Time sleeps beneath immemorial ruins at one spot, while he mounts the telegraph pole at another.

The nineteenth century, accordingly, while it ambles easily down the current of the Elbe, and along the high-roads and railways, seldom exerts itself to climb a hill or wind its way into a sequestered valley. There are retreats but a few miles from Dresden, where still lingers the light of centuries sunk beneath the general horizon. The "Guten Tag" affords a ready test of the matter: the distribu

In short, like better men than they, when truth is not readily to be had, they swallow lies with at least equal relish. The Saxon mind is capacious of an indefinite amount of information; but its digestion is out of proportion weak. There is not power to work up the meal of knowledge into the flesh and blood of wisdom. I have observed in the faces of the learned an expression of mental dyspepsia,— bulbous foreheads and dull, pale eyes. As for Schiller, Goethe, Heine, and the rest of that giant conclave, they are either not German, ortion of this flower of courtesy marks the else they are the only true Germans ever born. Immense, truly, seems to be their popularity among their later countrymen: but is the sympathy so officiously asserted, genuine stuff? It sometimes puts me in mind of the reflection of sublimity in mud puddles.

boundaries of progress. Try yonder peasant, for instance, as he passes us on the road.— Did he stare stolidly at us? or go by, awkwardly unconscious, with averted gaze? — We are at an easy distance from Dresden, and the roads are good. But did he touch his cap, meet There is, or used to be, a symmetrical- our glance with humble frankness, and ness and consistency about these peas-speak the " Good-day" with a pleasant ants, unattainable by the more enlight- gruffness of cordiality? — Alas, poor felened. They lived near the earth, like plantains; but their humbleness was compensated by some wholesome qualities. It is uncomfortable to reflect that cultivation will vitiate them - has already begun to do so. Such manure as they are treated to will cause them either to grow rank and monstrous, or to rot away. Broad-based scepticism is sometimes maintained to be better than deep-rooted prejudice; but it does not seem to withstand storms so well.

low! he lives in a savage gorge, accessible only by an uneasy footpath. Though he appear scarce thirty, he was born at least one hundred and fifty years ago. He knows nothing about the Neue-Continental-Pferd-Eisenbahn-Actien - Gesellshaft lately started in Dresden. May we not almost say, seeing that he has never breathed our nineteenth century air, that he has no real existence at all?

This same flower of courtesy depends for its growth not solely on the locality, If progress must progress with these however, but somewhat also on the indipeople, why not a little modify the vidual. In one and the same household method? The heart of the peas int is, we may meet with it under all conditions perhaps, as valid as other men's: but of luxuriance or starvation. As a rule, it his brain is notably weak. Yet reformers flourishes best with the very old and with address themselves solely to the latter, the very young - - those who have either and force it to an empty activity. The lived too long to be affected by modern cone is thus inverted, and the learned gospels, or have not yet grown tall peasant topples over. In the best of enough to reach up to them. It is in the men, the brain, however large, has al-hands of the well-grown youth that the ways been outweighed by the heart. Were education filtered into the peasant through the latter channel, it could never hurt him. It might work in more slowly, but would always remain pure and sweet, and never overfill the vessel.

III.

BARRIERS against civilization are rather physical than moral,- a matter of good or bad roads. We need not consult books for the history of past times; all ages since the Deluge live to-day, if the traveller direct his steps aright. How old is the world? Shall we measure its antiquity by Babylon or Boston ?

flower is most apt to droop, or wither quite away: they it is who dream most of emigrating to America, and who meantime practise some American virtues in their native cottages. Much unhappiness is no doubt in store for them: but posterity may glorify their stripes with stars.

Their newly-gained culture has not yet sunk so deeply into these peasants, however, as to be incapable of occasional disconcertment. If we first salute them, they will almost invariably return our greeting or the magnet of an overbearing or calmly superior glance will often draw the words from our man, or startle them out of him. For no Saxon, of what

ever degree, understands the mainte- man and a dog tugging on either side the nance of self-respect in the presence of what he fancies a superior power.

shaft, while the husband-driver walks unencumbered alongside, is so far from In treating of Saxon manners, it might being a singular spectacle that, after now be supposed that the illustrations should some six years' daily familiarity with it, I be drawn elsewhere than from the peas- confess to a difficulty in quite sympaantry. But I find among them the origi- thizing with the indignation of a newnal forms of many social peculiarities, comer. But, indeed, this is nothing: which, on higher planes, are almost un- only, at nightfall, we shall meet the same noticeable by reason of their conven- waggon homeward-drawn by the same tional dress: conventionalism being the team and lo! seated upon the empty true cloak of invisibility. Superficially, hampers, smokes serene the man and a best-society drawing-room in Germany master of all. Let us be rational: why and in England appear much alike; but walk home when our woman and dog are go to the corresponding villages, and we at hand to carry us? see plainly points of difference, which exist no less although imperceptibly – higher up. The thin, satiny skin of the polished man-of-the-world is a better veil of his soul, than is the canvas-like hide of the coarse-grained labourer.

like pile-drivers. They wear knee-short skirts, sleeves at elbows, head-kerchiefs. As a rule they possess animal good nature and vacant amiability. But at twenty or twenty-five they are already growing old.

