It had a small church, with a
burying-ground adjoining. At the heads of the graves were placed
crosses of wood or iron. On some were affixed miniatures, rudely
executed, but evidently attempts at likenesses of the deceased.
On the crosses were hung chaplets of flowers, some withering
others fresh, as if occasionally renewed. I paused with interest
at this scene: I felt that I was at the source of poetical
description, for these were the beautiful but unaffected
offerings of the heart which poets are fain to record. In a gayer
and more populous place I should have suspected them to have been
suggested by factitious sentiment derived from books; but the
good people of Gersau knew little of books; there was not a novel
nor a love-poem in the village, and I question whether any
peasant of the place dreamt, while he was twining a fresh chaplet
for the grave of his mistress, that he was fulfilling one of the
most fanciful rites of poetical devotion, and that he was
practically a poet.
THE INN KITCHEN.
Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?
FALSTAFF.
DURING a journey that I once made through the Netherlands, I had
arrived one evening at the Pomme d'Or, the principal inn of a
small Flemish village.
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