The Heaths Were Dreary, And Had None Of The Wild Charms Of Those Of
Sweden And Norway To Cheat Time; Neither The Terrific Rocks, Nor
Smiling Herbage Grateful To The Sight And Scented From Afar, Made Us
Forget Their Length.
Still the country appeared much more populous,
and the towns, if not the farmhouses, were superior to those of
Norway.
I even thought that the inhabitants of the former had more
intelligence - at least, I am sure they had more vivacity in their
countenances than I had seen during my northern tour: their senses
seemed awake to business and pleasure. I was therefore gratified by
hearing once more the busy hum of industrious men in the day, and
the exhilarating sounds of joy in the evening; for, as the weather
was still fine, the women and children were amusing themselves at
their doors, or walking under the trees, which in many places were
planted in the streets; and as most of the towns of any note were
situated on little bays or branches of the Baltic, their appearance
as we approached was often very picturesque, and, when we entered,
displayed the comfort and cleanliness of easy, if not the elegance
of opulent, circumstances. But the cheerfulness of the people in
the streets was particularly grateful to me, after having been
depressed by the deathlike silence of those of Denmark, where every
house made me think of a tomb. The dress of the peasantry is suited
to the climate; in short, none of that poverty and dirt appeared, at
the sight of which the heart sickens.
As I only stopped to change horses, take refreshment, and sleep, I
had not an opportunity of knowing more of the country than
conclusions which the information gathered by my eyes enabled me to
draw, and that was sufficient to convince me that I should much
rather have lived in some of the towns I now pass through than in
any I had seen in Sweden or Denmark. The people struck me as having
arrived at that period when the faculties will unfold themselves; in
short; they look alive to improvement, neither congealed by
indolence, nor bent down by wretchedness to servility.
From the previous impression - I scarcely can trace whence I received
it - I was agreeably surprised to perceive such an appearance of
comfort in this part of Germany. I had formed a conception of the
tyranny of the petty potentates that had thrown a gloomy veil over
the face of the whole country in my imagination, that cleared away
like the darkness of night before the sun as I saw the reality. I
should probably have discovered much lurking misery, the consequence
of ignorant oppression, no doubt, had I had time to inquire into
particulars; but it did not stalk abroad and infect the surface over
which my eye glanced. Yes, I am persuaded that a considerable
degree of general knowledge pervades this country, for it is only
from the exercise of the mind that the body acquires the activity
from which I drew these inferences. Indeed, the King of Denmark's
German dominions - Holstein - appeared to me far superior to any other
part of his kingdom which had fallen under my view; and the robust
rustics to have their muscles braced, instead of the, as it were,
lounge of the Danish peasantry.
Arriving at Sleswick, the residence of Prince Charles of Hesse-
Cassel, the sight of the soldiers recalled all the unpleasing ideas
of German despotism, which imperceptibly vanished as I advanced into
the country. I viewed, with a mixture of pity and horror, these
beings training to be sold to slaughter, or be slaughtered, and fell
into reflections on an old opinion of mine, that it is the
preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be
the design of the Deity throughout the whole of Nature. Blossoms
come forth only to be blighted; fish lay their spawn where it will
be devoured; and what a large portion of the human race are born
merely to be swept prematurely away! Does not this waste of budding
life emphatically assert that it is not men, but Man, whose
preservation is so necessary to the completion of the grand plan of
the universe? Children peep into existence, suffer, and die; men
play like moths about a candle, and sink into the flame; war, and
"the thousand ills which flesh is heir to," mow them down in shoals;
whilst the more cruel prejudices of society palsy existence,
introducing not less sure though slower decay.
The castle was heavy and gloomy, yet the grounds about it were laid
out with some taste; a walk, winding under the shade of lofty trees,
led to a regularly built and animated town.
I crossed the drawbridge, and entered to see this shell of a court
in miniature, mounting ponderous stairs - it would be a solecism to
say a flight - up which a regiment of men might have marched,
shouldering their firelocks to exercise in vast galleries, where all
the generations of the Princes of Hesse-Cassel might have been
mustered rank and file, though not the phantoms of all the wretched
they had bartered to support their state, unless these airy
substances could shrink and expand, like Milton's devils, to suit
the occasion.
The sight of the presence-chamber, and of the canopy to shade the
fauteuil which aped a throne, made me smile. All the world is a
stage, thought I; and few are there in it who do not play the part
they have learnt by rote; and those who do not, seem marks set up to
be pelted at by fortune, or rather as sign-posts which point out the
road to others, whilst forced to stand still themselves amidst the
mud and dust.
Waiting for our horses, we were amused by observing the dress of the
women, which was very grotesque and unwieldy. The false notion of
beauty which prevails here as well as in Denmark, I should think
very inconvenient in summer, as it consists in giving a rotundity to
a certain part of the body, not the most slim, when Nature has done
her part.
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