The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-01-29
After twenty Years.
"a German sketch from the New York
Evening Post In three parts.)
PART IT


the queer old congiomeration OF stone
with its dungeon-like shop in the base
ment-so dark that its other wall was as
invisible as the middle ages. He stood
there and read in the window the same
old inscription that said Luther, lived
here in his childhood. Nothing had
changed? No, The dingy window-pane
under the inscription reflected the travel
er-obscurely, but it reflected him, and
the vision was not the young man who
with head full of romantic visions, and
heart-strings quivering with music, had
wandered about the Lutherhaus twenty
years gone by. And the travellers face
grew so dark that if smile had attempt
ed to find its way among the rugged fea-
lures, it would have assuredly got lost
and speedily died of darkness and cold.
Mo- One thing in Eisenach had changed,
and it was the most melancholy OF all
changes-the traveller himself.
As he queried within himself he had
unconsciously wandered on, and came to
himself again as his feet slipped between
the rough stones of another of the old
scenes. And as he stood still again and
his eye rested on the clumsy and desc
late old building, with its old inscription
telling that this was where Sebastian
Bach had lived and written immortal mu-
in the travellers veins. and he went soft
ly, reverently, sadly, 1oyously on, a prey
to all the deep and the wild emotions of
the old time.
On he went, and the next moment when
he realized where he was, he had already
reached that parting of the ways where
the rocky cell of the Elizabethenruhe
through the deep Annathal to the gorge
of the Drachenschlucht and to the right,
beyond the beautiful villa of the dead
poet Fritz Reuter-, the other way turns
sharply and winds it's steep ascent to the
Wartburg. The traveller hesitated here,
a prey not only to Renaissance, but to
the unutterable emotions that cannot fail
to be excited in the breast of any ordinary
man by the wild, weird scenery at this
gate of the Thuringian forest.
1t can be really hot sometimes of a
summers day in the Thuringerwald, as
the traveller must have realized. for he
took off his coat and strapped it to his
travelling bag, and hung both over his
shoulder before he began the ascent The
exertion sent the blood coursing rapidly
through his veins, and the exhilaration Of
labor affected his spirits as well as his
physical nature by the time he had arriv-
ed at the gateway. Many others, in
groups of from two to half a dozen, but
seldom alone like himself, were making
the pilgrimage before and behind him.
1t was indeed a glorious view that lay
sparkling before him, down through the
sunshine, as he came suddenly to the
plateau which affords to the weary trav-
eler the consolation of abundant food and
drink as he rests him from the Journey
and dream away in the valley below.
But what the traveller saw was not the
nd rbaf ~
was not mere Lowenbrauerei, but his
soul fed and stated its thirst on what the
noisy students at the adjoining table
would doubtless have thought very ghost
ly food indeed.
The traveller thought of Eisenach as 1t
had been twenty years ago, when all it's
mystic beauty had thrilled with another
charm-that charm would turn a track
less desert into a vision of heaven.
Where was she now? Why was she
not with him now as she had been in this
very spot twenty years ago? Twenty
years ago, was it? The traveller opened
MS diary to be sure of the day. August
| L. Bf2-exactly twenty years ago TODAY.
| Then the traveller, with an almost bovisb
| eagerness, consulted his watch. Half mast
| onei
He remembered what he had for some
| time forgotten. Strange that he should
have forgotten it, Strange that, having
forgotten it, he should have come here at
mat Day and hour! She had been there
with him, and, if he mistook not, at that
very table, on the 18th of August, 1872. at
half-past one o'clock in the afternoon.
In the exchange of mutual tender conf
| dences, they had Intellectually ATTEMPTED
| TO imagine what they would be like and
| what their feelings would be after twenty
years. They had speculated with lest
anu perhaps almost with tears on that fu-
lure so distant that it seemed remoter
than the span of two lifetimes Most of
the pictures they drew of the interval
were colored with very rosy tints. how
ever-colored with all the hues that came
| BACK to their delighted eyes as they look
! Ell down this same valley dS-Vn which he
was now looking alone. They saw then
! now cold and blue were the tints in the
| far-on horizon, and they told each other
| that when they came near the distant
| land the cold would melt into warmth
! and the blue would take on all the colors
| of the rainbow. So they stood close Ia
! each other, and with hands furtiveIv
| clasped promised each other that wher-
| ever the life journey should carry them,
| yet at the end of twenty years, which
| would be on the 18th of August 1892. AT
| they would stand there together and look
| over the same walls, down the same val
! ley, and tell each other-if, indeed, either
| need to tell anything TO the other-hoW
| the vision of life had colored and warmed
as it passed them by. Twenty years had
| passed away, and by some strange IA
| tality he had kept the appointment made
| so long ago. And he was keeping it alone
! 1t was not so sad a moment, after all
! as he had feared il would be when he first
! thought that he was really here, keeping
! his appointment and keeping il alone In
! a strong, active, vigorous nature, he told
| himself. sorrow, while it may be intense
does not overwhelm. If the life could
! have been more like what they had pic
| tured it, perhaps he might have been q
happier and in many ways better man
than he was this exceedingly hot after
noon. Yes. il was hot. that was q fact
! He must have some beer.
! After all there were many things in the
| world worse than to be sound. vigorous
! man of forty sitting on the top Of the
\ Wartburg with the best beer ever cooled
! in Bavarian cellar tingling in his throat
! and leaping UP in angry foam from the
| mug.
What was that motto on the same mug
| 'Lustig geiebt und selig gestorben
| Hat dem Teufel die Rechnung verdorben
Exactly So 4 jolly life and q happy
| death had spoiled the devils reckoning, NJ
| doubt A rather grim philosophy 70 put
| on beer mug.
Had he not. taking everything into con.
| si5eratton. hit on the true secret of liv.
| ing? To get all the enjoyment possible
out OF life without injuring anybody else
! ought certainly to be consistent with :
I blessed deraarttrp into the unknown b.