" Luther tried the latter process all the
first part of his life; but he got the corn at last, and a magnificent
grist he made.
Arrived at the station, we found we must wait till half past five in
the afternoon for the train. This would have been an intolerable doom
in the disconsolate precincts of an English or American station, but
not in a German one. As usual, this had a charming garden, laid out
with exquisite taste, and all glowing and fragrant with plats of
verbena, fuschias, heliotropes, mignonette, pansies, while rows of
hothouse flowers, set under the shelter of neatly trimmed hedges, gave
brightness to the scene. Among all these pretty grounds were seats and
walks, and a gardener, with his dear pipe in his mouth, was moving
about, watering his dear flowers, thus combining the two delights of a
German, flowers and smoke. These Germans seem an odd race, a mixture
of clay and spirit--what with their beer drinking and smoking, and
their slow, stolid ways, you would think them perfectly earthly; but
an ethereal fire is all the while working in them, and bursting out in
most unexpected little jets of poetry and sentiment, like blossoms on
a cactus.
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