Why do not the woman-emancipationists come to Saxony, and see with their own eyes what the capacities of the sex actually are? Here women show more strength and endurance than many of their husbands and brothers do. They But, indeed, all Saxons know how to carry on their broad backs, for miles, be polite, and often seem to take pleasure heavier weights than I should care to in elaborate exhibitions of civility. Few lend my shoulders to. Massive are their things do they enjoy more than to take legs as the banyan-root; their hips are off their hats, smile, nod, and exclaim as the bows of a three-decker. Backs "Fa! Ja! Ja!" It is curious and strange have they like derricks; rough hands to watch the antics of a group of acquaintances who have by chance encountered one another in the street. After a brief but highly animated conversation, they proceed to make their adieux. It is on his powers in this respect that the Saxon chiefly prides himself. Behold, therefore, our friends who stand waving their hats, smiling, nodding, gesticulating, peppering one another with broadsides of Ja's. They become every moment more and more wound-up. Their excitement permeates every part of their bodies, and approaches ecstasy. It resembles the frenzy of dancing dervishes, or the more familiar madness of our own Shakers. This is the Saxon's mystic religious dance. To this height of fervour rises the warm-heartedness for which he is noted. Politeness is common in Saxony - provided only that it cost no more than in the proverb.

IV.

Growing old, with them, is a painful process, not a graceful one. The reserves of vitality are dry, and the woman's face becomes furrowed, even as the fields she cultivates. Her eyes fade into stolidity and unintelligence. Her mouth seldom smiles. Thirty finds her hollow-cheeked, withered, bony. At fifty

should she live so long-she is in extreme old age. Meanwhile she has been bearing children as plentifully as though that were her sole employment. But such labours secure her scarce a temporary immunity from other toil. I have seen her straining up a long hill, weighted with more burdens than one.

Pleasanter is it to consider her in the hayfield, before youth has dried up in her. AMERICAN Emerson says, "I have Her plain costume follows her figure thought a sufficient measure of civilization closely enough to show to the best adis the influence of good women." He is vantage its heavy but not unhandsome said to be the most popular foreign essay- contours. Seen from a distance, her ist in Germany; and it is certain that motions and postures have often an adthese people are most fond of such litera- mirable grace. Her limbs observe harture as is furthest beyond their compre- monious lines. In raking, stooping, tosshension. Nevertheless, no true Saxon ing the hay, her action is supple and would subscribe to this particular dogma. easy. As she labours in the sun, she For, yonder market-waggon, high-piled keeps up a continuous good-humoured with country-produce, and drawn by a wo- chatter with her companions. Her bare

arms and legs are bronzed by summer I have sometimes fancied that I caught exposure to heat and dirt; and her a glimpse of the real, traditional heroine. visage is of a colour almost Ethiopian. Handsome and pretty women are cerBut an American Southerner might see tainly no rarity in Saxony, although few in her more than the dark complexion to of them can lay claim to an unadulterated put him in mind of former days and Saxon pedigree. We see lovely Ausinstitutions. trians, and fascinating Poles and RusThe Greeks had slaves who took the sians, who delicately smoke cigars in the edge off the work, but were not intended concert-gardens. But it is hard for the to bear Grecian children. Saxon slaves peasant type to rise higher than comeliare not let off so easily. A nation, whose ness; and it is distressingly apt to be women keep their houses, saw their wood, coarse of feature as well as of hand, cultivate their crops and carry them to clumsy of ancle, and more or less wedded market on their backs, and bear children to grease and dirt. Good blood shows in in season and out of season, may indeed the profile; and these young girls, whose go to war with full ranks, for a time. full faces are often pleasant and even atBut what use to conquer the world, if our tractive, have seldom an eloquent contour sons and daughters are to grow up crip- of nose and mouth. There is sometimes ples and idiots? For, does that pregnant great softness and sweetness of eye; a woman whom we saw straining up-hill clear complexion; a pretty roundness of with her heavy basket injure only herself? chin and throat. Indeed, I have found I have already remarked that the scattered through half-a-dozen different ground-plan of high society may best be villages all the features of the true studied in the nearest village; and so Gretchen; and once, in an obscure hamthe best way to become acquainted with let, whose name I have forgotten, I came a Saxon lady is to observe her peasant- unexpectedly upon what seemed a near sister who sweats and tugs in fields and approach to the mythic being. She was on country roads. The spirit of chivalry at work on the village pump-handle, and never throve among these people, high her management of it was full of grace or low; what is more serious (and, per- and vigour. She bade me good-morning haps, too much so for context so light-in a round, melodious voice, and looked toned as this), the bulwarks of female healthy, fresh, bright, and almost clean. chastity, where they exist, are rather I gave but one glance, and then a subtle mechanical than moral. In Saxony, there- inward monition impelled me to hurry fore, suspicion justly has the weight of conviction. The best result of this system is an insecure and exaggerated innocence: the rest needs not further to be enlarged upon.

