Page:Stories Translated from the German.djvu/137

, sympathetic state of our whole existence, of which one can form no idea but at Münich, and which one can scarcely suppose to exist, comes to one here as naturally as the rheumatism or a violent cold!

"Is not man a child of nature, which is continually reproducing him anew, first of all by gaining body and soul for him, and then through these a state of consciousness? Are not the chief means she adopts for this purpose, that she allows herself to be consumed by him in the shape of flesh, vegetables, and fruit, or as coffee, wine, and beer? Come, my honest fellows! tell me now, in what food could nature exist in higher perfection, than in fluid bread—in beer? In it, body and soul are so closely allied that each little tankard of it represents the whole race of mankind—yes, even the whole earth;—it is the genuine, the real microscope!

"How different would the German—particularly the Bavarian national character, and accordingly humanity itself have been formed, without this auxiliary?—(Here, waiter!)—It is for this reason that we Germans are the true Normal people, of which the Bavarian nation is the quintessence,