Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/131

Rh hymns to Ceres; the consumption of so many fruits being circumstantially set forth and extolled, and the important question as to the free or restricted trade in them being very merrily taken up. At Ensisheim we saw the monstrous aerolite hanging up in the church, and, in accordance with the scepticism of the time, ridiculed the credulity of man, never suspecting that such air-born beings, if they were not to fall into our cornfields, were at any rate to be preserved in our cabinets.

Of a pilgrimage to the Ottilienberg, accomplished with a hundred, nay, a thousand, of the faithful, I still love to think. Here, where the foundation wall of a Roman castle still remained, a count's beautiful daughter, of a pious disposition, was said to have dwelt among ruins and stony crevices. Near the chapel where the wanderers edify themselves, her well is shown; and much that is beautiful is narrated. The image which I formed of her, and her name, made a deep impression upon me. I carried both about with me for a long time, until at last I endowed with them one of my later, but not less beloved, daughters, who was so favourably received by pure and pious hearts.

On this eminence also is repeated to the eye the majestic Alsace, always the same, and always new. Just as in an amphitheatre, let one take one's place where he will, he surveys the whole people, but sees his neighbours most plainly; so it is here with bushes, rocks, hills, woods, fields, meadows, and districts near and in the distance. They wished to show us even Basle in the horizon; that we saw it, I will not swear: but the remote blue of the Swiss mountains even here exercised its rights over us, by summoning us to itself, and, since we could not follow the impulse, by leaving a painful feeling.