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.
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