below Audernach. Query, isn't there a song about this? If so, put it in. Coblentz and Ehrenbreitstein. Great fortresses. Call them 'the Frowning Sentinels of the State.' Make reflections on the German army, also on war generally. Chat about Frederick the Great. (Read Carlyle's history of him, and pick out the interesting bits.) The Drachenfels. Quote Byron. Moralise about ruined castles generally, and describe the middle ages, with your views and opinions on same."
There is much more of it, but that is sufficient to let you see the scheme I had in my head. I have not carried out my scheme, because, when I came to reflect upon the matter, it seemed to me that the idea would develop into something that would be more in the nature of a history of Europe than a chapter in a tourist's diary, and I determined not to waste my time upon it, until there arose a greater public demand for a new History of Europe than there appears to exist at present.
"Besides," I argued to myself, "such a work would be just the very thing with which to beguile the tedium of a long imprisonment. At some future time I may be glad of a labour of this magnitude to occupy a period of involuntary inaction."
"This is the sort of thing," I said to myself, "to save up for Holloway or Pentonville."
It would have been a very enjoyable ride altogether, that evening's spin along the banks of the Rhine, if I had not been haunted at the time by the idea that I should have to write an account of it next day in my diary. As it was, I enjoyed it as a man enjoys a dinner when he has got to make a speech after it, or as a critic enjoys a play.
We passed such odd little villages every here and there. Little places so crowded up between the railway
