the
fullest sense of the term. You would think it strange, would you not,
to dine at court at four o'clock, and see the grand-ducal ministers and
their ladies--the elite of a little world of their own--proceeding,
many of them on foot, in court-dress, to dinner with their sovereign?
Strange, too, would you deem it--dinner over--to join a promenade
with the party in the Park, where all the bourgeoisie of the town are
strolling about with their families, taking their coffee and their tea,
and only interrupting their conversation or their pleasure to salute the
Grand-Duke or Grand-Duchess, and respectfully bid them a "good-e'en";
and then, as it grew later, to return to the palace, for a little whist
or a game of chess, or, better still, to make one of that delightful
circle in the drawing-room where Goethe was sitting? Yes, such is the
life of Weimar. The luxury of your great capitals, the gorgeous salons
of London and Paris, the voluptuous pleasures which unbounded wealth and
all its train of passions beget, are utterly unknown there; but there is
a world of pure enjoyment and of intercourse with high and gifted minds
which more than repay you for their absence. 'A few years more, and all
this will be but "matter for an old man's memory." Increased facilities
of travel and greater knowledge of language erase nationality most
rapidly. The venerable habits transmitted from father to son for
centuries--the traditional customs of a people--cannot survive a
caricature nor a satire. The _esprit moqueur_ of France and the insolent
wealth of England have left us scarce a vestige of our Fatherland.
Our literature is at this instant a thing of shreds and patches--bad
translations of bad books; the deep wisdom and the racy humour of
Jean Paul are unknown, while the vapid wit of a modern French novel
is extolled. They prefer the false glitter of Dumas and Balzac to the
sterling gold of Schiller and Herder; and even Leipsic and Waterloo
have not freed us from the slavish adulation of the conquered to the
conqueror.'

'What would you have?' said I.

'I would have Germany a nation once more--a nation whose limits should
reach from the Baltic to the Tyrol. Her language, her people, her
institutions entitle her to be such; and it is only when parcelled
into kingdoms and petty States, divided by the artful policy of foreign
powers, that our nationality pines and withers.'

'I can easily conceive,' said I, 'that the Confederation of the