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mon use now, only with some changes which his inventive genius suggested. The wagons, harness, and general farming implements, are the very antipodes of practical utility. They point to a period when the first crude conceptions of agricultural art struggled for expression. Some of their tools show a supreme contempt for all mechanical laws, excellent only to increase the labor and diminish the power to perform it. Their churches, houses, habits, customs, all are old and fixed. Now that they are so, is surely not their fault. It is sad enough that time carries us over the rubicon of five-and-twenty, when we would fain linger longer in the flowery vale of youth and early manhood. But it is verily a cruel philosophy which expects men in mature life, and of a ripe experience, to turn back and dash again through all the pranks and frolics of buoyant, inexperienced youth, when the nimbleness and elasticity of their younger days has left them. The young man is in a constant bustle to acquire money, reputation, learning, and with the least possible labor.

German travelers have given amusing pictures, if true, of this hurry and panic for gain, in America. Some one has said recently, that the hotels of New York, presented most ludicrous spectacles during dinner hours. That crowds of business men would not even take time to eat, but in a few moments gulph down dishes of hot-cakes, sausages and roast beef, with a grabbing voracity; they had no respect for the wants of others, and then quickly rush to their business, with dyspepsia and the fear of poverty at their heels. I will leave that as it is. But the Germans take more time for every thing than we do. They take more time to eat, more time to drink, more time to labor, more time to rest and enjoy. They are slower in good and slower in evil.

The man of riper years, can live on the result of his past labors. So Germany has a fund of mental energy, a literary vitality, which neither admits nor requires any of this helter-skelter, time-saving method of acquiring great ends.

The literature and life of Germany, are peculiar. With us, more like a stream, shallow, broad and brawling. Here, like one that flows narrow and deep. We are practical, they profound. Both united make a consistent and useful compound. Both have their advantages and dangers. Shallow streams are only for light boats, and when they are upset in a gale, we have a hope to reach bottom. Deep streams are more navigable, but many sink therein to rise no more. We are too much given to a certain (vielwisserei) intelligence, which would know every thing. Some of our authors write and talk about things in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth. Write a book in a few months which will run through several editions before the end of the year. Here a man will spend a long life-time, in writing on a Greek article, or in spinning out the web of one idea; and perhaps even leave that but half finished, when he dies. We, in our youthful hurry, pick up grains of truth on the surface, and we sow them again on the surface. The Germans are the miners in literature and science. They burrow among the ore, and the abundance of this in some of their works, makes it difficult for practical minds to see the gold. Their furnaces do not always separate the gold from the dross. The ore in some of their works gives us more trouble than we are willing to spend.

They have a different national and social temperament; the surface is like a waveless calm, there is often a wild and fearful commotion underneath. It is so now. Germany is apparently in a state of perfect tranquility. Yet I see under currents and repressed passions, which, should they boil to the surface, would raise another tempest, whose waves and surges would lash upon every shore of Europe. With us, every thing, good and evil, moves and ripples at once to the surface. We have not yet been taught the art of concealing the passions. We make no secret of our weaknesses. A slight gale in the political firmament will stir up a short bluster, in the form of a local riot, or a Faneuil Hall indignation meeting, to permit the escape of popular foam. Germany is not irritable, though its subjects are characteristically so. Its powers of endurance are astonishing. An old full grown dog seldom notices the barking and biting of young puppies. And when it does turn, it is with the dignity and ripe experience of age. Young America is at times, exceedingly irritable, though our citizens are less so than the Germans. Even things, trivial in themselves, sometimes have roused him into a short spell of national rage, and led him at once to squareoff with a 66 come on, if you dare."

Our progress and success in the mechanical arts, and the constant demand for them, excites and nourishes a passion for the practical, at the expense of the profound. The study of the mechanical and material, monopolizes the field of investigation. We are prone to forget that however important labor-savers, time-savers, and distance-annihilators are, that the steam engine and electric telegraph will hardly regenerate society. In the great sum of means they have their relative worth; but ideas mould mankind. But here, many are profound to a fault. They dive so much that they are mostly beyond hearing distance of those for whom they write. They expect men to receive their metal in the mine instead of bringing it up to the surface. Still in point of originality, productiveness and solid erudition, they are far our superiors. It would be blindness to deny this. And indeed, this need not excite our jealousy, for it would be a great shame if they were not. Let us once have five more centuries behind us, in which to appropriate the treasuries of other nations and assimilate them to our own, as they have done, and we can perhaps also show the world something of our riper years.

