My host showed the liveliest interest in our undertaking and was ready with advice, which, in most cases, came too late. He thought we should have taken the Duke of Weimar into our confidence, or at least since that was too late, call on his son at Geldern who had shown great interest in botany. But this we could not do. He mentioned the wife of a former governor in Surinam who made her home in Frankfort, but who was temporarily absent.
After examining our passports he secured their endorsement by the Dutch functionary, on the following day, and our wishes were satisfied. Our departure had to be made in some haste to avoid the chance of missing our ship. I did, however, in all kindness, succeed in making arrangements for a stopover in Mayence where we arrived on the seventeenth and were given until the morning of the nineteenth, when we embarked in a fast sailing boat down the Rhine.
I realize, at the beginning of my departure, that among the many things in which I must learn to improve myself, is my handwriting. When I consider what little of extra care and restraint is needed to acquire a more legible hand, so gratifying to one’s readers who so sweetly and patiently come to the task of pouring over our correspondence, and what a torment it may become to those of our friends who must laboriously decipher what should inspire rather than weary them, I resolve at once to do better in the future. I well know the trouble I have had in reading my own writing, even when not of the worst.
Thinking and speaking have always come easily enough to me. Reading and listening more difficult. To the setter of type I must show leniency, for, should I undertake to sit too hard upon the setter, what more likely than that he might become completely upset. Hence I stand helplessly by, and misprints go before the public eye. Speaking of improvement in writing suggests improvement in style, which scarcely belongs here since I am not at present writing for publication. This, however, would not alter the contents of my letters in the least, excepting to give more attention to the systematizing of things under observation.
These thoughts did not come to me while sailing down the Rhine, in a dense fog which prevented one from seeing anything. I meditated then upon the realization of human desires and the anticipation of things to come. The people about us are talking of their travelling plans and are busy strapping their bundles.
I am reminded of plans my friend Dehmel and I had once made, after a long separation, to make a Rhine journey. I had this desire, which grew to an intense longing, in the fall of 1824, when the days were cool and beautiful and the air filled with the singing of birds. It was in the early days when I had no money at all, only debts to be paid and no prospects. My booklet, Poor Henry, had now enriched me somewhat, and there were prospects of more to come from the sale of the Water Spirit.
My heart was light as we set sail upon the green waters of the Rhine. Next fall, according to promise, we met again to make the journey together, and now once more, in the fall, sitting in the stagecoach, on my way to Frankfort, I was again to meet with my friend, who was to accompany me down the Rhine. This time in good standing and with better prospects for the future. My mind is occupied with a long cherished resolve to write a treatise in which many wishes are to be realized. In this there is the charm of anticipation. I have in mind writing about the perfecting of certain attributes such as memory, and the like, which must be possible with leisure, and careful training. The way must lie clear before one, the victory certain or nothing will be gained.
I have already dipped my pen into ink to write such a book, which, though not yet accomplished, is occupying my brain in leisure hours. Much of it still is in a fog like the one we are passing through. But more of this later. As we neared Bingen, the fog lifted revealing the ancient castles. The Rhine flowed as always and all was beautiful as before. We saw the vintners harvesting their grapes, the time for which had begun on the same day. I thought of poets and their rapturous descriptions, sincere, not distorted, and of my own better hours in which I wrote verses. These, though not of great value, at least were true and not forced, if I may say so.
I make mention of this because later, in my own way, I may be expected to describe some of the glories of the world. I cannot remember ever having been deeply moved, thrilled, or exalted by descriptions of the beautiful. For this reason I have never been able to either write or speak in glowing terms of things seen or experienced on a journey. I believe I might travel through Switzerland or Italy without writing a single intoxicating letter.
I take delight in describing pictures of a room with its furniture, or of an individual to whom I have taken a liking, but these I cannot associate with landscapes which for me retire into a shade. I do not know why this is so. I have, however in a letter written recently, tried to make this clear to myself. It is, as I understand it, the feeling of a definite, distinct reality that I experience through the events that occur in my life. Even events of great importance in one’s life, such as getting married, could not alter the case.
After all, things that happen, are but pictures come true from what has passed in our minds in moments of silent meditation. Things that I have read, and others conceived in imagination, take shape and furnish material for elaboration. All vision is repetition (Jedes sehen ein wiedersehen). At present the actuality, the newness of things, though they dominate me, do not disturb my composure.
There is no overpowering longing to see the new world, such as some might feel in a burning desire to view the tropics, long before they experience its scorching heat. To me all outward experiences as well as my thoughts, even when written with fervor, remain to be read peacefully on paper. I am calm, mostly smiling, seldom moved to tears of joy or sorrow; and, in the latter case, only in matters that touch the innermost recesses of the heart.
Our ship continued on its journey down the green royal Rhine until, on the following day, we spied the blue Seven Hell Mountains as they appeared in the background. I felt sad as I said farewell to the blue hills so dear to me from my childhood; dear as if they had been people. It was the hills, more than aught else, that enriched my youthful happy days; friends came later and singly.
It was only of late, and the time brief, that friends had multiplied, and the hills were pushed into the background, but where they will forever stand, unforgotten. It was the farewell to the hills that helped to make me homesick as I took a long and lingering look behind. It was among their rocks and valleys, forests and tree tops. I felt happy, and at home, before I was understood by others.
It was there I gathered my specimens, rested and dreamed the dreams that were to brighten my future years. Many things have happened since, are happening now, yet I feel that some day I will have a longing for these heights beyond all other things upon earth; from them to get other perspectives for my future. The next blue mountains to greet our eyes, in case we should not get to see the peak of Teneriffe, will be those in the interior of Guiana. At present I would not have the desire to look upon them; my heart must first grow lighter.
We arrived in Cologne by night. I could barely make out, by the dim light of the moon, the innumerable spires above the walls of houses that stretched along the banks. I said to myself, this is Germany’s Rome. There, in the distance, stood the dome like a gigantic ant hill, the magnificent structure which, in its entirety, I was never to behold. We wandered through the streets of the ancient city by moonlight; saw a large cemetery with many crosses. The general impression given was that of a city with many graves. There was just time to secure our passage in the stagecoach, and early next morning, which was foggy, we left the holy city, which, looking back from the lowlands, appeared blue in the distance.
I am reserving my impressions of my first day in Holland for another letter in which I will have more things to relate, for the benefit of certain persons.
We had travelled from Mayence to Coblentz, down the Rhine, on the nineteenth, arriving in Cologne on the twentieth, and left there early on the twenty-first, arriving at Utrecht at noon of the twenty-second, and at Amsterdam on the evening of the same day. Here good news awaited us. I have communicated some things about this great city, from later days, not intended for the many.
It turned out that we had travelled with unnecessary haste. On the morning on which I left Cologne, Weigel, who had remained behind, travelled alone to Brussels to obtain from the home- minister our passports and a letter to the secretary of the navy. My reason for leaving Weigel behind, was partly to save expenses, and partly to attend to affairs that might become necessary in the event of a hurried departure after his arrival.
In 1878 and 1879 he published 2 editions of his book, Sunstroke and Its Homeopathic Treatment.
Upon Hering's death in 1880 Knerr became responsible for the completion of the 10-volume Guiding Symptoms.
Dr. Knerr wrote 2-volume Repertory to the Guiding Symptoms,