St. Goar is the least and sweetest place on all the Rhine. There is
Godesberg with its hilltop crested with ruins, there is Andernacht with its
venerable remains of antiquity, there is Ehrenbreitstein upon whose cliff
never traitor stood, looking out far away over its rich sea of champaign,
yet there is nothing like St. Goar. It has a lone hill beauty, the little
scene around it is exceedingly small, but it has a modest secluded loveli‐
ness. You look on Andernacht with veneration, on Ehrenbreitstein with
awe, but on St. Goar with love. 1

There is a voice in all nature. List to the rave of the mad sea; speaks
it not eloquently; does it not tell of its green weedy caverns and its coral
towers, and the high hills and shelly vallies far, far beneath its cold blue? 2
List to the song of the summer breeze; does it not tell of the blue heavens,
and the white clouds and other climes, and other seasons, and spicy gales,
and myrtle bowers, and sweet things far away? How sweetly the Rhine
sings at St. Goar, and it tells of the arched grottoes of the glacier, and
the crags of the far Alps, and how it joys to dash against tall rocks once
more.