[144] These, as my departed friend often declared, were remarkably well prepared in Ireland. They consist of poultry boiled dry, with Cayenne pepper, or served with a most burning and pungent sauce.—Editor, (addressed to gourmands.)
The sky is changed!—and such a change! Oh night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
And this is in the night:—Most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,—
A portion of the tempest and of thee!
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again ’tis black,—and now, the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth.
[146] Much has lately been done towards improving, I might say humanizing, the music in the churches in Prussia; and the influence of this improvement on the congregations have been universally found to be very beneficial.—Editor.
[147] Nothing can be a more astonishing proof of the difficulty of comparing the moral and intellectual character of two countries than this remark. Every Englishman accustomed to the cultivated society of his own country, must be struck by the extraordinary inferiority of German female education, in proportion to the high superiority of that of men. The solution is probably this:—The Author was chiefly confined to fashionable society here, and mixed little with the more instructed classes. In Germany, it is precisely the women of the middling classes who are so lamentably deficient in education,—a defect, of course, there as every where attributable to those who govern their destiny, and who profess sentiments even more unworthy than those here attributed to Englishmen. The motive ascribed to the latter is surely more strong and more noble than the desire of possessing a thorough cook or a contented drudge.—Trans.
[148] We ought perhaps to apologize for suffering this and other similar passages to be printed. But whoever has read thus far, must interest himself in some degree for or against the Author: and in either case these unrestrained judgments upon himself cannot be wholly unwelcome to the reader who likes what is characteristic. Those who like only facts, may easily pass them over.—Editor.
[149] This is seldom to be met with in fashionable society, from the tyrannical demands of English education, which have a very wide influence in the three kingdoms. You observe, therefore, that I often confound English and Irish under one common name; I ought more properly to call them British.
[150] Even religion and morality do not reach all the intricate circumstances and cases which occur in human society:—witness that conventional honour which is frequently at war with both, and whose laws are yet obeyed by the best and wisest of men.
[151] Nach ihrer Decke strecken.