The universal custom of living together in towns, gives a peculiar complexion to country life. Here we find no farms, in the American sense, where the owner is snugly nestled down amid his broad acres, a paternal monarch of his little kingdom, where thriving orchards, waving grain fields and verdant and flowery meadows, sloping gently down to some stream spread out before his contented vision, where the sprightly country maiden can find room to go a Maying or gather wild berries, and where the boys may canvass the fields and woods after game. Woe unto the man who wilfully kills a bird or rabbit on his own premises here. All the game on his lots belongs to the Jaeger, (hunter) who pays the Government of the district a fixed annual sum for the privilege of hunting. Here you find little of that lordly, substantial independence, so common to our farmers, which makes them the bone and sinew of our Republic. I do not know why it is, but I have been in many places

where a Bauer (farmer,) was synonymous with a rude, uncouth fellow. During the busy seasons their villages present scenes of bustling confusion. Imagine a village of five hundred farmers crowded tightly along compact-built streets, each having his house, barn and stables, skirting a square piece of ground, where the whole would often not be large enough to contain a common size bank-barn; where the streets are narrow and no back alleys to permit the egress and ingress of cattle; where the domestic arrangements are constantly hampered and encroached upon by animal impertinence: imagine what a sudden transition of the village into solitude, during the busy season of hay-making and harvest, when everybody, men and women and children, are out reaping; what continuous lines of loaded wagons from morning till night, when they gather in their crops; and then what a steady shower of sounds during the winter, when a thousand flails are thrashing away wearily at their grain, from day to day. All these combine to form a most striking contrast to rural life in America. Where such a multitude of different interests are crowded together into such a small compass, the most precise regulations must be observed to maintain order and right. The village must have its cowherd, shepherd, swineherd and geeseherd; each has his flock to attend to which he daily leads to their respective pasture. In the morning each will blow his horn along the streets at a fixed hour, as the signal for departure, and in a few minutes the whole army responds most loyally to his call.

A great many German towns, even down to the smallest villages, have been founded by the Romans. Much as we should respect the ancients, for many eminent qualities, they certainly knew little about planning towns. Even larger towns often look as if their streets had been started and finished by accident. Crooked, narrow lanes, intersected at all possible angles, except right angles, parabolas ever approaching but never meeting, most perfect puzzles to a traveler. Some through which I have gone a dozen of times, still remain inscrutable mysteries to me. In Augsburg, I could scarcely venture a hundred yards from my hotel without being lost. In my wanderings I crossed familiar streets, I knew not where nor how. And when I aimed in the direction of known points, the imperceptible curves would lure me to quarters diametrically opposite. To me they were so mysteriously obscure that they became subjects of the profoundest study. Good pavements are a rare luxury throughout Germany. In Cologne, Halle, Wittenberg, and many other cities, there are no side-walks at all. The streets are paved, but the stones expose an uneven surface joined by empty crevices which make them painfully unpleasant to walk upon. Though provided with thicksoled boots, my suffering experience, impels me to designate them as some did the walks of Cologne:

"Pavements fring'd with murderous stones."

As these evils have been entailed upon the Germans by the Romans, they rather deserve our pity than reproof. And a remedy would require a reconstruction of the towns, which would be impossible. Besides, the citizens are measurably compensated for this unavoidable inconvenience by their pleasant promenades through gardens and groves. The Germans are fond of nature; they love birds and trees. Their disinterested

