THE PEDLER OF DUST STICKS. One day I went to visit a friend, a lady, who came from Hamburg, in Germany. I was much pleased with a portrait which was hanging up in her room, and I was particularly struck by the ornamental drawings with which the picture was surrounded. They consisted of whip handles, canes, piano keys, mouth-pieces for wind instruments, all sorts of umbrellas, and many more things, of... more...

1. GERMANS AT MEAT. Bread soup was placed upon the table. "Ah," said the Herr Rat, leaning upon the table as he peered into the tureen, "that is what I need. My 'magen' has not been in order for several days. Bread soup, and just the right consistency. I am a good cook myself"—he turned to me. "How interesting," I said, attempting to infuse just the right amount of... more...

CHAPTER I THE RIGHT TO MAKE WAR Since 1795, when Immanuel Kant published in his old age his treatise on "Perpetual Peace," many have considered it an established fact that war is the destruction of all good and the origin of all evil. In spite of all that history teaches, no conviction is felt that the struggle between nations is inevitable, and the growth of civilization is credited with a... more...

CHAPTER I. "Come, you fellows, that's enough joking. This defection of yours, melancholy Eynhardt, combines obstinacy with wisdom, like Balaam's ass! Well! may you rest in peace. And now let us be off." The glasses, filled with clear Affenthaler, rang merrily together, the smiling landlord took up his money, and the company rose noisily from the wooden bench, overturning it with a... more...

CHAPTER I. CHRISTMAS "Don't look! There, now it's done!" cried Bertha. It was two nights before Christmas. Bertha was in the big living-room with her mother and older sister. Each sat as close as possible to the candle-light, and was busily working on something in her lap. But, strange to say, they did not face each other. They were sitting back to back. "What an unsociable way to... more...

INTRODUCTORY I was once greatly impressed by a story of an officer in the German army, who told his English hostess that he knew the position of every blacksmith's forge in Yorkshire. I wondered at the time how many officers in the English army had learned where to find the blacksmiths' forges in Pomerania. But those are bygone days. Most of us know more about Germany now than we do about our... more...

HERMANN, THE HERO OF GERMANY. In the days of Augustus, the emperor of Rome in its golden age of prosperity, an earnest effort was made to subdue and civilize barbarian Germany. Drusus, the step-son of the emperor, led the first army of invasion into this forest-clad land of the north, penetrating deeply into the country and building numerous forts to guard his conquests. His last invasion took him as... more...

At length I returned from two weeks leave of absence to find that my patrons had arrived three days ago in Roulettenberg. I received from them a welcome quite different to that which I had expected. The General eyed me coldly, greeted me in rather haughty fashion, and dismissed me to pay my respects to his sister. It was clear that from SOMEWHERE money had been acquired. I thought I could even detect a... more...

PREFACE. During a stay of three years and a half in Germany and France, sometimes at work, sometimes tramping through the country, the Author collected a number of facts and stray notes, which he has endeavoured in these pages to present to the public in a readable shape. Of the twenty-eight chapters contained in the volume, sixteen originally appeared in “Household Words.”  They are entitled The... more...

CHAPTER I. THE GULDEN KRONE. COUNT THUN'S CASTLE AND GROUNDS. GLORIOUS SCENERY. THE MARCH RESUMED. SUPERSTITIONS OF THE BOHEMIANS NOT IDOLATRY. STATE OF PROPERTY. OF THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. KAMNITZ. THE COW-HERDS. STEIN JENA. HAYDE. We had quitted home not unprepared for the suspicious looks which innkeepers might be expected to cast upon us, strangely equipped as we were, rude of speech, and... more...