and affection among his friends there are striking. 'It is
quite a national trait,' he says, 'not to dwell on what concerns us
personally, upon what fills our heart; and it is as unnatural to them
to hear me speak of the topics upon which I am feeling strongly, as it
would be to do the same themselves.... I am far from attributing it to
coldness in these good people. It is altogether national, and it is
the same with every one I have known here, whatever their rank,
calling, learning, or sex. It has quite surprised me, for example,
that if you meet a person in whose family some one has been ill, he
will hardly allude to it, beyond a short answer to your inquiries, or
speak of it with any feeling. In this way, it must be allowed, people
may easily be independent of each other. I believe firmly that the
Scots love their children--that Playfair is a good father; and yet the
former only speak of them because they have them with them in the
evenings, and the boys make their presence known: the latter behaves
exactly as if his boy were not in the room. So far from inviting me to
speak of my relations, so far from Mr Scott making any inquiries as to
my father's position--though he is, nevertheless, as much attached to
him as possible--they have met every attempt on my part to talk to
them on these subjects with a silence which admits of no other
explanation, than that it is not in good taste to say much about these
things. They have never once asked after my mother and sister.' We
have copied the above, because there is no trace in any part of
Niebuhr's writings, former or latter, of narrow national judgments;
and he repeatedly bears testimony to the fatherly kindness with which
he was welcomed, especially in the two houses mentioned in the above
extract. It is simply the sense of a difference, and a difference we
should be inclined to regret as well as he, between the German and the
English or Scotch habit. We shall never forget the earnest, _pained_
manner in which a young German in England once said, when adverting to
the case of some very irreproachable English youths, who yet were
never heard to express a feeling, scarcely to utter a kind thing:
'Your young countrymen seem to me positively _ashamed_ of being good.'

The diligence of Niebuhr, though often impeded by illness, was
immense. Languages, philosophy, history, natural science, all took
their turn. His number of languages was not short of twenty at this
time, and