the very ground under your feet, as it appeared, issuing as they did
from the open mouths of beer and wine-cellars. Quiet coffee-houses there
were, in which grave citizens smoked and read; and admirable concerts in
saloons, and in the open air. To one of these latter I was seduced by
the mendacious announcement of a certain Wagner of Berlin, that a whole
troop of real Moors would perform fantastic tricks before high heaven;
and on paying the price of admission, I had to run the gauntlet through a
score of black-headed Teutons, who salaamed and grinned as they ushered
me into the blank space beyond, containing nothing more interesting than
a few tables and chairs, a dumb brass band, and a swarm of hungry
waiters. I saw no dance-houses, such as there were in Hamburg; and by
nine o'clock the festivities of the day were at an end. The Easter fair
lasted some five or six weeks, and at its termination its merriment
disappeared. The wandering minstrels wailed their last notes as they
departed, and the quiet city was left to its students and the pigeons.

So much for my experiences of Protestant Germany as regards Sunday
occupation. I have, however, said nothing of museums or picture
galleries. I should be sorry to misrepresent the kindred commercial
cities of Hamburg and Leipsic; but I think they may shake hands on this
question, seeing that, at the period of my visit, they possessed neither
the one nor the other. I do not say that there were no stored-up
curiosities, dignified with the title of museums. But, as far as the
public instruction was concerned, they were nearly useless, being little
known and less visited, and certainly not accessible on the Sunday.
Schwerin, in Mecklenburg, possesses a noble ducal museum of arts and
sciences, but this also was closed on the weekly holiday; and in Berlin,
where the museum, par excellence, may vie with any in Europe, and which
city is otherwise rich in natural and art collections, the doors of all
such places were, on the Sunday, strictly closed against the people. Of
the good taste which authorises the display of stage scenery and
decorations (and that not of the best), and yet forbids the inspection of
the masterpieces of painting; of the judgment which patronises beer and
tobacco, yet virtually condemns as unholy the sight of the best evidences
of nature's grandeur, and the beautiful results of human efforts in art,
it is not necessary to treat here.

CHAPTER XXV