Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/19

Rh now abandoned the diplomatic career and entered with unabated energy upon that scientific path of literature which combats for the freedom of thought and conscience both in religion and politics. He had begun great and important works. May he have time and strength given him for their completion! Every thing belonging to him, his countenance, his state of mind, his surroundings, nay even his study, had one expression, and that was—light.

Again I had cold weather and rain on my way to Basle. At Basle, the portal of the Rhine between Germany and Switzerland, the sun shone, and there was a lively gathering, as it were, of free, gay folk-life across the vast river in the moonlight evenings. Beneath the colossal wooden bridge flows the river, clear and calm, in a half circle embracing, the old gloomy city, which has a very learned look, like a professor in his chair. A short distance above the bridge plies a little ferry-boat, guided, as by a magic thread, from the one shore to the other; from the shore with its professor-like aspect and queer old houses, to the other with its green fields and trees. During the morning I allowed myself to be taken backwards and forwards by the little ferry-bout across the stream, and during the evening I wandered backwards and forwards on the wide bridge listening to the cheerful, fresh murmuring of out-door life. I also visited the Cathedral; and this was all which at that time I cared either to see or hear of Basle. It was my intention to return thither in the autumn—I would now merely go to the Lake of Geneva and forward to Lausanne, where I intended to rest.