“But let us banish these hypochondriacal thoughts. How are you going on? What are you doing? What else have you seen to-day? Tell me, and inspire me with good thoughts.”
“I have been reading Sterne,” returned I, “where Yorick is sauntering about the streets of Paris, and makes the remark that every tenth man is a dwarf. I thought of that when you mentioned the vices of great towns. I also remember to have seen, in Napoleon’s time, among the French infantry, one battalion which consisted entirely of Parisians, who were all such puny, diminutive people, that one could not comprehend what could be done with them in battle.”
“The Scotch Highlanders, under the Duke of Wellington,” rejoined Goethe, “were doubtless heroes of another description.”
“I saw them in Brussels a year before the battle of Waterloo,” returned I. “They were, indeed, fine men; all strong, fresh, and active, as if just from the hand of their Maker. They all carried their heads so freely and gallantly, and stepped so lightly along with their strong, bare legs, that it seemed as if there were no original sin, and no ancestral failing, as far as they were concerned.”
“There is something peculiar in this,” said Goethe. “Whether it lies in the race, in the soil, in the free political constitution, or in the healthy tone of education,—certainly, the English in general appear to have certain advantages over many others. Here in Weimar, we see only a few of them, and, probably, by no means the best; but what fine, handsome people they are. And however young they come here, they feel themselves by no means strange or embarrassed in this foreign atmosphere; on the contrary, their deportment in society is as full of confidence, and as easy as if they were lords everywhere, and the whole world belonged to them. This it is which pleases our women, and by which they make such havoc in the hearts of our young ladies. As a German father of a family, who is concerned for the tranquility of his household, I often feel a slight shudder, when my daughter-in-law announces to me the expected arrival of some fresh, young islander. I already see in my mind’s eye the tears which will one day flow when he takes his departure. They are dangerous young people; but this very quality of being dangerous is their virtue.”