Women are what men make them; and thus we come back to our Emersonian text. The nation that degrades its women, cuts off the wings and darkens the light which should lift and guide it to an enduring standpoint. I cannot but feel a misgiving about these German triumphs in field and cabinet, when I see men helping themselves before women at table and elsewhere.

away. For, although a second look might have recognized her as the longsought one, yet it might have brought disappointment, and, therefore, was too much to risk. Meanwhile, so much was gained - I cannot say that I have failed to find her.

But this is sentimental nonsense. English, French, Italians, Spaniards, Russians each and all surpass their German sister in some particular of beauty; and the American, in all combined. Gretchen will always have unlovely hands and shapeless feet'; her flaxen braids will be dull and lustreless, and her head will How many of us have dreamt roman-be planed off behind on a line with her tically about the ideal German peasant-ears. This is no anti-climax; for most girl? She appeared to us pretty to the of the qualities which make a human edge of beauty-perhaps a step beyond. being humanly interesting, are dependent She was blue-eyed, and flaxen braids fell upon a goodly development of the cereover shapely shoulders. Her gown was bellum. charmingly caught up at one side; she was often seen with a distaff, and was apt to break out in sunny smiles pathetic little songs. Goethe and Kaul- WE sallied forth this morning in quest bach have much to answer for! And of a representative Saxon village; but, yet, among many imperfect Gretchens, save as regards situation, one is as repre

or

V.

Such little settlements hide in country

sentative as another. The same people stay at home except the geese and the inhabit all, and follow the same customs, babies. submit to the same inconveniences, partake of the same ignorance, and are wed- depths, whither only grassv lanes and ded to the same prejudices and supersti- footpaths find their way. Others there tions. Moreover, the names of fifteen are, mere episodes of the high-road, out of twenty of these villages end in the dusty, bare, and exposed, with flat views same three mystic letters "itz." What over surrounding plains; with a naked "itz" signifies I know not; but I should inn - Gasthaus-in their midst, where fancy that whoever lives in a community thirsty teamsters halt for beer, and to whose name terminates differently would stare with slow-moving eyes at the pigmy feel like a kind of outlaw or alien. Losch- common with its muddy goose-pond, and witz, Blasewitz, Pillnitz, Pulsnitz, Sed- to pump up unintelligible gutturals at one litz, Gorbitz,- all are members of one another. Others, again, are ranged family, and look, speak, and think in the abreast beneath the bluffs on the riverfamily way. It is admirable the care they bank; a straggling footpath dodges take to post up their names on a sign- crookedly through them, scrambling bere board at each entrance of the village, over a front-doorstep, there crossing the doubtless a safeguard against the serious back-yard. Women, bare of foot and danger of forgetting their own first sylla- head, peer curiously forth from low doorbles. Were some mischievous person, ways and cramped windows; soiled chil while the honest villagers slept, to inter- dren stare, a-suck at muddy fingers; change all their signboards,,there would there are glimpses of internal economies, be no hope of their ever identifying rustic meals, withered grandparents who themselves again. Perhaps, indeed, they seldom get further than the doorstep; might fail to perceive the alteration. visions of infants nursed and spanked. Pillnitz or Pulsnitz what odds? It can matter little to a pebble what position on the beach it occupies; and I dare say the members of various families might be substituted one for another, and nothing be noticed much out of the way on either side.

A strip of grass intervenes between the houses and the Elbe River; through trees we see the down-slipping current, bearing with it interminable rafts and ponderous canal-boats, and sometimes a puffing steamer, with noisy paddle-wheels. At times we skirt long stretches of blind Many of these little flocks of houses walls, from the chinks of which sprout have settled down from their flight in the grass and flowers; and which convey to realm of thought along the banks of a us an obscure impression of there being stream which trickles through a narrow grape-vines on the other side of them. gorge, between low hills. The brook is Or, once more, and not least picturan important element in the village econ-esquely, our village alights on a low hillomy, fulfilling the rather discordant top, where trees and houses crowd one offices of public drain, swill-pail, and wash-tub; and moreover serving as a perennial plaything for quantities of white-headed children and geese. It is walled in with stone; narrow flights of steps lead down at intervals to the water's edge, and here and there miniature bridges span the flood. The water babbles over a pebbly bottom, varied with bits of broken pottery and cast-away odds and ends of the household; once in a while the stream gathers up its strength to turn a saw-mill, and anon spreads out to form a shallow basin. Stiff-necked, plasterfaced, the cottages stand in lines on either bank, winking lazily at one another with their old glass-eyes, across the narrow intervening space. Above their redtiled roofs rise the steep hill-ridges, built up in irregular terraces, overgrown with vines or fruit-trees. Nobody seems to

