CHAPTER X.

OF SUPERCILIOUS FOLLY AND BENEVOLENT MEDIOCRITY,

SUPERIORITY of mind and soul is seldom met with in any country, and, for this very reason, it retains the name of superiority; thus, in order to judge of national character, we should examine the mass of the people. Men of genius are fellowcitizens everywhere; but, to perceive justly the difference between the French and Germans, we should take pains to understand the communities of which the two nations are composed. A Frenchman can speak, even without ideas; a German has always more in his head than he is able to express. able to express. We may

subject, that, with their assistance, a fool may discourse well enough for some time, and for a moment even seem a man of understanding; in Germany, an ignorant person never dares profess an opinion on any subject whatever with confidence; for, no opinion being received as incontestable, you can advance none without being previously armed to defend it; thus ordinary people are, for the most part, silent, and contribute nothing to the pleasure of society, except the charm of good-nature. In Germany, distinguished persons only know how to talk; while, in France, every one is ready to bear his share in conversation. People of superior minds are indulgent in France, and severe in Germany; on the contrary, French fools are malignant and jealous; while those of Germany, however bounded in intellect, are yet able to praise and admire. ideas circulated in Germany, on many subjects, are new, and often whimsical; from whence it follows, that those who respect them appear, for some time, to possess a sort of borrowed profundity. In France, it is by manners that men give themselves an illusory importance. These manners are agreeable, but uniform; and the discipline of fashion wears away all the variety that they might otherwise possess.

The

A man of wit told me, that, one evening, at a masked ball, he walked before a looking-glass; and that, not knowing how to point himself out to himself, from the crowd of persons wearing similar dominos with his own, he nodded his head to recognize himself: the same may be said of the dress with which the understanding clothes itself in the world; we almost confound ourselves with others-so little is the real character shown in any of us! Folly finds herself well off in all this confusion, and would make advantage of it by contesting the possession of real merit. Stupidity and folly are essentially different in this,-stupid people voluntarily submit themselves to nature, while fools always flatter themselves with the hope of governing in society.

CHAPTER XI.

OF THE SPIRIT OF CONVERSATION.

IN the East, when men have nothing to say, they smoke; and, while they are smoking, from time to time, salute each other with their arms folded across their breasts, as a mark of friendship; but, in the West, people prefer to talk all day long-and the warmth of the soul is often dissipated in these conversations, where self-love is always on the wing to display itself, according to the taste of the moment, and of the circle in which it finds itself.

It seems to me an acknowledged fact, that Paris is, of all cities in the world, that in which the spirit and taste for conversation are most generally diffused; and that disorder, which they call the mal du pays, that undefinable longing for our native land, which exists independently even of the friends we have left behind there, applies particularly to the pleasure of conversation which Frenchmen find nowhere else in the same degree as at home. Volney relates, that some French emigrants began, during the revolution, to establish a colony and clear some lands in America; but they were continually quitting their work to go and talk, as they said, in town'-and this town, New Orleans, was distant six hundred leagues from their place of residence. The necessity of conversation is felt by all classes of people in France: speech is not there, as elsewhere, merely the means of communicating from one to another ideas, sentiments, and transactions; but it is an instrument on which they are fond of playing, and which animates the spirits, like music among some people, and strong liquors among others.

Only a Parisian fully knows what it is causer à la ville.-Ed.

That sort of pleasure, which is produced by an animated. conversation, does not precisely depend on the nature of that conversation; the ideas and knowledge which it develops do not form its principal interest; it is a certain manner of acting upon one another, of giving mutual and instantaneous delight, of speaking the moment one thinks, of acquiring immediate self-enjoyment, of receiving applause without labor, of displaying the understanding in all its shades by accent, gesture, look; of eliciting, in short, at will, the electric sparks, which relieve some of the excess of their vivacity, and serve to awaken others out of a state of painful apathy.

