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of me, for such the distant recognition with which he saluted me seemed to imply. He had made the first advances himself, and it was scarcely fair that he should have thus abruptly stopped short, after inviting acquaintance. While I was meditating a retreat, he turned suddenly about, and then, taking off his hat, saluted me with a courtly politeness quite different from his ordinary

manner.

'I see, sir,' said he with a very sweet smile, as he looked towards the little group-'I see, sir, you are indeed an admirer of pretty prospects.'

Few and simple as the words. were, they were enough to reconcile me to the speaker; his expression, as he spoke them, had a depth of feeling in it which showed that his heart was touched.

After some commonplace remark of mine on the simplicity of German domestic habits and the happy immunity they enjoyed from that rage of fashion which in other countries involved so many in rivalry with others wealthier than themselves, the colonel assented to the observation, but expressed his sorrow that the period of primitive tastes and pleasures was rapidly passing away. The French Revolution first, and subsequently the wars of the Empire, had done much to destroy the native simplicity of German character; while in latter days the tide of travel had brought a host of vulgar rich people, whose gold corrupted the once happy peasantry, suggesting wants and tastes they never knew nor need to know.

'As for the great cities of Germany,' continued he, 'they have scarcely a trace left of their ancient nationality. Vienna and Berlin, Dresden, and Munich, are but poor imitations of Paris; it is only in the old and less visited towns, such as Nuremberg, or Augsburg, that the Alt Deutsch habits still survive. Some few of the Grand-Ducal States-Weimar, for instance-preserve the primitive simplicity of former days even in courtly etiquette; and there, really, the government is paternal,

in 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 élite 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 peoplecannot 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 patchesbad 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 Rhine must have destroyed in a great measure the patriotic feeling of Western Germany. The peasantry were sold as mercenaries; the nobles, little better, took arms in a cause many of them hated and detested

'I must stop you here,' said he, with a smile; 'not that you would or could say that which should wound my feelings, but you might hurt your own when you came to know that he to whom you are speaking served in that army. Yes, sir, I was a soldier of Napoleon.'

Although nothing could be more unaffectedly easy than his manner as he spoke, I feared I might already have said too much; indeed, I knew not the exact expressions I had used, and there was a pause of some minutes, broken at length by the colonel saying—

'Let us walk towards the town; for if I mistake not they close the gates of the Park at midnight, and I believe we are the only persons remaining here now.'

Chattering of indifferent matters, we arrived at the hotel; and after accepting an invitation to accompany the baron the next day to Wilhelms Höhe, I wished him good-night and retired.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE BARON'S STORY

EVERY one knows how rapidly acquaintance ripens into intimacy when mere accident throws two persons together in situations where they have no other occupation than

each other's society; days do the work of years, confidences spring up where mere ceremonies would have been interchanged before, and in fact a freedom of thought and speech as great as we enjoy in our oldest friendships. Such in less than a fortnight was the relation between the baron and myself. We breakfasted together every morning, and usually sallied forth afterwards into the country, generally on horseback, and only came back to dinner a ramble in the Park concluding our day.

I still look back to those days as amongst the pleasantest of my life; for although the temper of my companion's mind was melancholic, it seemed rather the sadness induced by some event of his life than the depression resulting from a desponding temperament-a great difference, by the way; as great as between the shadow we see at noonday and the uniform blackness of midnight. He had evidently seen much of the world, and in the highest class; he spoke of Paris as he knew it in the gorgeous time of the Empire-of the Tuileries, when the salons were crowded with kings and sovereign princes; of Napoleon, too, as he saw him, wet and cold, beside the bivouac fire, interchanging a rude jest with some grognard of the Garde, or commanding, in tones of loud superiority, the marshals who stood awaiting his orders. The Emperor, he said, never liked the Germans; and although many evinced a warm attachment to his person and his cause, they were not Frenchmen, and he could not forgive it. The Alsatians he trusted, and was partial to; but his sympathies stopped short at the Rhine; and he always felt that if fortune turned, the wrongs of Germany must have their recompense.

While speaking freely on these matters, I remarked that he studiously avoided all mention of his own services

a mere passing mention of 'I was there,' or, ‘My regiment was engaged in it,' being the extent of his observations regarding himself. His age and rank, his wound itself, showed that he must have seen service in its

most active times; and my curiosity was piqued to learn something of his own history, but which I did not feel myself entitled to inquire.

We were returning one evening from a ramble in the country, when stopping to ask a drink at a wayside inn, we found a party of soldiers in possession of the only room, where they were regaling themselves with wine; while a miserable-looking object, bound with his arms behind his back, sat pale and woe-begone in one corner of the apartment, his eyes fixed on the floor, and the tears slowly stealing along his cheeks.

'What is it?' asked I of the landlord, as I peeped in at the half-open door.

'A deserter, sir

The word was scarcely spoken when the colonel let fall the cup he held in his hand, and leaned, almost fainting, against the wall.

'Let us move on,' said he, in a voice scarcely articulate, while the sickness of death seemed to work in his features.

'You are ill,' said I; 'we had better wait'

'No, not here—not here,' repeated he anxiously; 'in a moment I shall be well again-lend me your arm.'

We walked on, at first slowly, for with each step he tottered like one after weeks of illness; at last he rallied, and we reached Cassel in about an hour's time, during which he spoke but once or twice. I must bid you a good-night here,' said he, as we entered the inn; I feel but poorly, and shall hasten to bed.' So saying, and without waiting for a word on my part, he squeezed my hand affectionately, and left me.

It was not in my power to dismiss from my mind a number of gloomy suspicions regarding the baron, as I slowly wended my way to my room. The uppermost thought I had was, that some act of his past life-some piece of military severity, for which he now grieved deeply-had been brought back to his memory by the

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