"So cold herself, while she such warmth express'd,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream!"
But, in the latter case, it is Diana bending the bow, and brandishing the darts of Cupid; and with an unsuspicious gaucherie, which now and then turns the point against her own bosom.
I observed, and I verified my own observations, by the information of some intelligent medical men, that there is less ill-health among the superior rank of women, in Germany, than with us; all that class of diseases, which we call nervous, which in England have increased, and are increasing in such a fearful ratio, are far less prevalent; doubtless, because the habits of social life are more natural. The use of noxious stimulants among the better class of women is almost unknown, and rare among the very lowest classes—would to heaven we could say the same! No where, not even at Munich, one of the most profligate of the German capitals, was I ever shocked by the exhibition of female suffering and depravity in another form, as in the theatres and the streets of London.
I have been asked twenty times since my return to England, whether the German women are not very exaltée—very romantic? I could only answer, that they appeared to me less calculating, less the slaves of artificial manners and modes of thinking; more imaginative, more governed by natural feeling, more enthusiastic in love and religion, than with us. If this is what my English friends term exaltée, I certainly cannot think the German women would have reason to be offended by the application of the word to them, however satirically meant. Perhaps it may be from necessity, that they are generally more simple in their tastes, and more frugal in their expenses; they had certainly a most formidable idea of the extravagance of fashionable English women, and of our luxurious habits. I believe that they are sometimes difficult of access, and apparently inhospitable, because they suspect us of scoffing at their simplicity, at the homeliness of their accommodations, and their housewively occupations. For my own part I slipped so quietly and naturally into all their social and domestic habits, and cared so little about the differences and distinctions, which some of the English thought it fine to be always remarking and lamenting, that my German friends used to express their surprise, by saying—"Savez vous, ma chère, que vous ne me faites pas de tout l'effet d'une Anglaise!"—an odd species of compliment, but certainly meant as such. It is true that I was sometimes a little tired of the everlasting knitting and cross-stitch; and it is true I may at times have felt the want of certain external luxuries, with which we are habitually pampered in this prodigal land, till they become necessaries; but I would be well content to exchange them all a thousand times over, for the cheap mental and social pleasures—the easy intercourse of German life.
MEDON.
Apropos to German romance. I met with a striking instance of it even in my short and rapid journey across part of the country. A lady of birth and rank, who had been dame d'honneur in the court of a sovereign princess, (a princess by the way of very equivocal reputation,) on the death of a lover, to whom she had been betrothed, devoted herself thenceforth to the service of the sick in the hospitals; she could not enter a religious order, being a Protestant, but she fulfilled all the offices of a vowed Sister of Charity. When she applied to the physician for leave to attend the hospital at ——, he used every endeavour to dissuade her from her undertaking—all in vain! Then he tried to disgust her by imposing, in the first instance, duties the most fearful and revolting to a delicate woman; she stood this test, and persisted. It is now five years since I saw her; perhaps she may by this time be tired of her charitable, or rather her romantic, self-devotion.
ALDA.
No, that she is not. I know to whom you allude. She follows steadily and quietly the same pious vocation in which she has persevered for fifteen years, and in which she seems resolved to die.