In the latter part of the morning the apothecary's shop became a pleasant rendezvous for the city gentry. There, politics and city news were discussed along with small glasses of eau de vie; and from the ceiling and upper cornice, the old frippery attire of exploded quacks and worm doctors, also skeletons of sharks, stuffed apes, and other horrors, looked down goggle-eyed upon the eager disputes of the society. Besides the city gossip, politics had already become a favourite subject of discourse, which was carried on no longer with the calm of mere wise maxims, but with heartfelt interest. Whether King or Empress, whether Saxony or Prussia, were principally discussed, it could be discovered to which party each individual present belonged. A few years later, these kind of disputes became so vehement that they destroyed family life and the peace of households. Meanwhile the imaginations of the lesser citizens, the servants and children, were filled with other ideas, for the old superstition wove its web round their life. There was scarcely an old house that had not its haunted room; ghosts showed themselves on the graves and within the church doors; even the engine-house was haunted before a fire broke out; still was the mysterious wail of lament heard, a variation of the belief in the wild army which had entered into the souls of the people through the great war; still were old cats considered as witches; and apparitions, presentiments, and significant dreams were discussed with anxious faith. Ever yet was the search after concealed treasures an affair of importance; no city was without a credible story of a treasure trove which had taken place in the neighbourhood, or had been frustrated by untimely words. But the prudent father of a family already tries earnestly to enlighten his children and servants on such points. The enlightened man does not deny unqualifiedly the possibility of a mysterious connexion with the other world, but he regards every single case with distrust; he admits that behind the ruined altar of the old church and in the ruins of the neighbouring castle something curious may be concealed, and that it might well repay a person to dig for it; but he holds in sovereign contempt the flames and the black dog, and he recounts with special pleasure numerous instances where this faith of the "olden time" had been misused by deceivers. Seldom do the months pass without bringing a periodical containing well-written treatises, in which the mountain sprite is entirely put out of the question, fiery meteors are explained, and thunderbolts are considered as petrifactions. In no city are excited people wanting who are tormented by apparitions; the clergy still continue to pray for these poor people; but not only physicians and literary laymen, but also clever citizens, maintain that such kinds of devils are expelled by medicine and fasting, and not by prayer, as they are only produced by the morbid fancies of hypochondria.
Among the daily events is the interesting arrival and departure of the mail-coach. About this time all the promenaders like to move into the vicinity of the post-office. The usual land-post is a very slow, clumsy means of conveyance; its snail pace was notorious even fifty years later. Of made roads there are as yet none in Germany; soon after the Seven Years' War the first chaussees were formed,--still very bad. Whoever wishes to travel comfortably takes the extra post; for greater economy, care is taken that all the places shall be occupied, and in the local papers which have existed for some little time in most of the larger cities, a travelling companion is sometimes advertised for. For long journeys, private carriages are bought, which are sold again at the end of the journey. The badness of the roads gives the postmaster the right to put four horses to a light carriage, and it is a privilege to the traveller if the Government will give him a licence to take only two horses extra post. He who is not sufficiently wealthy for this, looks out for a return carriage, and these opportunities are announced several days beforehand. If there is much intercourse between two places, besides the ordinary post and the more speedy mail, a licensed stagecoach goes on specified days. These more especially facilitate the personal intercourse of the lower orders. In 1750 there was one from Dresden to Berlin every fortnight; to Altenburg, Chemnitz, Freiberg, and Zwickau, once a week; to Bautzen and Görlitz, the number of passengers was not sufficiently certain for the coachman to be able to go on a specified day; the green and the red passage-boats went between Dresden and Meissen, each once a week. Even with the best drivers, travelling was very slow. Five German miles a day, at the rate of a mile in two hours, seems to have been the usual rate of travelling. A distance of twenty miles could not be accomplished by a carriage under three days, and generally four were necessary. When, in the July of the year which is here described, Klopstock travelled with Gleim, in a light carriage drawn by four horses, from Halberstadt to Magdeburg, six miles in six hours, the rapidity appeared to him so extraordinary that he compared it with the races at the Olympic games. But when the country roads were very bad, which was always the case in the rainy season of the spring and autumn, a journey was avoided unless it was inevitable, as it was considered as a risk not to be encountered without grievous adventures. In the year 1764, it was still thought remarkable by the Hanoverians, that their ambassador had succeeded in reaching Frankfort-a-M., for the coronation of the Emperor, in spite of the bad roads, without any other damage than a broken axle. Thus we find that a journey at this period is an undertaking to be well considered, which can hardly be carried through without long preparation; the arrival of travelling strangers in a city is the event of the day, and the curious multitude collect round the carriage during its detention. It is only in the larger commercial towns that the hotels are fashionably arranged; Leipzig is in great repute in this respect. People were glad to be accommodated at the house of an acquaintance, ever taking into consideration the expenditure; for he who travels must make accurate calculations. A person of any pretensions avoids a journey on foot, on account of the bad roads, dirty inns, and rough encounters. Well-dressed pedestrians in search of the picturesque are, as yet, unheard of.
