Time present we too often contemplate through the haze of prejudice, passion, or impatience; underrating his value, overlooking his flight, and neglecting the advantages which he offers, till, all at once, we find that time present has changed into time past, and vanished from our grasp!
Time to come—is that fairy-land of promise—of air-built castles—of hopes that are seldom to be realized, of fears that are generally exaggerated—of phantoms, good and evil, conjured up by imagination on the dim horizon of our mental vision, which dissolve as we approach, or fly as we follow!! Yet these phantoms of futurity form the solace and the misery of half the world!
16. Titles, Decorations, &c.—From the savage, with the ring in his nose—the serjeant, with the tassel on his shoulder—the prince, with the star on his breast—up to the monarch, with the diadem on his brow—all and every of the human race, are nearly insatiable in the pursuit of honours, titles, distinctions, or decorations. I do not presume to determine what nation or people most desire these pomps and vanities; but I think it will be allowed that the Germans are not behind their neighbours in the display of them. The French may dispute the palm on this point; but I doubt whether they will gain the victory. John Bull appears to be the least ostentatious of the European family, often pocketing his stars and garters, when travelling, by which he saves in money what he loses in eclat.
After all, this weakness of the German and Frenchman is very pardonable. Those who have fairly earned honours are under no obligation to conceal them; and those who have not done so, are not called upon to proclaim the secret—especially as so many of their friends and neighbours are always ready to kindly perform that office gratuitously.
17. Aerophobia.—From one end of Germany to the other, among all ages, ranks, and professions, an AEROPHOBIA, or dread of fresh air, universally prevails! If you take a seat in the diligence or eilwagen, your German neighbour in the corner closes the windows immediately, lest a breath of pure air should enter the vehicle. On arriving at the hotel, half poisoned by the disoxygenated atmosphere of the coach, and enter your chamber, you find all the windows securely fastened, and the air of the apartment a mass of heavy mephitic vapour, like that which issues from a long unopened tomb. If you descend to the spies-saal, where the air is still farther vitiated by the fumes of tobacco, and throw open a window, you are stared at by the ober-kellner, the under-kellner, and every “gast” in the “haus,” as a person deranged. I had long puzzled my brains to account for this aerophobic phenomenon, and, at last, traced its cause to the German stove—that black brewery of mephitism, which, bearing a mortal antipathy to the fresh air of Heaven, imbues every one who sits near it with the same prejudice. In fine, the German exhibits as great a horror of oxygen, as he does a mania for azote!
And what is the consequence of this?—Why, that the Germans are ten times more susceptible of colds, rheumatism, face-aches, and tooth-aches, than the English, who live in a far more variable, wet, and ungenial climate. This aerophobia is one of the causes too, of that sallow, unhealthy aspect which all Germans, who are not forced to be much in the open air, exhibit. It is no wonder that they swarm like locusts round their numberless spas, in the Summer, to wash away some of those peccant humours engendered by their diet, and fermented by their stoves.
18. Female Peasantry.—Among a barbarous people, we always find that the weaker sex have the harder work. It is not very flattering nor yet creditable to the pride of civilization, that in many parts of Europe, and even in Germany, the female peasant is little more than a beast of burthen, with worse food and more care than the ox or the horse. Wherever we see three persons employed in agricultural labour, two of them are sure to be women. They cut the corn, and thrash out the grain—dig the potatoes, and carry them home—whilst the large baskets on their backs are filled with everything that requires transportation from the fields to the house, or from the house to the fields. One of the most revolting instances of this female slavery which I have seen, was in Belgium, where, on the line of the railway, we observed women sitting with large panniers on their backs, into which the men were shovelling the earth, gravel, and stones, to be carried away by the females—many of them young women! Every time that the earth or gravel was thrown into the pannier, the shock caused a violent vibration of the whole female frame, from head to foot! The sight was really disgusting.
In travelling through many parts of Germany we are often surprised at the paucity of men, and cannot help wondering where they are, or what they are doing! Women are the universal drudges here!
19. Status quo.—Among all ranks and classes of Society in Germany, from the prince to the peasant, there is, or there appears to be, a complete amalgamation, approximation—in fine, an equalization in one thing—politeness. But the approximation goes no farther than the hat, the cap, and the bow. It would be almost as easy for a Pariar in India, or a Ladrone in China to break the boundaries of his cast, and rise through the ranks above him, as for a German of low grade to mount into the circles of the nobility. Each ascending series is all but hermetically sealed against the inferior one! What is impossible to be done, is not therefore attempted—perhaps it is scarcely desired. All this is reversed in England. Here we have but very little reciprocity of external and formal civility among the different ranks; but the barriers between them are to easily—or at least so frequently overleaped, that almost every individual has an ardent wish, and is engaged in a constant struggle to rise above the grade in which Nature or accident placed him at birth. It is evident that this contrasted state of things, quite independent of politics, must produce tranquillity, if not content, in the one country—commotion and even strife in the other. At the same time it generates industry, energy, and enterprize in England.
20. Locomotion.—It is passing strange that the mercurial brains of our French neighbours should never have infused any quicksilver into the heels of their horses! No. There they go at the old jog-trot of five miles an hour, over the “long rough road,” which seems as if it had been stretched out over hill and dale, by some invisible and gigantic apparatus, into a straight and narrow line, which is as tiresome to the eye of the traveller as it is to the limbs of the horses. In plodding Germany, however, we do not expect velocity in man or beast—or that the schnell-post should go at any other rate than the snail’s pace. In that country time and space seem to be confounded or amalgamated;—a league signifying an hour, and an hour a league, the word “stunde” (derived no doubt from “stand”) being applicable to either or both.