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CHAPTER XII.

OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE, IN ITS EFFECTS UPON THE SPIRIT OF CONVERSATION.

IN studying the spirit and character of a language, we learn the philosophical history of the opinions, manners, and habits. of nations; and the modifications which language undergoes must throw considerable light on the progress of thought; but such an analysis would necessarily be very metaphysical, and would require a great deal of learning that is almost always wanting to us in the understanding of foreign languages, and very frequently in that of our own. We must then confine ourselves to the general impression, produced by the idiom of a people in its existing state. The French, having been spoken more generally than any other European dialect, is at once polished by use and sharp-edged for effect. No language is more clear and rapid, none indicates more lightly or explains more clearly what you wish to say. The German accommodates itself much less casily to the precision and rapidity of conversation. By the very nature of its grammatical construction, the sense is usually not understood till the end of the sentence. Thus the pleasure of interrupting, which, in France, gives so much animation to discussion, and forces one to utter so quickly all that is of importance to be heard, this pleasure cannot exist in Germany; for the beginnings of sentences signify nothing without the end; every man must be left in possession of all the space he chooses to demand: this is better for the purpose of getting to the bottom of things; it is also more civil, but it is less animated.

The politeness of the Germans is more sincere, but less varied than that of the French; it has more consideration for rank, and more precaution in all things. In France, they flatter more than they humor, and, as they possess the art of

expressing every thing, they approach much more willingly the most delicate subjects. The German is a language very brilliant in poetry, very copious in metaphysics, but very positive in conversation. The French language, on the contrary, is truly rich only in those turns of expression which designate the most complicated relations of society. It is poor and circumscribed in all that depends on imagination and philosophy.' The Germans are more afraid of giving pain than desirous of pleasing. Thence it follows, that they have, as far as possible, subjected their politeness to rule; and their language, so bold in their books, is singularly enslaved in conversation, by all the forms with which it is loaded.

I remember having been present, in Saxony, at a metaphysical lecture given by a celebrated philosopher, who always quoted Baron Leibnitz, and never did he suffer himself to be led in the ardor of haranguing to suppress this title of baron, which scarcely belonged to the name of a great man, who died nearly a century ago.

The German is better adapted for poetry than prose, and its prose is better in writing than in speaking; it is an instrument which answers very well when one desires to describe or to unfold every thing; but we cannot in German, as in French, glide over the different subjects that present themselves. To endeavor to adapt German phrases to the train of French conversation, is to strip them of all grace and dignity. The great merit of the Germans is that of filling up their time well; the art of the French is to make it pass unnoticed.

Though the meaning of German periods is often not to be caught till the end, the construction does not always admit of a phrase being terminated by its most striking expression; and yet this is one of the great means of producing effect in conversation. The Germans seldom understand what we call bons mots; it is the substance of the thought itself, not the orilliancy communicated to it, that is to be admired.

The Germans imagine that there is a sort of quackery in a

1 Madame de Staël could hardly have been familiar with the older writers of aer own country--with Descartes, Malebranche, Pascal and Bossuet.-Ed.

brilliant expression, and prefer the abstract sentiment, because it is more scrupulous and approaches nearer to the very essence of truth; but conversation ought to give no trouble either in understanding or speaking. From the moment that the subject of discourse ceases to bear on the common interests of life, and we enter into the sphere of ideas, conversation in Germany becomes too metaphysical; there is not enough intermediate space between the vulgar and the sublime; and yet it is in that intermediate space that the art of conversation finds exercise.

The German language possesses a gayety peculiar to itself; society has not rendered it timid, and good morals have left it pure; yet it is a national gayety, within reach of all classes of people. The grotesque sound of the words, their antiquated naïveté, communicate something of the picturesque to pleasantry, from which the common people can derive amusement equally with those of the higher orders. The Germans are less restricted in their choice of expressions than we are, because their language, not having been so frequently employed in the conversation of the great world, is not, like ours, composed of words which a mere accident, an application, or an allusion may render ridiculous; of words, in short, which hav ing gone through all the adventures of society, are proscribed, unjustly perhaps, but yet so that they can never again be admitted. Anger is often expressed in German, but they have not made it the weapon of raillery, and the words which they make use of are still in all their force and all their directness of signification: this is an additional facility; but, on the other hand, one can express with the French language a thousand nice observations, a thousand turas of address, of which the German is up to the present time incapable.

We should compare ourselves with ideas in German, with persons in French; the German may assist us in exploring, the French brings us directly to the end; the one should be used in painting nature, the other in painting society. Goethe, in his romance of Wilhelm Meister, makes a German woman say that she perceives her lover wishes to abandon her because he writes to her in French. There are in fact many phrases

in our language by which we may speak without saying any thing, by which we may give hopes without promising, and promise without binding. The German is less flexible, and it does well to remain so; for nothing inspires greater disgust than their Teutonic tongue when it is perverted to the purposes of falsehood, of whatever nature it may be. Its prolix construction, its multiplied consonants, its learned grammar, refuse to allow it any grace in suppleness; and it may be said to rise up in voluntary resistance to the intention of him who speaks it, from the moment that he designs to employ it in betraying the interests of truth.

CHAPTER XIII.

OF NORTHERN GERMANY.

THE first impressions that are received on arriving in the north of Germany, above all in the middle of the winter, are extremely gloomy; and I am not surprised that these impressions have hindered most Frenchmen, who have been banished to this country, from observing it without prejudice. The frontier of the Rhine has something solemn in it. One fears, in crossing it, to hear this terrible sentence,— You are out of France. It is in vain that the understanding would pass an impartial judgment on the land that has given us birth; our affections never detach themselves from it; and when we are forced to quit it, existence seems to be torn up by the roots, and we become strangers to ourselves. The most simple habits as well as the most intimate relations, the most important interests as well as the most trifling pleasures, all once centered in our native country, and all now belong to it no more. We neet nobody who can speak to us of times past, nobody to attest to us the identity of former days with those that are present; our destiny begins again without the confidence of our

early years being renewed: we change our world without experiencing any change of heart. Thus banishment operates as a sentence of self-survival; our adieus, our separations-all seem like the moment of death itself, and yet we assist at them with all the energies of life full within us.

I was, six years ago, upon the banks of the Rhine, waiting for the vessel that was to convey me to the opposite shore; the weather was cold, the sky obscure, and all seemed to announce to me some fatal presage. When the soul is violently disturbed by sorrow, we can hardly persuade ourselves that nature herself is indifferent to it: men may be permitted to attribute some influence to their griefs; it is not pride, it is confidence in the pity of heaven. I was uneasy about my children, though they were not yet of an age to feel those emotions of the soul which cast terror upon all external objects. My French servants grew impatient at German sluggishness, and were surprised at not making themselves understood in the language, which they imagined to be the only one. admitted in all civilized countries. There was an old German woman in the passage boat, sitting in a little cart, from which she would not alight even to cross the river. 'You are very quiet," I said to her. Yes," she answered, "why should I make a noise ?" These simple words struck me; why, in truth, should we make a noise? But even were entire generations to pass through life in silence, still misery and death would not the less await them, or be the less able to reach them.

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On reaching the opposite shore, I heard the horns of the postilions, seeming by their harsh and discordant tones to announce a sad departure for a sad abode. The earth was covered with snow; from the little windows, with which the houses were pierced, peeped the heads of some inhabitants, disturbed by the sound of carriage-wheels in the midst of their monotonous employments; a sort of contrivance, for moving the bar at the turnpike, dispenses with the necessity of the toll-gatherer's leaving his house, to receive the toll from trav ellers. All is calculated for immobility; and the man who

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