The traveller was not only accompanied by the lively sympathy of his friends, he was also employed in their business, as then among acquaintances there was more mutual accommodation than now. He was amply supplied with clothes, letters of recommendation, cold meat, and prudent precepts; but he was also burdened with commissions, purchases of every kind, and delicate business; also with the collecting of debts, the engaging of tutors, nay, even with reconnoitring and mediating in affairs of the heart. If he travelled to some great fair, he must take care of certain special coffers and chests to satisfy the wishes of his acquaintances. This kind of reciprocal service was absolutely needful, for the conveyance of money and packages by the post was still very dear and not always very sure. Betwixt neighbouring cities therefore a regular messenger service was established, as for example in Thuringia, where it continues to the present day. These messengers--frequently women--carried letters and errands on fixed days, alike through snow and under a scorching sun; they had charge of all kinds of purchases, and, as trustworthy persons, enjoyed the confidence of the magistrates, who entrusted them with official letters and public papers, and when they arrived at their destination had an appointed place, where letters and return parcels for their native home were delivered to them. If the intercourse between two places was very active, a goods conveyance, with compartments with drawers in it, of which sometimes two associated families had the key, was sent backwards and forwards.
Scanty and spare was the housekeeping of the citizens; few of them were sufficiently wealthy to be able to invest their household arrangements and their life with any polish; and the rich were always in danger of falling into unseemly luxury, such as corrupted the courts and the families of the nobility. Those who had a comfortable competency lived very simply, only showing their wealth by their hospitality and the adornment of their house and table on festive occasions. Therefore feasts were ungenial state affairs, for which the whole household was deranged. Nothing distinguishes the man of the world more than the easy style of his society. Strict were the regulations in the citizen's household: everything was precisely defined, even on the smallest points, as to what one was to render to or receive from another. The interchange of good wishes and compliments, that is to say, the courtesies of conversation, and even the trinkgeld, all had their accurately prescribed form and amount. Through these innumerable little regulations, social intercourse acquired a stiff formality which strongly contrasts with the freedom from constraint of the present day. It was still customary to be bled and take medicine on appointed days, to pay your bills and make visits at stated intervals. Equally fixed were the enjoyments of the year: the cake which was suitable to every day, the roast goose, and, if possible, the sledge-drives. Fixed was the arrangement of the house: the massive furniture which had been bought by the bridal couple on their first settling down, the stuffed chair which had perhaps been bought at an auction by the husband as a student, the folding-table for writing, and the cupboards, had been the companions of many generations. But underneath this network of old customs freer views began to germinate: already did the troublesome question arise--wherefore? even with respect to the most trifling usages. Everywhere might individuals be found who set themselves with philosophic independence against these customs, which appeared to them not to be founded on reason; in many more did there work a deep impulse to freedom, self-dependence, and a new purport of life, which they held apart from the multitude and from society, which had the effect of giving them an appearance of originality. The interiors of the houses were still undecorated; the ground-floor, with its polished boards, had no other ornament than the bright colour of the wood, which was preserved by incessant washing, which made the dwelling at least once a week damp and uncomfortable. The stairs and entrance-hall were still frequently strewn with white sand. But they liked to have their rooms nicely fitted up; the furniture, among which the commode was a new invention, was carefully worked and beautifully inlaid. Painting was still uncommon on the walls; but the distempered plaster walls were in little esteem: papers were preferred. The wealthy liked to have the stamped leather, which gave the room a particularly comfortable aspect; leather was also much liked as covers for furniture. Copper and tin utensils were still the pride of the housewife. They were used on "state" occasions: this new and significant word had penetrated into the kitchen. At Nuremberg, for example, there were in wealthy families state kitchens, which used to be opened to small societies for morning collations, at which cold meats were served. In such kitchens pewter and copper glittered all around like bright mirrors; even the wood for burning, which lay there piled up in great heaps, was covered with bright tin, all only for show and amusement, as now the kitchen of a little girl. But porcelain had already begun to be placed alongside the pewter; in refined Saxony, more especially, the wealthy housewife seldom failed to have a table set out with china cups, jugs, and little ornamental figures. And the fashionable pet of the ladies, the pug, might by a wayward movement produce a crash which endangered the peace of the house. Just at that time this curious animal stood at the height of his repute; it had come into the world no one knew from whence, and it passed away from it again equally unperceived. But the heart of the housewife was attached to her weaving as well as her pewter and porcelain. The linen damask was very beautifully prepared, with artistic patterns which we still admire; to possess such damask table-covers was a most particular pleasure, and great value was also set upon fine body-linen; the ruffled shirt which Gellert received as a present from Lucius was not forgotten in the description of his audience.
