Frederic Shoberl

“ Naturally quick and hasty, the Tyrolese prosecutes with heart and soul whatever he takes in hand. His dances alone, by their irregularity and vivacity, sufficiently attest the vehemence of his character. The music which excites him to pleasure is so brisk, that he can scarcely follow the measure. In short, these people cannot do any thing in a cool and quiet manner: if they fight, it is with an ardour which never allows them to calculate the danger; and when they indulge in pleasure, they give themselves up to it entirely. ”

“ Indeed, I believe that in no country of the world does the rose grow in such perfection as in Persia; in no country is it so cultivated and prized by the natives. Their gardens and courts are crowded by its plants, their rooms ornamented with vases filled with its gathered bunches, and every bath strewed with the full-blown flowers plucked from the ever-replenished stems. Even the humblest individual, who pays a piece of copper money for a few whiffs of a kallioun, feels a double enjoyment when he finds it stuck with a bud of his dear native tree. ”

“ Endowed by nature with great personal beauty, the young Polish noble makes the tour of France and Germany, engrafts the vices of every capital that he visits on his own native stock; and after dilapidating his revenues returns to his paternal estate with a train of French cooks, valets, parasites and all the paraphernalia of modern luxury, to wallow in sensuality, and to die prematurely of acquired disease. ”

“ The annals of modern warfare exhibit no examples of such a phenomenon, except upon the most contracted scale. You may possibly object, that in all this there is some exaggeration; and that, if I rate the battle of Leipzig so highly, it is only because I happened to be an eye-witness of it myself; that the French army is by no means annihilated; that in the uncommon talents of its leader it possesses a sure pledge that it will regain from its enemies those laurels which on various occasions they have ravished from it for a moment. ”

“ Such was in past ages the general appearance of the temple or palace of Persepolis. The genius of destruction now hovers round this terrace; earthquakes have changed the face of it; the hand of man has assiduously overthrown what they had spared: the eye now discovers nothing but fragments of walls, detached door-ways; columns, partly in ruin; the ground strewed with fragments of shafts, capitals and blocks of marble; while heaps of sand and dust are daily covering more and more of these structures, whose remaining masses astonish the imagination. ”

“ At the upper end of the garden is a small and fantastically built palace, inclosed in a little paradise of sweets. The Shah often retires thither for days together at the beginning of summer, before he removes to more distant and temperate regions, and, accompanied by the females of his family, forgets awhile that life or the world have other seasons than the gay and lovely spring. This building is of light architecture, nearly circular, full of elegant apartments, brilliantly adorned with gilding, arabesques, looking-glasses, and flowers, natural and painted in every quarter. ”

“ No one peasant has proceeded in the arts of life and civilization a step farther than his neighbour. When you have seen one you have seen all. From the same little hat, covered with oil, falls the same matted long black hair, negligently plaited or tied in knots; and over the same dirty jacket and trowsers is wrapped on each a cloak of coarse woollen cloth or sheep-skin still retaining its wool. Whether it be winter or summer, week-day or sabbath, the Slavonian of this district never lays aside his cloak or is seen but in heavy boots. ”

“ The smoking ruins of whole villages and towns, or extensive tracts laid waste by inundations, exhibit a melancholy spectacle; but a field of battle is assuredly the most shocking sight that eye can ever behold. Here all kinds of horrors are united; here Death reaps his richest harvest, and revels amid a thousand different forms of human suffering. ”

“ We are unable to conceive a more wretched condition than that of a woman whose life is passed in a harem; but this woman, who from disposition and habit is fond of repose, who has never known the pleasure of attracting the attention of the other sex, and eclipsing her own in personal charms, and in splendour and elegance of dress, cannot imagine that in other countries a female would compromise her honour, her dignity, and her modesty, by exposing her face unveiled to the public eye, and mingling among crowds of pedestrians. ”

“ The French artillery receded, and was already driven back so close upon Gohlis and Eutritzsch, that the balls of their opponents fell in both villages. Night drew on: the vast field of battle became gradually enveloped in darkness, and the horizon was now illumined by the flashes of the guns alone, followed at long intervals by the low thunder of the report. The battle had lasted the whole day all round the city. The church-clocks struck six; and, as if all parties had unanimously agreed to suspend at this moment the horrid work of slaughter, the last cannon-shot was fired beyond Lindenau. ”

“ From the coronet of feathers which adorn the head of the bride, and reminds us of the natives of Guinea and Mexico, to the neat slipper of fish-skin which covers the foot, all is of native material and workmanship. The women spin, weave, dye, and make all their apparel and personal ornaments with peculiar neatness. They attend with truly commendable assiduity to the household concerns, while the men till the ground. Distinguished by purer morals, and therefore more highly respected, they consider it beneath them to mingle their blood with that of the other inhabitants of the frontiers ”

“ How infinitely inferior is Napoleon in this branch of the military art to the immortal Moreau, to whom he would have owed everlasting obligations, had he, at his glorious death, bequeathed to him the transcendent art of converting retreats into victories! ”

“ The Jews, as in the other countries of Europe, live insulated amidst the nation to which they belong; and continue to form a separate people, who never will mingle with any other race. Self is their ruling principle, and private interest their sole study. Without love to their sovereign, without concern for their country, they are indifferent to every thing excepting money, which is the god of their idolatry. Leading, wherever they are found, a wandering life, they consider themselves rather as travellers than as citizens, whose fortunes are dependent on the prosperity of their native land. ”