第56章 LETTER XXII(2)

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,Ihad 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.Ishould 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.