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Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, Issue 17, March, 1859
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March,
1859, by Various
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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859
Author: Various
Release Date: March 23, 2004 [eBook #11687]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 17, MARCH, 1859***
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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. III.--MARCH, 1859.--NO. XVII.
HOLBEIN AND THE DANCE OF DEATH.
At the northwest corner of Switzerland, just on the turn of the Rhine from its westward course between Germany and Switzerland, to run northward between Germany and France, stands the old town of Bâle. It is nominally Swiss; but its situation on the borders of three countries, and almost in them all, has given to the place itself and to its inhabitants a somewhat heterogeneous air. "It looks," says one traveller, "like a stranger lately arrived in a new colony, who, although he may have copied the dress and the manner of those with whom he has come to reside, wears still too much of his old costume to pass for a native, and too little to be received as a stranger." Perhaps we may get a better idea of the mixed nationality of the place by imagining a Swiss who speaks French with a German