COLLEGE LIFE. 87 



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tropical region, with which the wintry aspect of the Rhine 

 district had nothing in common. 



With Forster for a guide nothing could escape the closest 

 scrutiny; nature and art, manufactures and churches, the past 

 and the present, and all political matters, were alike viewed 

 with interest; there was no literary celebrity, no park nor 

 private pleasure-ground, no public institution, manufactory, 

 nor piece of curious mechanism, there were no docks, mines, 

 botanic gardens, nor observatories, that were left unvisited and 

 uninvestigated. 



One reflection made by Forster, referring to the Cathedral 

 of Cologne, is of extreme interest. After describing the won- 

 derful sublimity of the building he continues : 4 My attention 

 was arrested by a yet more engrossing object ; before me stood 

 a man of lively imagination and refined taste, who for the first 

 time was experiencing beneath these majestic arches the im- 

 pression of grandeur inspired by Gothic architecture, and who 

 at the sight of this choir, rising more than a hundred feet 

 above him, was riveted with admiration to the spot. Oh ! it 

 was glorious to see in this wrapt contemplation the grandeur 

 of the temple repeated as it were by reflection. Ere we left 

 the church, the shades of evening falling on the silent and de- 

 serted aisles, disturbed by no sound save the echo of our own 

 footsteps as we walked among the graves of electors, bishops, 

 and knights, whose effigies lay sculptured in stone, awoke in 

 his imagination many sad images of bygone days. In real 

 earnest, with his sensitive disposition and restless activity of 

 imagination, I should have been sorry to have watched there 

 alone with him through the night. ... I hurried with him 

 out of the Cathedral into the open air, and by the time we had 

 reached our hotel he had once more regained that enviable 

 state of mind through which, while displaying a keen appre- 

 ciation of the charms of nature, he had so agreeably shortened 

 the monotonous hours during our journey from Coblentz.' 



The person here referred to was Alexander von Humboldt. 



Forster further remarks: 'I have never yet been able to 

 determine, whether it is most satisfactory to derive our ideas of 

 real things direct from the world around us, or to receive them 

 through the medium of an intelligent mind, which by selecting 