Nothing is more foreign to this talent than the character and disposition of the German intellect; they require in all things a serious result. Bacon has said, that conversation is not the road leading to the house, but a by-path where people walk with pleasure. The Germans give the necessary time to all things, but what is necessary to conversation is amusement; if men pass this line, they fall into discussion, into serious argument, which is rather a useful occupation than an agreeable art. It must also be confessed, that the taste for society, and the intoxication of mind which it produces, singularly in-capacitate for application and study, and the virtues of the Germans depend perhaps in some respects upon the very absence of this spirit.

The ancient forms of politeness, still in full force almost all over Germany, are contrary to the ease and familiarity of conversation; the most inconsiderable titles, which are yet the longest to be pronounced, are there bestowed and repeated wenty times at the same meal;' every dish, every glass of

"One habit of German society, which cannot fail sometimes to occasion a smile to an Englishman, though it costs him some trouble to acquire it, is the necessity of addressing everybody, whether male or female, not by their own name, but by the titles of the office which they hold.

"To accost a gentleman, as is usual in England, with Sir (Mein Herr), if not considered among the Germans themselves as an actual insult, is at least not complimentary; it is requisite to find out his office or profession. Madame and Mademoiselle, addressed to German ladies, are equally terms of inferiority. The commonest title to which everybody aspires is that o

wine, must be offered with a sedulity and a pressing manner, which is mortally tedious to foreigners. There is a sort of goodness at the bottom of all these usages; but they could not subsist for an instant in a country where pleasantry may

Councillor (Rath), which is modified and extended by various affixes and >refixes. There is a rath for every profession: an architect is a Baurath; an advocate a Justizrath, &c., &c.; and a person with no profession at all contrives to be made a Hofrath (court councillor), a very unmeaning title, which is generally borne by persons who were never in a situation to give advice to the court. The dignity of Staatsrath (privy councillor) is given to members of the administration; some real dignity is attached to it, and .he persons bearing it are further addressed by the title of excellency. The title of Professor is much abused, as it is certainly appropriated by many persons who have no real claim to it by their learning or office. It is beter, in conversing with a German, to give a person a rank greater than he is entitled to than to fall beneath the mark. Geheimrath, for example, i: higher than Professor. It is upon this principle that an Englishman is sometimes addressed by the common people, to his great surprise, as He Graf (Mr. Count), and often as Euer Gnaden (Your Grace).

"Every man who holds any public office, should it be merely that of an under clerk, with a paltry salary of £40 a year, must be gratified by hearing his title, not his name. Even absent persons, when spoken of, are generally designated by their official titles, however humble and unmeanng they may be. The ladies are not behind in asserting ther clains to Lonorary appellations. All over Germany a wife insists upon taking the title of her husband, with a feminine termination. There is Madame General-ess, Madame Privy Councillor-ess, Madame Daybook-keeper-ess, and a hundred others.'-RUSSELL.

"Read and see Kotzebue's amusing ridicule of this, in his comedy called Die Deutschen Kleinstädter.

"These titles sometimes extend to an almost unpronounceable length. Only think, for instance, of addressing a lady as Frau Oberconsistorialdirectorin (Mrs. Directress of the Upper Consistory Court). This may be voided, however, by substituting the words Gnädige Frau (Gracious Malame) in addressing a lady. It must at the same time be observed, that this fondness for titles, and especially for the prefix von (of, equivalent to the French de, and originally denoting the possessor of an estate), is, to a certain extent, a vulgarity from which the upper classes of German society are free. The rulers of Germany take advantage of the national vanity, and lay those upon whom they confer the rank under obligation; while they, at the same time, levy a tax upon the dignity proportionate to its elevation; thus a mere Hofrath pays from thirty to forty dollars annually, and the higher dignities a more considerable sum. If, however, the title is acquired by merit, no tax is paid, but merely a contribution to a fund for the widows and children of the class.

"Certain forms and titles are also prefixed on the address of a letter: thus