asily have imagined
ourselves traversing the bosom of one of those vast, solitary rivers of
the wilderness across the sea.

The children were nearly all asleep, tired out with happiness in excess;
and, most of us were silent, being awed by the beauty of the evening
into voiceless admiration.

A little girl near us, wakeful still, was breaking one of the daisy-
chains that Min had woven her at Richmond, and casting the pieces one by
one into the current as it hurried along:--the daisy cups sometimes
keeping pace with us, as our tow-rope slackened, and then falling
astern, on our horse trotting ahead once more.

"Don't you remember," said I to Min, "those lines of Schiller's _Der
Jungling am Bache_? They seem appropriate to that little incident,"--I
continued, pointing to the small toddlekin, who was destroying the
daisy-chain:--

"`An der Quelle sass der Knabe
Blumen wand er sich zum Kranz,
Und er sah sie fortgerissen
Treiben in den wellen Tanz.
Und so fleihen meine Tage,
Wie die quelle rastlos hin!
Und so bleichet meine Jugend,
Wie die Kranze schnell verbluhn!'"

"They are very pretty," said Min. "Still, do you know, as a rule I do
not think German poetry nice. It always sounds so harsh and guttural to
me, however tender and sentimental the words may be."

"That may be true in some respects," I answered; "but if you hear it
well read, or sung, there is much more pathos and softness about it than
one is able to discern when simply skimming it over to oneself. Some of
Goethe's little ballads, for instance, such as `The Erl King,' and
others that Walter Scott has translated, are wonderfully beautiful; not
to speak of Uhland's poetry, and La Motte Fouque's charming _Undine_,
which is as pretty a poem as I have ever read."

"I confess," said Min, "that I have not had any general experience of
German literature. Indeed, I have quite neglected it since I left
school; and then I only studied heavy books--such as _The History of
Frederick the Great_, that wearisome _Jungfrau von Orleans_, and others
of Schiller's plays."

"Ah!" I replied, "that accounts for it, then. The more you read
German, the more you will like it. I think our schoolmasters and
schoolmistresses make a great mistake, generally, in the books they
select for the instruction and familiarising of their pupils with
foreign languages. They appear, really, to choose the driest authors
they can pick out! If I had anything to do