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bed early, quite fatigued with walking over this wilderness of irregular buildings, which, if not in as good taste as those of Molk or St. Florian, have a massive grandeur about them greater than that of either of those establishments, large as they are.
Professor Heinrich is altogether the most acute, intelligent, and learned person I found among the monks here.
He is liberal in his politics, and knows a good deal about England and America.
I was quite surprised, for instance, to find that he understood very well the whole question of the United States Bank. . . . . The young monk Raslhuber, who has lately passed a couple of years in Vienna, at the observatory there, . . . . is quite fire-new in all his notions. . . . . In all three of these monasteries, as well as in the two or three monks I saw at Heiligenkreuz, I have found a liberal and even republican tone the prevalent one; great admiration of America, etc.
July 7.—After breakfast this morning we took leave of the kind, but rather dull old Prelate, and were followed to our carriage by the monks with all sorts of good wishes.
The boys of the gymnasium, too, were out in great numbers to see off the strangers who had come from so far, and, by the time we had passed the outer court, we had been saluted by nearly the whole rank and file of the establishment.
Until I visited these three great monasteries, I did not suppose that any so large, so rich, and so stately could be found still remaining in Christendom.
But the Benedictines are yet strong in their original resources and influence throughout Austria; and these, with the Convent of Admont, constitute the hiding of their power. . . . . The Benedictines have always been the most respectable, the most learned, the most beneficent, of all the orders of monks; and it was for this reason that they escaped almost entirely when Joseph II.
laid so heavy a hand on the monasteries of Austria generally, in the latter part of the last century.
What is to become of them hereafter, it is difficult to tell.
They do not belong to the present state of things anywhere, not even in ‘old Austria.’1
The next four weeks were occupied by a very interesting journey through the valleys of Upper Austria, which is described with great animation in the Journal. After passing two days on the beautiful Gmunden See, the party arrived at Ischl on the 10th of July, and made their headquarters there until the 16th.
