As to the national character, there is but little opportunity for its development in Austria, since the different nations who inhabit the various provinces of that empire do not form a compact whole, and are not all actuated by the same spirit. Two great causes, however, might give a certain stimulus to the public mind, and also excite patriotism in Austria; these are, the love of the country and of the sovereign; and the felicity which all the inhabitants enjoy under protecting laws. Husbandmen rather than traders, the Austrians are for this very reason more attached to their native soil. The interests of the country are in fact more closely connected with those of the cultivator of the soil, than of the merchant, whose almost only object is the success of his speculations, on which his precarious existence depends. Agriculture is honoured in Austria, and the most illustrious of its princes, as well as the sovereign himself, are fully sensible of its importance to an empire possessing so fertile a soil.
The Austrian nation is perhaps the most upright and the most moral of any in Europe. There is not an Austrian, with the exception of the higher class of society, but feels that morality is the genuine source of domestic happiness and the guarantee of the peace of families. The sacred ties of marriage are still respected; and how indeed could it well be otherwise in a country where woman is devoted to her conjugal duties and finds the reward of this devotedness in the scrupulous fidelity of him who is its object! Conjugal love always leads to maternal affection; and the Austrian women are all, or nearly all, excellent mothers. They are not more ostentatious in their attachment to their children than in their love for their husbands: so that the name of her who sacrifices herself for the object of a pure and tender affection remains for ever unknown to the world. Divorce, which introduces a kind of anarchy into families, has never been sanctioned by the laws of Austria, and this is not one of the least important benefits that it owes to its legislation.
The fair sex in Austria have in general auburn hair, delicate complexions and large blue eyes, the united effect of which there would be no withstanding, did not their modesty and simplicity command respect, and temper by the charm of virtue the too powerful impression of their beauty. They delight by their sensibility, as they interest by their imagination. Without being too much addicted to the cultivation of literature and the fine arts, they are no strangers to the best productions of either; and when you have once gained their confidence you are astonished at their knowledge, which they never display but in spite of themselves. The Austrian ladies speak with equal fluency all the languages of Europe; and in company they possess in general a marked superiority over the men.
These observations apply particularly to the women of the higher classes: as to those of inferior rank, they can scarcely be surpassed for goodness of disposition and purity of morals. The maternal love of these rustics is too strong not to preserve them from those faults which are unhappily too common among females of the same condition in many other countries. Labour and the exercises of religion occupy them entirely, and exempt them from those vices which are generated by idleness. They are, however, charged, at least those of some districts, with being too much addicted to spirituous liquors, and with impairing by this indulgence their circumstances and their health.
The men are in general tall, well proportioned, and of a ruddy complexion: but though few ordinary persons are to be found among them, it is rarely that you meet with forms distinguished by that higher sort of manly beauty which is frequently seen in the south of Europe, and which furnished models for the finest statues of antiquity. The Germans still answer the description given by Tacitus of their ancestors: they are almost all fair and light complexioned: and their souls do not possess the energy which their stature and strength would seem to denote.
CHAPTER V.
AUSTRIA, LOWER AND UPPER.
INHABITANTS OF LOWER AUSTRIA—MANNERS OF THE PEOPLE OF VIENNA—AMUSEMENTS—HOUSES—POPULATION AND MORTALITY—SHOPS—PAVED STREETS—THE FIRE-WATCH—COSTUMES OF UPPER AUSTRIA.
The inhabitants of Lower Austria, in which the capital of the empire is situated, are, with the Hungarians, the most fortunate of the subjects of the imperial sceptre. Cultivating a fertile soil, and not having, like the Styrians and the Tyrolese, to struggle incessantly against an inclement climate, they are happy in their geographical position; and they are in general deserving of it by the excellence of their disposition. Harbouring none but the milder sentiments, they have more gentleness than energy, and more good nature than elevation. The Austrians are a simple and a hospitable nation; and the same observation applies to their nobles, who never assume the German or rather the Austrian pride, unless when they would enforce the prerogatives of birth. A stranger has least to suffer from this narrow-mindedness, which is becoming the less common, the more the education of the higher classes is improved, and the more they learn that true nobility ought to display itself in exalted sentiments alone.