The station room was an agreeable one, painted prettily in frescoes,
with two sofas. So we arranged ourselves in a party. S. and I betook
ourselves to our embroidery, and C. read aloud to us, or tried the
Amati, and when we were tired of reading and music we strolled in the
garden, and I wrote to you.
I wonder why we Anglo-Saxons cannot imitate the liberality of the
continent in the matter of railroad stations, and give the traveller
something more agreeable than the grim, bare, forbidding places, which
now obtain in England and America. This Wittenberg is but a paltry
town; and yet how much care is spent to make the station house
comfortable and comely! I may here say that nowhere in Europe is
railway travelling so entirely convenient as in Germany, particularly
in Prussia. All is systematic and orderly; no hurrying or shoving, or
disagreeable fuss at stations. The second class cars are, in most
points, as good as the first class in England; the conductors are
dignified and gentlemanly; you roll on at a most agreeable pace from
one handsome station house to another, finding yourself disposed to be
pleased with every thing.
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