Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/198

 live in one ecstasy of fear. We find it very difficult to decide, and have determined meanwhile to visit Kissingen. I have heard that it is a pleasant place, very prettily situated. I have an idea that the waters will benefit me, at least it is something new: we penetrate at once into Germany. It is true, we do not understand German; but where better learn a language than in its native country?

“What’s in a name!”—You know the quotation: it applies to things known; to things unknown, a name is often everything: on me it has a powerful effect; and many hours of extreme pleasure have derived their zest simply from a name; and now a name is drawing me on—Germany—vast, unseen Germany! whence has poured forth nearly the whole population of the present civilised world,—a world not gifted, like the ancient, with a subtle organisation which enabled them to create the beauty, which we do little more than admire—nor endowed with that instinctive grace that moulded even every stone which the Greeks touched into imperishable types of loveliness—nor with that vivacious imagination that peopled the unseen universe with an endless variety of beautiful creations,—but the parent of a race in which women are respected—a race that loves justice and truth—whose powers of thought are, if slow, yet profound, and, in their way, creative. Tacitus’s