"May I give you a glass of champagne, sir?" said I, seeing that he was "going in" with an air of determination.
"With all my heart," responded he; "but I think you might as well open a fresh bottle." I did so, Bob, and followed it by another, of which I partook also.
"There are some excellent fellows out there in the kitchen," said the governor. "There is a little lame tailor from Anspach, and an ivory-turner from the town of Lindau, both as agreeable companions as ever I journeyed with. Take them out that pie, James, and let the waiter fetch them half a dozen bottles of this red wine. Pay Jacob—he 's the tailor—four florins that I borrowed from him; and beg of Herman, a little Jewish rogue, with an Astracan cap, to keep my tobacco-bag, out of remembrance of me. Tell the assembled company that I 'll see them all by and by, for at present I have some family affairs to look after. Be civil and courteous with them, James, they all have been so to me; and if you 'll sit down at the table for half an hour, and converse with them, take my word for it, boy, you 'll not rise to go away without being both wiser and humbler."
I set about my mission with a willing heart. I was glad to do anything which should give the governor even a momentary satisfaction; and I was well pleased, also, to mark the calm, dispassionate tone of his language.
The "Lehr-Jungen" received me with a most respectful courtesy, in which, however, there was not the very slightest taint of subserviency or meanness. They showed me that they really felt kindly, and even affectionately, towards my father, who had been their companion for the last nine days on foot. They enjoyed in a high degree the dry humor which he possesses, and they relished his remarks on the country, and the people, through which they travelled, savoring as they did of a caustic shrewdness perfectly new to them. In fact, I soon saw that his frank temperament, enriched by that native quaintness every Irishman has his share of, had made him a prime favorite with them, and they were equally disposed to be flattered by his acquaintanceship as attached to himself. I sat with them till past midnight. Indeed, when I heard that our family had ordered bedrooms and retired for the night, I was not sorry to dissipate my cares, even in much humbler society than I had left home to foregather with.
It is not necessary I should make any confession to you of my unlettered ignorance, nor own how deplorably deficient I am in every branch of knowledge or acquirement. I was a stupid schoolboy, and an idle one, and the result is not very difficult to imagine; and yet, with all these disadvantages, I have a lazy man's craving for information, if I only could obtain it easily. I 'd like to be cured, if the doctor would only make the physic palatable. Now, will you believe me, Bob, when I say that these poor travelling tradesfolk, patched and threadbare as they were, talked upon subjects of a very high character, and discussed them, too, with a shrewdness and propriety perfectly astonishing? I had been living in Germany for some six or eight months, and yet now, for the first time, did I hear mention made of the popular literature of the day,—who were the writers most in vogue, and what modifications public taste was undergoing, and how the mystical and the imaginative were giving way before a practical common-sense and commonplace spirit more adapted to the exigencies of our age. This, I must observe, they entirely ascribed to the influence of England, which they described as being paramount on the Continent since the peace. Not alone that the vast hordes of our nation flooded every land of Europe, but that our mechanical arts, our inventions, and our literature pervaded every nook and crevice of the Continent.
As the tailor said, "It is not alone that we conform to your notions in dress, and endeavor to make our coats loose and square-skirted, to look English, but there is an Anglomania in all things, even where we will not confess it. Our novelists, too, have followed the fashion, and instead of those dreamy conceptions, where the possible and impossible were always in conflict, we have now domestic stories, ay, even before we have domesticity itself."
I do not quote my friend Jacob for anything remarkable in the sentiment itself, though I believe it to be just and true; but to show the general tone of a conversation maintained for hours by a set of poor artisans, not one of whom would not be well contented could he earn a shilling a day.
Perhaps you will ask me, if, in their several trades, these fellows were the equals of our own? In all probability they were not. The likelihood is, they were greatly inferior, as in every detail of the useful and the practical Germany is far behind us; but it is strange to speculate on what such a people may or might become, if their institutions should ever conform to the development of their natural intelligence. This, again, is the tailor's remark,—and I could "cabbage" from him for hours together.
I thought a hundred times of you, Bob. How you would have enjoyed this strange fraternity. What amusement—not to say something better and higher—you would have abstracted from them. What traits of native humor,—what studies of character! As for me, much, by far the greater part, was lost upon me for want of previous knowledge of the subjects they discussed. Of the kingdoms whose politics they canvassed I scarcely knew the names; of the books, I had not even heard the titles! I have no doubt many of their opinions were incorrect; much of what they uttered might have been illogical or inaccurate; but making a wide allowance for this, I was struck by the general acuteness of their remarks, and the tone of moderation and forbearance that characterized all they said.