Year: 1859

once constituted in the political imagination
of inexperienced millions, they no longer
exhibit. The fruit of the tree of knowledge
has been tasted, and the sweet illusions of
mind longing for freedom and happiness,
and trusting that such state of society
somewhere existed in this world of imper-
fections, have been destroyed by the bitter
taste of reality. But if the romance of
American liberty has thus lost its charms,
the reality of American life has gained its
true interest. If the United States have
lost ground in the favor of theorists and
heretical minds, of revolutionists and en-
thusiasts, they have begun to claim the in
terest of those who know that the difficult
ties of progress do not consist In ideas but
in their realization-that, the principal stress
once laid on the real, in opposition to the
merely imaginary, period of an essential
ly utilitarian character has been inaugurated
in the history of the world, in which peri
cd the lead has been given to the United
States, however imperfect their social sys-
tenn may be IN many respects-and that, as
to these imperfections, liberty is not gift
quietly to be enjoyed after it has once been
acquired, but treasure for the safe keeping
of which the battle of life is to be fought
to the end of time.


If those who are weary of an old and
outworn civilization-those who, in Ger
many, called themselves Europamude-an
expression so full of meaning that it cannot
be translated in one word-if they expect
ed to find in America the tranquility of a
calm and beautiful evening, inviting the
weary traveller to the enjoyment of repose
under the veranda of hospitable roof, to
look at the setting sun, enjoy their meal and
the society of good people and then 60 to
sleep-they were sadly mistaken in the
worlds time of day. What they had hailed
as their quiet evening was the noise morn
ing of the day of other people, who, by


Double, double,


Toll and trouble


bereaved them to their nights dream of hope.
That the sun was not the setting but the ri
sing star of the day-and of what day!-I
day loud. and deafening by its noise, like
that with which Goethe opens the second
part Of his Faust:


Horcheti horcheti dem Sturrn der Horen,


Tonend wird fur Geistesohren


Sehon der neue Tag geboren.


Felsenthere knarren rasselnd


Phobus' RAIDER roilen prasselnd


Welch Getose bringt das Lichtl


Thus much of tie Germans. With the
English it is quite a different thing
With them the United States had no great
sympathy to lose from the beginning, GER
tainly not sympathy based on an interest
of romance, as was the case with the Ger
mans. With the English tbA Udited States
will gain in proportion to the growing pow
er of the Union. Englishmen, like Anglo
A IL It
the strong and the powerful than the weak


And once speaking of England, in refer
ence to the general character of life in Amer
lea on one side, and in other European coun-
tries on the other, let me make remark


Whoever has formed his notions of the
outward and material perfection of English
life by the high reputation England has for
it-for its comforts and cleanliness, and for
the superiority of furniture, utensils and
other articles of common use, and by the
high pretensions made by travelling English
men-whoever, I say. has formed these no
tons abroad and has generalized them ac-
cording to the more democratic character
of life in the continental nations, or in
America, must be astonished, when he comes
to England, on discovering that the great
majority of the English. at home, have to
content themselves with domestic comforts
and with articles and goods as inferior as
those in common use among the great mass
of the continental nations, the French and
Germans. Those English models of indus
trial and technical perfection. so much ad-
mired and envied by the world abroad, on
ly exist for the use of very limited num-
Der of exclusives-nay-in many cases are
even concealed from the profane eye of the
common purchaser, while the immense ma
jority even of the middle classes-or at
least of what would be called the middle
classes on the continent-have to submit to
many privations, at the cost of which, in
the best case, they have to purchase that
outward show of comfort which is the very
reverse of what it pretends to be. It is
with English comfort and technical perfec-
ton, as it is French elegance and high taste,
and as it is with German philosophy and
scholarship and the immense productive
ness of German literature. The genuine |
article for which those different countries |
respectively are famous, is for few while |
the rest. with all their pretensions, have a
sham, if not caricature of it, or nothing
at all. cannot help preferring state of
society like the American, where happy |
middle condition prevails in comforts as
well as in taste and in general education, |
and where cleanliness and domestic ease are |
general In the nation. JULIUS FRoEBEL.


MANY a bright evad srirl TO-DAY Who |