Sir Francis Bond Head

“ If, as you are stretching out your glass, you retire but half a stride, to allow a thirsting lady to step forward, you clearly see, whensoever you afterwards meet her, that the slight attention is indelibly recorded in your favour. Even running against a German produces, as it were by collision, a spark of kind feeling, which, like a star in the heavens, twinkles in his serene countenance whenever you behold it. Smile only once upon a group of children, and the little urchins bite their lips, vainly repressing their joy whenever afterwards you meet them. ”

“ Before the recorded meeting of the “sus atque sacerdos,” she had seen it for ages and ages existing alone in peaceful retirement—one generation of oaks, and beech-trees had been succeeded by another, while no human being had felt disposed either to flourish or to decay among this vegetable community. After this solemn interview with the pig, she had seen the great St. Bernhard collecting workmen and materials, and as in the midst of them he stood waving his cross, she had observed a monastery rise as if by magic from the earth, rapidly overtopping the highest of the trees which surrounded it. ”

“ Although our poor-laws oblige every parish to feed, house, and clothe its offspring, yet in England it is thought wrong to enforce any national provision for the mind, and yet the Duke of Nassau might argue, that in a civilized community children have no more natural right to be brought up ignorant than naked; in short, that if the mildest government be justified in forcing a man, for decency’s sake, to envelop his body, it might equally claim the power of obliging him, for the welfare, prosperity, and advancement of the community—to develop his mind. ”

“ The small steep ravines I have mentioned are the most romantic little spots that can well be conceived. The rugged sides of the hills which contain them are generally clothed with oak, or beech trees, feathering to the very bottom, where a strip of green, rich, grassy land full of springs, scarcely broader than, and very much resembling, the moat of an old castle, is all that divides the one wooded eminence from the other; and it is into these secluded gardens, these smiling happy valleys, that the inhabitants of Nassau have humbly crept for shelter. ”

“ This little goblin page, the whipper-in, attendant, or aid-de-camp of the old pig-driver, facetiously called, at Langen-Schwalbach, the “Schwein-General,” is a being no one looks at, and who looks at nobody. Whether the hofs of Schwalbach are full of strangers, or empty—whether the promenades are occupied by princes or peasants—whether the weather be good or bad, hot or rainy, she apparently never stops to consider; upon these insignificant subjects it is evident she never for a moment has reflected. ”

“ On the contrary, it only proves that human institutions can no more extinguish the native virtue, talent, and integrity of a country, than they can hide from the world the light of the sun; but education can misdirect, though it cannot annihilate; it can give the national mind a hankering for unwholesome instead of wholesome food,—it can encourage a passion for useless instead of useful information. On its course high-bred lads may be trained to race against each other, until the vain object they have strived for can never in after life re-appear, but their blood warms within them. ”

“ It always seems to me so unfair, for us who have had our day—who have ourselves been young—to attempt, when we grow old, to deprive the rising generation of the advantage of that contrast which so naturally enhances their beauties. The spring of life, to be justly appreciated and admired, requires to be compared with the snow and storms of winter, and if by chicanery you hide the latter, the sunshine of the former loses a great portion of its beauty. ”

“ As I gravely followed this grunting, unearthly-looking herd of unclean spirits, through that low part of Langen-Schwalbach which is solely inhabited by Jews, I could not help fancying that I observed them holding their very breaths, as if a loathsome pestilence were passing; for though fat pork be a wicked luxury—a forbidden pleasure which the Jew has been supposed occasionally in secret to indulge in, yet one may easily imagine that such very lean ugly pigs have not charms enough to lead them astray. ”

“ I have observed that the old ones pass all the carcasses, which, trailing to the ground, are hanging before the butchers’ shops, as if they were on a sort of parole d'honneur not to touch them; the middle-aged ones wistfully eye this meat, yet jog on also, while the piglings, who (so like mankind) have more appetite than judgment, can rarely resist taking a nibble; yet, no sooner does the dead calf begin again to move, than from the window immediately above out pops the head of a butcher, who, drinking his coffee, whip in hand, inflicts a prompt punishment, sounding quite equal to the offence. ”

“ How weary we should be of eternal sunshine,—how gloomy would it be to grope through one’s life in utter darkness, and yet what loveliness do each of these, by contrast, impart to the other! On the heights above the village, how magnificent was the darkness after a hot sun-shining day; and then, again, how lovely was the twinkling even of tallow-candles, when they suddenly burst upon this darkness! Yet it is with these two ingredients that Nature works up all her pictures ”

“ It had been hot all day—the roads had been dusty—the ground, as one trod upon it, had felt warm—the air was motionless—animal as well as vegetable life appeared weak and exhausted—Nature herself seemed parched and thirsty—the people on the promenade, as it got hotter and hotter, had walked slower and slower, until they were now crawling along as unwillingly as if they had been marching to their graves. ”

“ The eager step with which I always walked towards the strong steel bath, is almost indescribable. Health is such an inestimable blessing; it colours so highly the little picture of life; it sweetens so exquisitely the small cup of our existence; it is so like sunshine, in the absence of which the world, with all its beauties, would be, as it once was, without form and void, that I can conceive nothing which a man ought more eagerly to do than get between the stones of that mill which is to grind him young again, particularly when, as in my case, the operation was to be attended with no pain. ”

