DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0115
A BARBARIC TEMPLE BUILT IN THE IMAGINATION. 99
Ours was, however, but a deception of imagination. A
little further on, and these shafts were fluted the entire
length—then’ strange character had vanished. “ How is
this I asked of the workmen : “ I thought I heard you
say the columns were to be painted in fresco ?”
“It is the wall behind the columns that is to be in
fresco,” he replied.
I saw instantly what was the intention, and doubtless
the Doric temple will be beautiful, as are all King Ludwig’s
creations; still I must regret the destruction of our ideal
barbaric temple, with its vast extent of plain gleaming out
beyond the gorgeously tinted columns ! As yet, my imagi-
nation feels it to be infinitely grander than the correct
Doric temple, with its rows of busts of great men placed
within it. What have human beings to do, however great,
in the presence of a Bavaria !
It is a strange ascent up into the Bavaria’s head, where
you sit within her face upon bronze sofas and through a
loop-hole in the rich mass of her hair can gaze out over the
distant city and across the plain towards the dreamy Alpine
chain. It is a strange ascent, and a yet stranger descent,
by that slender iron staircase, which in the gloom at times
seems lost in the rough dark chasm into which you are
descending j you feel held up by an iron network in the
centre of a wild cavern of volcanic rock.
Next month is to be the great Bavaria Festival.
September 22nd.—It is a pity Justina cannot see our
new abode ! Even she would be satisfied. We had a fresh
hunt for lodgings, Clare and I: not after romantic lodgings
in mills or at carpenters’,—-we had had enough of that with
Justina,—but in the neighbourhood of the aristocratic
Ludwig Strasse, where, now that Michaelmas is nearly ar-
rived, and everybody flitting, lodgings may be had.
The instant we entered our present rooms, we ex-
Ours was, however, but a deception of imagination. A
little further on, and these shafts were fluted the entire
length—then’ strange character had vanished. “ How is
this I asked of the workmen : “ I thought I heard you
say the columns were to be painted in fresco ?”
“It is the wall behind the columns that is to be in
fresco,” he replied.
I saw instantly what was the intention, and doubtless
the Doric temple will be beautiful, as are all King Ludwig’s
creations; still I must regret the destruction of our ideal
barbaric temple, with its vast extent of plain gleaming out
beyond the gorgeously tinted columns ! As yet, my imagi-
nation feels it to be infinitely grander than the correct
Doric temple, with its rows of busts of great men placed
within it. What have human beings to do, however great,
in the presence of a Bavaria !
It is a strange ascent up into the Bavaria’s head, where
you sit within her face upon bronze sofas and through a
loop-hole in the rich mass of her hair can gaze out over the
distant city and across the plain towards the dreamy Alpine
chain. It is a strange ascent, and a yet stranger descent,
by that slender iron staircase, which in the gloom at times
seems lost in the rough dark chasm into which you are
descending j you feel held up by an iron network in the
centre of a wild cavern of volcanic rock.
Next month is to be the great Bavaria Festival.
September 22nd.—It is a pity Justina cannot see our
new abode ! Even she would be satisfied. We had a fresh
hunt for lodgings, Clare and I: not after romantic lodgings
in mills or at carpenters’,—-we had had enough of that with
Justina,—but in the neighbourhood of the aristocratic
Ludwig Strasse, where, now that Michaelmas is nearly ar-
rived, and everybody flitting, lodgings may be had.
The instant we entered our present rooms, we ex-