The only remarkable monuments in Germany are the Gothic ones which recall the age of chivalry. Modern German architecture is not worth mentioning, but the towns are well built, and the people try to make their houses look as cheerful and pleasing as possible. The gardens in some parts of Germany are almost as beautiful as in England, which denotes love of nature. Often, in the midst of the superb gardens of the German princes, æolian harps are placed; the breezes waft sound and scent at once. Thus northern imagination tries to construct Italian nature.
The Germans are generally sincere and faithful; they scarcely ever break their word and are strangers to deception. Power of work and thought is another of their national traits. They are naturally literary and philosophical, but their pride of class affects in some ways their esprit adversely. The nobles are lacking in ideas, and the men of letters know too little about business. The Germans have imagination rather than esprit.
The town dwellers and the country folk, the soldiers and the workmen, nearly all have some knowledge of music. I have been to some poor houses, blackened with tobacco smoke, and not only the mistress, but also the master of the house, improvise on the piano, just as the Italians improvise in verse. Instrumental music is as generally fostered in Germany as vocal music is in Italy. Italy has the advantage, because instrumental music requires work, whilst the southern sky suffices to produce beautiful voices.
Peasant women and servants, who are too poor to put on finery, decorate their hair with a few flowers, so that imagination may at least enter into their attire.
One is constantly struck in Germany with the contrast between sentiment and custom, between talent and taste; civilisation and nature do not seem to have properly amalgamated yet. Enthusiasm for art and poetry goes with very vulgar habits in social life. Nothing could be more bizarre than the combination of the warlike aspect of Germany, where soldiers are met at every step, with the indoor life led by the people. There is a dread of fatigue and change of air, as if the nation were composed only of shopkeepers and men of letters; and yet all the institutions tend towards giving the nation military habits.
Stoves, beer, and tobacco-smoke crate around the German people a kind of heavy and hot atmosphere which they do not like to leave. This atmosphere is injurious to activity, which is at least as necessary in war as in courage; resolutions are slow, discouragement is easy, because a generally sad existence does not engender much confidence in fortune.
Three motive powers lead men to fight: love of the fatherland and of liberty, love of glory, and religious fanaticism. There is not much love of the fatherland in an Empire that has been divided for centuries, where Germans fought against Germans; love of glory is not very lively where there is no centre, no capital, no society. The Germans are much more apt to get roused by abstract ideas than by the interests of life.
The love of liberty is not developed with the Germans; they have learnt neither by enjoyment, nor by privation, the prize that may be attached to it. The very independence enjoyed by Germany in all respects made the Germans indifferent to liberty; independence is a possession, liberty a guarantee, and just because nobody was crossed in Germany either in his rights or in his pleasures, nobody felt the need for an order of things that would maintain this happiness.
The Germans, with few exceptions, are scarcely capable of succeeding in anything that requires cleverness and skill; everything troubles them, makes them nervous, and they need method in action as well as independence in thought.
German women have a charm of their own, a touching quality of voice, fair hair, and brilliant complexion; they are modest, but not as shy as the English. One can see that they have often met men who were superior to them, and that they have less cause to fear the severity of public judgment. They try to please by their sensibility, and to arouse interest by the imagination. The language of poetry and of the fine arts is known to them; they flirt with enthusiasm, just as one flirts in France with esprit and wit.