People will say that those contrivances have been hit upon on account of fires; but as these scarcely occur once in one hundred and fifty years in any house, so I conceive that they have rather been found advantageous to lovers driven to extremity and to thieves, who very often take this way, when they might have chosen others, and certainly always when a hasty retreat is necessary, exactly as the witches and the devil are wont to do in Germany. Finally, a right powerful prevention of intrigues is that otherwise fine and praiseworthy conceit of the post-directors in Germany, by whom a vast amount of the virtues of the times are preserved, since instead of the English coaches and chaises, in which a princess in the most delicate condition would neither fear nor be ashamed to travel, they have substituted those so-beloved open Rumpelwagen. For what mischief the convenient coaches and the most excellent highways of England may occasion, is not to be expressed by words.
For, in the first place, if a maiden goes out of London with her lover of an evening, they may be in France ere the father awoke, or in Scotland ere he has come to resolve with his relations what he shall do; therefore, a writer has need of neither fairies, conjurors, nor talismans in order to bring the beloved into security, since if he can only bring them to Charing-Cross or Hyde-Park Corner, they are as safe as if they were in Weaver Melek's chest in the Persian Tales.
On the contrary, in Germany, if the father misses but his daughter on the third day; if he only knows that she is gone by post-wagon, he can mount his horse and seize her again at the third station. Another mischievous circumstance is the, alas! much too good company in the commodious stage-coaches of England, which are always filled full of beautiful and well-dressed ladies, and where--a thing which parliament ought not not to suffer--the passengers so sit, that they must gaze upon one another; whereby is endangered, not only a highly dangerous bewilderment of the eyes, but sometimes a highly shameful, and on both sides a smile-exciting bewilderment of the legs of the opposite traveller; and finally, as frequently as dissolving a bewilderment of souls and thoughts arises, so that many an honourable young man who was proposing to travel from London to Oxford, has instead of that travelled to the devil. Such things, thanks to heaven, are impossible in our post-wagons; since, in the first place, no genteel ladies could possibly seat themselves in such a conveyance if they had not in their youth been after climbing hedges, magpie-nesting, apple-gathering and battering down of walnuts; since the spring over the side-ladder requires a remarkable nimbleness, and no lady can do it without setting the coach-master and the ostler-fellows that are standing round, laughing. In the second place, the passengers so seat themselves, when they at length do seat themselves, that they cannot look each other in the face, and in such a situation, whatever may be said to the contrary, cannot very well begin an intrigue. Conversation loses all its spice, and one can at the most only understand what another says, but not what he desires to say. In short, one has something else to do in a German post wagon than to gossip; one must hold one's-self fast when we come to holes, hold ourselves in readiness for a spring in case of accident; must keep an eye on the boughs, and duck at the proper time, that one's hat or one's head may be left in its place; keep an eye to the windy side, and keep strengthening the clothing on that quarter from which the attack comes; and if it rains, why then one has the property common to other creatures that live neither in the water nor on the water, of being silent when it is wet; and thus the conversation stands at once stock still. If one at length reaches a Wirthshaus (inn,) thus passes the time amongst other things--one dries himself, another shakes himself, one sucks his lozenge, another blows up his cheeks, or enacts whatever other child's megrim he may be in the habit of on such occasions. And hereby comes a circumstance into notice which makes all friendly intercourse in a Wirthshaus impossible; to wit,--that since so many miseries are bound up with post-wagon travelling, so care has been taken that the Wirthshauses shall be made so much worse than is necessary, in order to render a return to the post-wagons the more tolerable. And nobody can imagine to himself what an effect that has too. I have seen people who were pounded and knocked to pieces, and sighed ardently for repose, that when they saw the Wirthshaus in which they were to refresh themselves, with the courage of heroes, have resolved to travel on, which was similar to the fortitude of Regulus, which drove him back to Carthage, although he knew that they would there put him into a sort of German post-wagon, and so let him roll down the hill.
So fall through altogether the stage-coach intrigues with the stage-coaches themselves, those true hot-houses of episodes and declarations. But, it will be said, there is now a stage-coach in Hanover. Good, I know it; and one quite as good as an English one. And must we, therefore, begin all our romances on the way between Haarburg and Minden, which we now leave so swiftly behind us that we have hardly time to see it? All that the travellers do there, is to break out in praise of the king who has ordered this coach, and to sleep; for they are generally so wearied before they get into this coach, that they then fancy they are got home, or that they lie in bed. But those are proper objects truly to fill a romance with! To introduce five sleeping merchants, all snoring; or to fill out a chapter with the praises of the king! The first is by no means a fit subject for any book, and the latter for no romance.
But through this exception, I have wandered from my proper business. Yes, if there were not left yet a monastery or two, to which we can bring a loving couple for refuge, I should not know how to carry on a German romance to the third page; and when, in fact, there shall no longer be a cloister left, there is an end of German romance.
The majority of the company paid their tribute of approbation to this satire. The observations which they made upon it were interrupted in good time by the appearance of a steaming bowl of punch. When the guests had filled their glasses, Hoffmann seized his guitar, and accompanied the voices of the rest, who sung Schiller's famous song.
[THE FOUR ELEMENTS.]
Four Elements all thoroughly blent,
Build up the world, our being cement.
Press ye the juice of citrons, and pour;
Harsh is of life the innermost core.