He preferred to wander along the borders of the magnificent Lake of Constance, or to loiter among the neighboring hills, and watch, from some bare peak, the broad-winged vulture sailing slowly and steadily through the skies.

He would watch it until it became a mere speck in the blue distance: we may often catch ourselves gazing after receding objects as though they were bearing away a thought we had fixed upon them.

His wound was nearly well, and the freshness of health was again in his cheeks; but his spirit had lost a part of its sprightliness, and he seemed to have grown older.

He did not evince his former relish for the manuscripts of Herman, but his visits to the chapel were more frequent and lasted longer.

Thus, day after day, he would study the lake, the clouds, and the cliffs, neither fearing an attack from the men of Stramen, nor meditating one against them.
We shall leave him in his inactivity, to trace the progress of events which form one of the most important and exciting periods in history.
Rodolph was not a moment too soon in concentrating his power; for Henry IV, flushed with his recent victory over the Saxons, had called at Goslar a diet of the princes of the empire, under the pretext of deciding, in their presence, the fate of their Saxon prisoners.