THE NÜRNBERG STOVE IAugust lived in a little town called Hall. Hall is a favoritename for several towns in Austria and in Germany; but this oneespecial little Hall, in the Upper Innthal, is one of the mostcharming Old-World places that I know, and August for his partdid not know any other. It has the green meadows and the greatmountains all about it, and the gray-green glacier-fed waterrushes by it. It has paved streets and enchanting little shopsthat have all latticed panes and iron gratings to them; it has avery grand old Gothic church, that has the noblest blendings oflight and shadow, and marble tombs of dead knights, and a look ofinfinite strength and repose as a church should have. Then thereis the Muntze Tower, black and white, rising out of greenery andlooking down on a long wooden bridge and the broad rapid river;and there is an old schloss which has been made into a guard-house,with battlements and frescos and heraldic devices in gold andcolors, and a man-at-arms carved in stone standing life-size inhis niche and bearing his date 1530. A little farther on, butclose at hand, is a cloister with beautiful marble columns andtombs, and a colossal wood-carved Calvary, and beside that asmall and very rich chapel: indeed, so full is the little town ofthe undisturbed past, that to walk in it is like opening a missalof the Middle Ages, all emblazoned and illuminated with saintsand warriors, and it is so clean, and so still, and so noble, byreason of its monuments and its historic color, that I marvelmuch no one has ever cared to sing its praises. The old piousheroic life of an age at once more restful and more brave thanours still leaves its spirit there, and then there is the girdleof the mountains all around, and that alone means strength,peace, majesty.In this little town a few years ago August Strehla lived with hispeople in the stone-paved irregular square where the grand churchstands.