“ However, in the little duchy of Nassau, human corpses have not yet become coin current in the realm; and whatever may be a man’s troubles during his life, at Langen-Schwalbach he may truly say he will, at least, find rest in the grave.
I know it is very wrong—I know that one is always blamed for bringing before the mind of wealthy people any truth which is at all disagreeable to them; yet on the brink of this grave I could not help feeling how very much one ought to detest the polite Paris and London fashion of smartening up us old people with the teeth and hair of the dead? ”

“ If, like the French, we had taken the island from the knights, however degraded, worn out, and useless their Order might have become, yet Europe in general, and France in particular, might always have reproached us, and, for aught we know, our own consciences might have become a little tender on the subject. But the delightful truth is, that no power in Europe can breathe a word or a syllable against our possession of the island of Malta—it is an honour in open daylight we have fairly won, and I humbly say, long, very long, may we wear it! ”

“ The parent and child, thus contrasted, render to each other services of which both appear to be insensible; for the mother does not seem aware how the shattered outlines of her faded frame heighten the robust, blooming beauties of her child, who, in her turn, seems equally unconscious how beautifully and eloquently her figure explains and pleads for the helpless decrepitude of age! In the Babel confusion of our fashionable world, this beautifully arranged contrast of nature, the effect of which no one who has ever seen it can forget, does not exist. ”

“ Whether I stroll up and down the promenade or about the town, whether I mount the hill or ramble into distant villages, no one seems to notice me any more than if I had been born there; and yet out of the 1200 strangers, I happen to be the only specimen to be seen of Old England. No one knows that I have given up feasting in public, for it is not the custom to dine always at the same house; but when one o'clock comes, people go to the Allee Saal, Goldene Kette, &c. just as they feel disposed at the moment.
There are no horses to be hired at Schwalbach, but a profusion of donkeys and mules. ”

“ How many thousands and hundreds of thousands of English, with their mouths, eyes, and purses wide open, have followed each other, in mournful succession, up and down the Rhine; and yet, though Nassau has stood absolutely in their path, I believe I may assert that not twenty families have taken up their abode at Langen-Schwalbach or Schlangenbad in the course of the last twenty years; and yet there is no country on earth that could turn out annually more consumptive, rheumatic, and dyspeptic patients than old England! ”

“ The enormous wealth of England is the commercial wonder of the world, yet every reflecting man who looks at our debt, at the immense fortunes of individuals, and at the levelling, unprincipled, radical spirit of the age, must see that there exist among us elements which may possibly some day or other furiously appear in collision. The great country may yet live to see distress; and in the storm, our commercial integrity, like an over weighted vessel, may, for aught we know, founder and go down, stern foremost. ”

“ The stream which once relentlessly destroyed mankind, now gives to thousands their bread;—that which once separated nations, now brings them together;—national prejudices, which, it was once impiously argued, this river was wisely intended to maintain, are, by its waters, now softened and decomposed: in short, the Rhine affords another proof that there is nothing really barren in creation but man’s conceptions, nothing defective but his own judgment, and that what he looked upon as a barrier in Europe, was created to become one of the great pavés in the world. ”

“ But such a pair of eyes for a pig have perhaps seldom beamed from human sockets! The little intelligent urchin knows every house from which a pig ought to have proceeded; she can tell by the door being open or shut, and even by footmarks, whether the creature has joined the herd, or whether, having overslept itself, it is still snoring in its sty—a single glance determines whether she shall pass a yard or enter it; and if a pig, from indolence or greediness, be loitering on the road, the sting of the wasp cannot be sharper or more spiteful than the cut she gives it. ”

“ Two German tailors had been cheerfully eating a vegetable dinner—so does the Italian who lives on macaroni;—so does the Irish labourer who lives on potatoes;—so do the French peasants who eat little but bread;—so do the millions who subsist in India on rice—in Africa on dates—in the South-Sea Islands and West Indies on the bread-tree and on yams; in fact, only a very small proportion of the inhabitants of this globe are carnivorous: yet, in England, we are so accustomed to the gouty luxury of meat, that it is now almost looked upon as a necessity ”

“ The sagacious creature shrewdly listened to the human being who addressed it; and a mysterious meeting being agreed upon, he silently grubbed with his snout, the valley of Eberbach, lines marking out the foundation of the building; and certainly such a lovely stye, for men basking in sunshine, to snore away their existence, no animal but a pig would ever have thought of! ”

“ On the spur of the moment, therefore, I ordered a carriage; and, with my wallet lying by my side, having bidden adieu to a simple-hearted village, which, for the short remainder of my days, I believe, I shall remember with regard, I continued for some time gradually to ascend its eastern boundary, until I arrived nearly at the summit or pinnacle of the Taunus hills. The view from this point was very extensive indeed, and the park-like appearance of the whole of the lofty region or upper story of Nassau formed a prospect at once noble and pleasing. ”