The Pole began to prepare his coffee—for one. I saw that something must be done to increase the number of cups. He took up his book of prayers and asked of what religion we were. Of Pottinger I said contemptuously, “He is nothing but a heretic,” but that as for myself, I had for some time felt a great inclination towards the Panna—Holy Virgin—and that it would afford me great pleasure to conform to the Polish Catholic Church, but that unfortunately I did not understand the language. To which he replied, that if he were to read the morning service in Polish and I would repeat it word by word, that the Panna would count it to my credit just as if I had. And as I was praying in good earnest for a breakfast, I trust that it was accepted. Down on our knees we went and began our orisons.
“Leland! you --- humbug!” exclaimed Pottinger.
“Go away, you infernal heretic, and don’t disturb Christians at their devotions!” was my devout reply. So, prayers concluded, there was coffee and rolls for three. And so in due time the coach returned. I rewarded our host with a thaler, and we returned to Breslau, of which place I noted that the natives never ate anything but sweet cakes for their first morning meal.
We stopped at Görlitz, where I asked a woman standing in the half-doorway of the house of Jacob Böhme if that was his house. But she had never heard of such a man!
Dresden we thoroughly explored, and were at Leipzig during the great annual fair. These fairs, in those days, were sights to behold. Now they are succeeded by stupendous Expositions, which are far finer and inconceivably greater, yet which to me lack that kind of gypsy, side-show, droll, old-fashioned attraction of the ancient gatherings, even as Barnum’s Colossal Moral Show of half-a-dozen circuses at once and twenty-five elephants does not amuse anybody
as the old clown in the ring and one elephant did of yore.
Thence to Berlin, where we were received with joy by the American students, who knew all about one another all over Germany. I very much enjoyed the great art gallery, and the conversation of those who, like myself, followed lectures on Æsthetics and the history of art. Thence to Magdeburg and Hanover, Dusseldorf—to cut it short, Holland and the chief cities in Belgium.
I noted one little change of custom in Berlin. In South Germany it was a common custom for students, when calling on a friend, to bring and leave generally a small bouquet. When I did this in Berlin my friends were astonished at it. This was an old Italian custom, as we may read in the beautiful One Hundred and Fifty Brindisi or Toasts of Minto.
“Porto a voi un fior novello,
Ed, oh come vago e bello!”
In 1847 even a very respectable hotel in Holland was in any city quite like one of two centuries before. You entered a long antiquely-brown room, traversed full length by a table. Before every chair was placed a little metallic dish with hot coals, and a churchwarden pipe was brought to every visitor at once without awaiting orders. The stolid, literal, mechanical action of all the people’s minds was then wonderful. An average German peasant was a genius compared to these fresh, rosy-fair, well-clad Hollanders. It was to me a new phase of human happiness in imbecility, or rather in undisturbed routine; for it is written that no bird can fly like a bullet and doze or sleep sweetly at the same time. Yet, as from the Huns, the most hideous wretches in the world, there arose by intermixture the Hungarians, who are perhaps the handsomest, so from the Knickerbocker Dutch sprang the wide-awake New Yorkers! The galleries in Holland and Belgium were to me joys unutterable and as the glory of life itself. Munich and Thiersch still inspired me;