another in agreeable contention. The main approach winds snake-like upwards from the grass and brush of the valley, but on reaching the summit splits into hydra heads, each one of which pokes itself into somebody's barnyard or garden, leaving a stranger in some embarrassment as to how to get through the town without unauthorized intrusion on its inhabitants. Besides the main approach, there are clever short cuts down steep places, sometimes forming into a rude flight of stone steps, anon taking a sudden leap down a high terrace, and finally creeping out through a hole in the hedge, at the bottom. The houses look pretty from below; but after climbing the hill their best charm vanishes, like that of clouds seen at too close quarters. In Saxony, as well as elsewhere, there is a penalty for opening Pandora's box.

VI.

As for the cottages themselves, they are for the most part two-storied boxes, smeared with stucco and gabled with red tiles thatch being as rare here as it is common in England. In fact, these dwellings are not real cottages, but only small inconvenient houses. They are never allied to their natural surroundings - never look as though they had grown leisurely up from some seed planted æons ago. They never permit us to mistake them for an immemorial tree-stump or mossy rock, which rustic men have hollowed out, and improved into a home. The oldest of them have a temporary, artificial look, conveying the idea that they have been made somewhere else, and been set down in their present situation quite by accident, to be tried in a new place to-morrow. A Saxon never sees the spot he builds in, but only the thing he builds. German toy-villages, which charmed our childhood, are more accurate copies of the reality than our years of discretion would have supposed. Magnify the toy, or view the reality from a distance, and the two are one and the

same.

prices with his peers. Be that how it inay, the gala ends, for him, so soon as he turns his face homewards.

Partly answerable for this barrenness of soul is, no doubt, the form of government, which pokes its clammy, rigid finger into each man's private concerns, till he loses all spirit to be interested in them himself. But yet more, must it be said, is it traceable to that cold, profound selfishness which forms the foundation and framework of the national and individual character, in every walk of life: the wretched chill of which must ultimately annul the warmth of the most fervent German eulogist, provided he be bold enough to bring his theoretical enthusiasm to the decisive test of a few years' personal intercourse and conversation with the people.

At this early hour of the day, however, our peasant is off to his work, and we may examine his abode without calling into question the qualities of the owner. It is by no means devoid of ornamentation, both natural and artificial: which, if in harmony with the temporary character of the house itself, is, not the less, often tasteful and pretty. Whenever possible, the house is made the nucleus of a bunch of flowers and verdure. Brightly coloured blossoms crowd the narrow windows, winter and summer; and the greater number of the cottages have attached to them tiny gardenssome hardly bigger than large flower-pots

This unstable impression results from the fact that Saxon souls have no homeinstinct. The peasant thinks of his house as a place to sleep in and to eat in, before and after sleep. He knows no hearth, around which he and his family may sit and chat; instead, there stands a where grow pansies, pinks, marigolds, tall glazed earthenware stove, which sug- and roses, in gaudy profusion. Flowergests the idea rather of a refrigerator cultivation is a national trait; and I than of a fire; until we burn our fingers have seen very unæsthetic-looking people on it; a hypocritical, repellant thing, plucking wild flowers in the fields. Wild which would sooner burst than look com- flowers are easily obtainable, it is true, fortable. And how can a man converse but the spirit that uses them is less rationally or affectionately over night, common. Here seems to be a contradicwith the woman whom he means to har- tion, and a pleasant one, in the Saxon ness to his cart in the morning? His peasant's character. We look in vain only resource is to go to the inn, and from his house-windows to those of his drink flatulent beer in company with a face; there are no traces of flowers knot of smoky beings like himself. He there; albeit plenty of soil in which to seldom gets drunk; indeed, I doubt plant them. Nevertheless, were there whether the Einfaches beer which he affects is capable of producing anything worse than stolid torpidity which is perhaps not a wholly undesirable condition for a homeless man to be in. On gala days he drinks and eats more than usual, and sometimes puts on a suit of remarkable black broadcloth with the comfortless grandeur thereto appertain ing. He plods on foot to the next vil lage, and sits in the Restauration, or bowls in the alley, or talks crops and

not germs of grace and beauty somewhere hidden in him, such blossoms would scarcely adorn his outward life.

For my part, I like to believe that the women thus make amends to themselves, a little, for the moral sterility of their earthly existence. The flowers that we see in their windows may bloom there to a better purpose than elsewhere. Perhaps, too, they may be prophetic as well as emblematic of good.

Besides his flowers, the peasant often