196

DOMESTIC MANNEKS OF TUE PHUSSIANS.

the coarseness of the food common to tho German people,—the delight of all in raw fish and sour putrid cabbage— we can hardly be surprised to find even the best-conditionedof the Deutschers with features and complexions barely asrefined-looking as the English domestic servants.

At Ems one sees what is called the most " select " portionof the nation concentrated, occasionally, under one roof; andthere we find men with stars at their breasts, having skins aboutas coarse and brown as the well-known freckly sheepskinbinding to our school-books ; and Grosherzogins and Gräfßnswith cheeks as florid as poppies, and mouths as ill-formed asthose of bull-dogs; while their hands are almost as huge andred as the painted tin signs that are hung outside the Frenchglovers, and their feet as splay as those of the London po-licemen, and possessed of no more instep than a duck.

Then, what a certain criterion is the female voice as to theculture and gentleness of the individual; and assuredly as thevocal tones are the exponents of our emotions (or, as Dr. Reidhas called them, " the natural cries," by which infants, andeven animals, are able instinctively to understand the passionsaffecting us for the time being), even so is it impossible for anaffectionate-natured and kind-heavtedwoman to speak in harshaccents, or to utter words in a tone that grates upon the earlike the creaking of some jail-door.

We may be judging the Prussian ladies unfairly, but wemust say we never heard one gentle-voiced woman duringthe whole of our stay in the country—the majority of theFrans and Fräuleins having positively as husky throats ascostermongers, and many so masculine an utterance, that onhearing them speak outside our door we have often mistakenthem for gentlemen. The defect may be partly owing to thenational habit of indulging in rough sour drinks; though eventhat cannot account for tho utter want of tenderness in the