Year: 1865

The mass of decent, respectable, educated
Germans are simply without any sense what
ever of the ridiculous; and yet the Germans
are wonderful, great, and an admirable
people. When we see how uncommonly wei
these foxes get on without tails, we are al
most tempted to ask ourselves whether the
tail ON which we pride ourselves is really any
addition to our happiness or comfort. Moth
ing, according to English notions, can be more
ridiculous than the life of German professor
To mention German professor, is indeed, with
most of us, to laugh at him. He is a curious
being. He lives in a poky fiat; his wife does
the cooking and washing; he is absurd enough
to like cabbage dressed after the manner of his
country, instead of eating, like Britton, the
simple vegetable as nature made it, and with
the water in which it was boiled nicely pre-
served in its dripping leaves. He never gets
on in the world, and he smokes all day, and
most of the night. 1t must be allowed thai
no human being not even Turk or an Eng
hsh ensign, can smoke anything like German
professor. A really practiced and hardened
German professor win not only smoke during
every other moment of his waking hours. but
he will smoke all through his dinner, taking
alternately mouthful Of food and mouthful
OF smoke. Then what does he do in this life
OF ncessant and protracted study? He very
likely studies metaphysics, and modern Eng
isllmen know how ridiculous that is. He
spends years in identifying or in discriminat-
ing between Thinking and Being or in prov
ing that Being and Not-being are the same, OF
that they are not the same, and If not, why
not and how otherwise. At the end of hi.
life Being and Not-being are just where they
were, and nobody knows or cares to know
any more about them. People with sense Of
the ridiculous have seen that metaphysics are
cobweb, will-o'-the-wisp, dream, silly
puzzle, and so forth, and yet the poor profeS-
sor has gone on grinding at them till his last
pipe has been smoked out. Then, again how
foolish he is, how sentimental, how unreal. how
nonsensical, with his longings of the soul, with
his inner meanings, and his ever-near-spirit-
world! Moonstruck is the very mildest epi-
thet that can be applied to him, and very few
sensible Englishmen, we fear, would call him
fool without putting strengthening epithet
Z before the term. He has been born, he has
lived, he has thought, he has written, and he
has died, without any more sense of the ridlc-
ulous than HottentOt, or Mr.. Upper, or his
own inkstand. And yet to him, and to such
as he is, Europe owes some of the rarest and
most precious elements Of modern civilization.
From German metaphysicians there is drawn,
or at least by their labor is greatly augmented,
that tstFeam of high thought, of ideas, of tenta-
tive hypothesis on great subjects, which raise:
men above mere utilitarianism, and enables
one generation to guess the secrets of the fu-
ture reserved for other generations to be born.


The Germans are equally absurd in their
family life. They have no notion of conceal
ing their feelings, or of hiding their love and
their respect for each other. They do not
mind as we should, exhibiting themselves on
sentimental occasions, and taking the world
z into family secrets. They are too innocent
and simple-hearted to mind being stared at,
md hnrv heoVa 1<,R ~ Ii
that first made the nation begin to wear
clothes. There is no end to the events offa1n-
lily life which they feel called on to celebrate
There is always silver wedding, or a golden
wedding, or bethrothal day. or a birthday, or
something of the kind to make feast about.
They rush up and kiss and hug each other at
railway stations They insist, against the evi-
dence of their senses, in seeing venerable pa
triarchs in their fathers, and hero-forms in
their brothers. They calmly show strangers a
series OF family photographs, and explain that
this uncle is most honored man; that this
aunt is a woman of irrepressible emotions
that the tall sister is universally considered
loveliness itself, and the short sister has a
heart-pang And no place is better to watch
them than on board ship; because as every-
body sees everybody there, people must be
either very shy, or not shy at all. The young
Germans soon produce the conviction thai
they do not even know what shyness is. 1t
never occurs to them that they can be the sub
ject of jokes; and they will sit for hours Oh
deck, with their hands clasped, looking into
each others eyes, before all who care to look
at them. There is complete want of the sense
of the ridiculous in all this but then it must
be owned, the Germans have something to set
on the other side. They get much more out
Of family lie than any other people, They
are always having events ofsome interest oc-
curing to them. They live in an atmosphere
Of serene and contented love. They enjoy
many pleasures longer, if not more profoundly,
than others do. lfpeople would find it salts
factory to sit hand-in-hand for hours in public
but refrain because they think they would
look foolish, evidently they go without pleas.
ure which, if they had been less sensitive tc
the opinion of others, they might have freely
enjoyed The happiness of family affection i:
more dilfused in Germany than elsewhere, be
cause in the first place, the fear of ridiculs
places no restriction on it and secondly, because
1t gains strength by the mere fact that it is ha
bitually unrestricted.-[London Saturday Re
view