turned to those objects; when I see affection, and even passion, for them appearing and flourishing; when I see able young persons seized with this passion, recklessly devoting powers, time, care, and property to these memorials of a past world,—­then am I reminded with pleasure that what I formerly would and wished had a value.  With satisfaction I see that they not only know how to prize what was done by our fore-fathers, but that, from existing unfinished beginnings, they try to represent, in pictures at least, the original design, so as thus to make us acquainted with the thought, which is ever the beginning and end of all undertakings; and that they strive with considerate zeal to clear up and vivify what seems to be a confused past.  Here I especially applaud the brave Sulpiz Boisseree, who is indefatigably employed in a magnificent series of copper-plates to exhibit the cathedral of Cologne as the model of those vast conceptions, the spirit of which, like that of Babel, strove up to heaven, and which were so out of proportion to earthly means that they were necessarily stopped fast in their execution.  If we have been hitherto astonished that such buildings proceeded only so far, we shall learn with the greatest admiration what was really designed to be done.

Would that literary-artistical undertakings of this kind were duly patronized by all who have power, wealth, and influence; that the great and gigantic views of our fore-fathers may be presented to our contemplation; and that we may be able to form a conception of what they dared to desire.  The insight resulting from this will not remain fruitless; and the judgment will, for once at least, be in a condition to exercise itself on these works with justice.  Nay, this will be done most thoroughly if our active young friend, besides the monograph devoted to the cathedral of Cologne, follows out in detail the history of our mediaeval architecture.  When whatever is to be known about the practical exercise of this art is further brought to light, when the art is represented in all its fundamental features by a comparison with the Graeco-Roman and the Oriental Egyptian, little can remain to be done in this department.  And I, when the results of such patriotic labors lie before the world, as they are now known in friendly private communications, shall be able, with true content, to repeat that motto in its best sense, “Of whatever one wishes in youth, he will have enough in old age.”

But if, in operations like these, which belong to centuries, one can trust one’s self to time, and wait for opportunity, there are, on the contrary, other things which in youth must be enjoyed at once, fresh, like ripe fruits.  Let me be permitted, with this sudden turn, to mention dancing, of which the ear is reminded, as the eye is of the minster, every day and every hour in Strasburg and all Alsace.  From early youth my father himself had given my sister and me instruction in dancing, a task which must have