The dress worn in public was still regarded by serious men as a matter of station; the Pietists had accustomed the citizen to wear dark or sober colours; but fine textures, buttons, unpretending embroidery and linen, demonstrated not less than perukes and swords the high-bred man. This was the dress to be worn in public, and must especially be put on when going out; and as it was inconvenient and--at least the perukes--difficult to put on and to powder without the help of others, a contrast wan produced by this between home and society which proscribed social intercourse at certain hours in the day, and made it formal and elaborate. At home a dressing-gown was worn, in which literary men received visits, and the "best" dress was carefully spared. Many things which appear to us as common necessaries were still quite unknown, and the absence of many comforts was not felt. In the year 1745 an Austrian non-commissioned officer begged of an imprisoned officer, from whom he had taken a watch, to wind it up for him; he had never had one in his hands. The worthy Semler had become a professor before he obtained by the aid of a bookseller his first silver watch; and he complained, about 1780, that then every master of arts, nay, every student thought he must have a watch; now, in every family of similar station, the third-form boy has a silver, and the student a gold watch.
Besides the landed nobility, only the highest state officials and the richest merchants kept their own carriage and horses, and this more rarely than fifty years before. But literary men were then often advised by physicians not to fear the dangers of riding; schools were established, and riding-horses let out for hire. It did not indeed happen to every one as to the invalid Gellert, to have as a present for the second time, after the death of his renowned Dapple, a horse from the Elector's stables, with velvet saddle and housings embroidered in gold, which the dear professor, much moved after his manner, accepted, though with the greatest distrust as to the good temper of the horse, and was never weary of speaking of it to his acquaintance, whilst his groom showed the prodigy for money to the Leipzigers. As the dress of that day made people very sensitive to damp, sedan-chairs came into fashion; they were as frequently used as now the droschky; the bearers were known by a kind of livery, had their appointed stations, and were to be found wherever the nobility and the public appeared in numbers: at great dances, on Sunday at the church doors, and at the theatres.
Strict was the discipline of the house. In the morning, even in those families that were not Pietists, short prayers were read with the children and servants, a verse was sung, a prayer or exhortation followed, and then a hymn. They rose and retired to bed early. The intercourse at home was formal: extreme respect, with ceremonious forms, was required of both children and servants; and husbands and wives among the gentry still continued generally to speak to each other in the third person plural.
All who appertained to the family, whether friends or distant acquaintance, in their simple and often needy life, were invested with great importance. Still were advancement, interest, and favours sought for and expected, through the friends of the family. To protect and become a partisan was a duty; therefore it was considered great good fortune to have noble and influential acquaintances; and in order to secure this it was necessary to be mindful of congratulations on birthdays and verses at family festivals. Under such protection people sought their fortunes in the world. Devotion to the great was immense: it was still correct to kiss the hand of a patron. When Count Schwerin, on the 11th of August, 1741, received the oath of allegiance for his sovereign in the royal salon at Breslau, the Protestant church inspector, Burg, on shaking hands with him, wished to kiss his hand. The Breslauers were not astonished at this obsequiousness, but only that a field-marshal should have embraced and kissed a citizen theologian.
Sponsorship was, among the citizens, the foundation of a still nearer relation: the godfather was bound to provide for the advancement of his godchild; and this parental relation lasted to the end of his life. If he was wealthy, the parents gladly allowed him a decisive voice as to the future of their child, but it was also expected that he should show his goodwill by his last testament.
This life of citizens in humble circumstances developed certain peculiarities of character and education. First a softness of nature which, about 1750, was called tender and sentimental. The foundation of this remarkable softness was implanted in the soul by the great war and its political results, and Pietism had strikingly developed it. Almost every one had the habit of exciting and stirring up themselves and others. In the last century, family prayer had been heartless and formal; now, the edifying contemplations and moral reflections of the father of a family gave occasion for dramatic scenes within it. Extemporary prayers especially, accustomed the members of a family to express openly what was really in their hearts. Vows and promises, solemn exhortations and pathetic reconciliations betwixt husbands and wives, parents and children, sentimental scenes, were as much sought after and enjoyed as they are now avoided. Even in schools the easy excitability of that generation frequently came to light. When a worthy teacher was in trouble, he caused the scholars to sing verses which harmonised with his frame of mind, and it was agreeable to him to feel that the boys understood him and showed their sympathy in their devotions. In the same way the preacher in the pulpit loved to make his congregation the confidants of his own struggles and convictions; his sorrows and joys, repentance and inward peace, were listened to with respect and consecrated by prayer.