapes; whereas we, who have acquired too much of the
open, are more attracted by the oases of the forest shade.

Only he who takes this into consideration can understand for example,
how it is possible that the palace of Charlemagne at Ingelheim could
have passed for a perfect country-seat, situated in what must have been
considered in those days an extremely charming and picturesque spot.
Seen through modern eyes these plains of the left bank of the Rhine with
their fields, vineyards, sandy wastes and stunted pine-woods are
intensely uninteresting, and one fails to comprehend why an emperor
should have chosen Ingelheim as a country-seat, when he needed only to
cross the river, or to proceed down stream for a few hours in order to
build his palace in a region of imperishable natural beauty. If,
however, one takes one's stand on the ruined walls of the imperial abode
and looks out over the broad plains of the Rhine valley, which at that
time were already cleared land, while the chain of hills along the left
bank, which are so monotonous at present, were still covered with woods,
then one can estimate to some extent the delight caused by the view
spreading before the gaze of the emperor. His castle at the edge of the
wood, as it were on the borders of night and old barbarity, looked out
upon the open, and under the windows stretched the broad agricultural
land of the Rheingau, from whose virgin soil the first vines were just
beginning to sprout, adorned with new settlements and roads--surely a
royal spectacle for the eye of those days. It was, so to speak, the
symbol of the universal historical mission, not only of the emperor but
of the entire age--namely, to root up, to clear, to procure light. And
thus the same landscape which today is considered, if not exactly
commonplace, yet at the most idyllic, may have appeared imposing and
imperial