Jerome Klapka Jerome

DIARY OF A PILGRIMAGE
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END OF SATURDAY, 24TH, AND BEGINNING OF SUNDAY, 25TH--CONTINUED

The Rhine!--How History is Written.--Complicated Villages.--How a Peaceful Community Was Very Much Upset.--The German Railway Guard.-- His Passion for Tickets.--We Diffuse Comfort and Joy Wherever We Go, Gladdening the Weary, and Bringing Smiles to Them that Weep.-- "Tickets, Please."--Hunting Experiences.--A Natural Mistake.--Free Acrobatic Performance by the Guard.--The Railway Authorities' Little Joke.--Why We Should Think of the Sorrows of Others.

We returned to the station just in time to secure comfortable seats, and at 5.10 steamed out upon our fifteen hours' run to Munich. From Bonn to Mayence the line keeps by the side of the Rhine nearly the whole of the way, and we had a splendid view of the river, with the old-world towns and villages that cluster round its bank, the misty mountains that make early twilight upon its swiftly rolling waves, the castled crags and precipices that rise up sheer and majestic from its margin, the wooded rocks that hang with threatening frown above its sombre depths, the ruined towers and turrets that cap each point along its shores, the pleasant isles that stud like gems its broad expanse of waters.

Few things in this world come up to expectation, especially those things of which one has been led to expect much, and about which one has heard a good deal. With this philosophy running in my head, I was prepared to find the Rhine a much over-rated river.

I was pleasantly disappointed. The panorama which unfolded itself before our eyes, as we sped along through the quiet twilight that was deepening into starry night, was wonderfully beautiful, entrancing and expressive.

I do not intend to describe it to you. To do justice to the theme, I should have to be even a more brilliant and powerful writer than I am. To attempt the subject, without doing it justice, would be a waste of your time, sweet reader, and of mine--a still more important matter.

I confess it was not my original intention to let you off so easily. I started with the idea of giving you a rapid but glowing and eloquent word-picture of the valley of the Rhine from Cologne to Mayence. For background, I thought I would sketch in the historical and legendary events connected with the district, and against this, for a foreground, I would draw, in vivid colours, the modern aspect of the scene, with remarks and observations thereon.

Here are my rough notes, made for the purpose:-

Mems. for Chapter on Rhine: "Constantine the Great used to come here--so did Agrippa. (N.B.--Try and find out something about Agrippa.) Caesar had a good deal to do with the Rhine--also Nero's mother."

(To the reader.--The brevity of these memoranda renders their import, at times, confusing. For instance, this means that Caesar and Nero's mother both had a good deal to do with the Rhine; not that Caesar had a good deal to do with Nero's mother. I explain this because (...)

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