‘I see, sir,’ said he with a very sweet smile, as he looked towards the little group—‘I see, sir, you are indeed an admirer of pretty prospects.’
Few and simple as the words were, they were enough to reconcile me to the speaker; his expression, as he spoke them, had a depth of feeling in it which showed that his heart was touched.
After some commonplace remark of mine on the simplicity of German domestic habits and the happy immunity they enjoyed from that rage of fashion which in other countries involved so many in rivalry with others wealthier than themselves, the colonel assented to the observation, but expressed his sorrow that the period of primitive tastes and pleasures was rapidly passing away. The French Revolution first, and subsequently the wars of the Empire, had done much to destroy the native simplicity of German character; while in latter days the tide of travel had brought a host of vulgar rich people, whose gold corrupted the once happy peasantry, suggesting wants and tastes they never knew nor need to know.
‘As for the great cities of Germany,’ continued he, ‘they have scarcely a trace left of their ancient nationality. Vienna and Berlin, Dresden, and Munich, are but poor imitations of Paris; it is only in the old and less visited towns, such as Nuremberg, or Augsburg, that the Alt Deutsch habits still survive. Some few of the Grand-Ducal States—Weimar, for instance—preserve the primitive simplicity of former days even in courtly etiquette; and there, really, the government is paternal, in the fullest sense of the term. You would think it strange, would you not, to dine at court at four o’clock, and see the grand-ducal ministers and their ladies—the élite of a little world of their own—proceeding, many of them on foot, in court-dress, to dinner with their sovereign? Strange, too, would you deem it—dinner over—to join a promenade with the party in the Park, where all the bourgeoisie of the town are strolling about with their families, taking their coffee and their tea, and only interrupting their conversation or their pleasure to salute the Grand-Duke or Grand-Duchess, and respectfully bid them a “good-e’en”; and then, as it grew later, to return to the palace, for a little whist or a game of chess, or, better still, to make one of that delightful circle in the drawing-room where Goethe was sitting? Yes, such is the life of Weimar. The luxury of your great capitals, the gorgeous salons of London and Paris, the voluptuous pleasures which unbounded wealth and all its train of passions beget, are utterly unknown there; but there is a world of pure enjoyment and of intercourse with high and gifted minds which more than repay you for their absence. A few years more, and all this will be but “matter for an old man’s memory.” Increased facilities of travel and greater knowledge of language erase nationality most rapidly. The venerable habits transmitted from father to son for centuries—the traditional customs of a people—cannot survive a caricature nor a satire. The esprit moqueur of France and the insolent wealth of England have left us scarce a vestige of our Fatherland. Our literature is at this instant a thing of shreds and patches—bad translations of bad books; the deep wisdom and the racy humour of Jean Paul are unknown, while the vapid wit of a modern French novel is extolled. They prefer the false glitter of Dumas and Balzac to the sterling gold of Schiller and Herder; and even Leipsic and Waterloo have not freed us from the slavish adulation of the conquered to the conqueror.’
‘What would you have?’ said I.
‘I would have Germany a nation once more—a nation whose limits should reach from the Baltic to the Tyrol. Her language, her people, her institutions entitle her to be such; and it is only when parcelled into kingdoms and petty States, divided by the artful policy of foreign powers, that our nationality pines and withers.’
‘I can easily conceive,’ said I, ‘that the Confederation of the Rhine must have destroyed in a great measure the patriotic feeling of Western Germany. The peasantry were sold as mercenaries; the nobles, little better, took arms in a cause many of them hated and detested——’
‘I must stop you here,’ said he, with a smile; ‘not that you would or could say that which should wound my feelings, but you might hurt your own when you came to know that he to whom you are speaking served in that army. Yes, sir, I was a soldier of Napoleon.’
Although nothing could be more unaffectedly easy than his manner as he spoke, I feared I might already have said too much; indeed, I knew not the exact expressions I had used, and there was a pause of some minutes, broken at length by the colonel saying—
‘Let us walk towards the town; for if I mistake not they close the gates of the Park at midnight, and I believe we are the only persons remaining here now.’