Rhine, like the mouth of a trumpet; and like the blast of a trumpet
is at times the wintry wind through this narrow mountain pass. The
blue Alsatian hills rise beyond; and, on a platform or strip of level
land, between the Neckar and the mountains, right under the castle,
stands the city of Heidelberg; as the old song says, "a pleasant
city, when it has done raining."

Something of this did Paul Flemming behold, when he rose the next
morning and looked from his window. It was a warm, vapory morning,
and a struggle was going on between the mist and the rising sun. The
sun had taken the hill-tops, but the mist still kept possession of
the valley and the town. The steeple of the great church rose
through a dense mass of snow-white clouds; and eastward, on the
hills, the dim vapors were rolling across the windows of the ruined
castle, like the fiery smoke of a great conflagration. It seemed to
him an image of the rising of the sun of Truth on a benighted world;
its light streamed through the ruins of centuries; and, down in the
valley of Time, the cross on the Christian church caught its rays,
though the priests were singing in mist and darkness below.