love for these are shewn by a thousand little acts. Some of the roads are lined for miles with trees, old and stately; every town, often down to the rural villages, is skirted with parks. Some are dense forests where trees are growing in their native wildness, among under-bushes and birds, penetrated by promenades fringed with plants and flowers. The present generation ramble among trees which their ancestors have planted five hundred years ago; and they, again, are planting many for a distant posterity. I confess the planting of a tree for the benefit of a coming generation, is such a palpable mark of an unselfish heart, such a purely disinterested act, that this prevalent characteristic of the Germans, has greatly elevated them in my estimation. In Germany, trees have become a municipal necessity. They are seldom found through the town. Their parks are all outside. They are quiet places of retirement, where we can enjoy the sanctuary and solitude of nature, unmolested by the rush and dust of business; where the birds warble their melodies in their native freedom, on their own trees and branches. Here in Berlin, though in the centre of the city, I am within fifteen minutes walk of the Thiergarten, a park that looks as forest-like and unartificial as some of our western wilds. The walks crawl through under the closely-woven canopy of overhanging limbs, forming natural arbors, several miles in length. The Spree, a stream remarkably modest and reserved, steals gently and cautiously along its winding path. Here and there, large swans move slowly along its banks, while all is quiet like a house of mourning. In my daily rambles through its leafy streets, I meet many persons, old and young, who resort hither to spend an hour in quiet retirement. Clusters of children lead each other by the hand, vainly looking and listening for summer birds. They have all departed. Occasionally I am startled by a slight rustling among the leaves, by some poor female, gathering small pieces of wood. Sometimes I see aged persons, sitting in some concealed corner for hours; while the yellow leaves are falling fast around them, and the gentle breeze that blows them down, softly waves their silvery locks, they seem to be lost in musing over the spirit of autumn, which is settling upon them. Childhood, age, the seared leaf and the spirit of super-earthly stillness that hovers over this solitude of autumn! O, it prophecies of something better, it points to an approaching spring, when leaves will bud and birds will sing again.

O Reader! had you in your mind

Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O, gentle Reader, you would find

A tale in every thing.

And then their love and talent for music often throws additional charms around these shady retreats. In Germany you find music everywhere. The smallest Dorf has its village choir, that excites in the young a love for song. Every considerable town has its bands, which during the summer season diffuse the "sweet melody of sound." Early in the morning, I often heard them under a tabernacle of dense foliage, through which a thousand birds were chirruping and piping their untutored accompaniments. And such birds as they have here, real Jenny Lind's among the feathery tribe. Ahort time ago, I was inadvertently thrown into a fit of patriotic indignation, by being told of a German

traveler, that we had no singing birds in America. Why, said he, your nature is fundamentally unpoetic. You have no mountains that deserve the name; your birds can't sing, your very dogs are a set of mean, sneaking, pilfering animals, that are even void of faithfulness, a common attribute of dogs in other countries. You have nothing but your primeaval forests, but they are so remote that they are rarely seen. In my own heart I pronounced this a vile slander. For my part, I never could see much poetry in dogs. And with German dogs it is a little like with their masters; if they are more orderly and faithful than ours, it is not the result of nature or choice, but of a torturing oppression. The rights of dogs are shamefully trampled upon here. They must do the work of horses, are hitched to regular wagons, and tug sadly along outside of their natural sphere. Whatever good there is in our republican dogs, is not tied on them by harness, but is practised by them from principle. Their birds can not all sing. The stork is a very good-natured bird, whose parental affections are very tender and strong, but it has no ear for music. Its habits put every principle of poetry at defiance. Yet its society is courted by all classes. Cart-wheels are placed on chimneys and house-tops, to invite them to build their nests there. If they accept the invitation it is considered a mark of respect and an omen for good. If any person kills one, he must expect that its death will be revenged on him in some form or other. But let the truth be fairly spoken; the nightingale sings most charmingly. Its plumage is exceedingly plain, and its habits so timid and shy, that it has often reminded me of some bashful maidens, who though able to charm the ear of others, shrink from it in their presence with timid fear. But one can easily steal a song behind a bush or under a thicket; while it warbles and modulates its cheerful notes, its puny form is mostly concealed among the foliage. Modesty and merit are qualities rarely combined, and whenever found elicits our warmest admiration. And then the skylark, whose voice is a little more harsh and shrill, and its habits more bold and aspiring, possesses qualities equally pleasing. Larger and gayer in its dress, it naturally looks a little more to outward show. But its habits and the spirit of its song are always elevating, and are rich in poetry and prophecy. It is the "excelsior" of its race. It is a deeply interesting sight, to see it start from the earth, singing cheerily, as it flaps upwards, its notes becoming clearer as it gains the higher and purer air, mounting higher and higher still, until its form is lost in the blue sky and its ringing notes die faintly away, but sounding upward still. Does not this ascension of song, this upward flight of animal instinct, point to "a better country" above the bondage of sin and the fetters of sense, to a home

Far from these scenes of narrow night,
Where boundless glories rise!

Earthly ties clog our praises. The higher in grace and its attainments, the purer our praise and the more fearless our flight. It seems to me our birds excel these generally, in rich and gaudy plumage. But these are less exposed to danger than ours. To destroy or rob a bird's nest, or in any way injure singing birds, is, in many places, a serious offense, and severely punished. They are treated with all the respect and defer

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