We have got thus far, then, in the solution of our question.
Revolutionising Germany desires, above all things, one great and
powerful union of all its several parts,—the how, when, where, &c.,
being as yet very indefinite and unintelligible; and the General
National Assembly is there to settle those important preliminaries. Let
us content ourselves awhile with this very vague and uncertain answer,
and return to old Father Rhine and his neighbourhood, to have some
further idea of the physiognomy of the country under the present
revolutionary auspices, and with the soothing hopes of the realisation
of the grand desideratum of union before the country’s eyes. After
taking this superficial survey of the “outward man,” and judging as far
as we can of his character and temper therefrom, we may then speculate,
perhaps, a little upon his tendencies in his present course; and even go
so far as to attempt to take his hand, and try a trick or two of
palmistry in fortune-telling—not pretending, however, in true gipsy
spirit, to infallibility in foretelling the future, however knowingly
and mysteriously we may shake our heads in so doing.
Although the Germans cannot be said to have the capabilities of acting
any new part, that they may pretend to take upon themselves, to the
life—and even to the death—with all that reality and energy for which
the French have such an inborn talent, yet they may be looked up to as a
still more symbol-loving people than the latter; and although perhaps
not quite so much “up to” correctness of costume, at least quite as fond
of parading the dress of the new part upon all occasions. The first
thing, consequently, that strikes the tourist, on entering the Germany
of 1848, is the ostentatious display of the new-old imperial, so-called
national cockade, the red, black, and gold colours of the old German
empire. It is not only upon the caps of vapouring students, who begin to
consider themselves more or less the masters of the world, or upon the
hats of hot-headed, _soi-disant_-enthusiastic, poetico-political young
men that the new cockade is now to be seen; it stares you in the face
from the head and breast of almost every man you meet—gray-beard,
middle-aged, or youngster. It is generally from the centre of the cap or
hat, and thus just upon the forehead, that it glares upon you, like the
dark, red, gleaming eye of a new race of Cyclops: almost every male
individual looks like a political Polyphemus. The soldiers are, one and
all, adorned with two cockades, the one of the colours of the individual
country they serve, the other of those of Imperial United Germany. They
have thus two staring, distorted, and unmatched eyes, one over the
other, in the centre of their foreheads. With their two eyes they ought,
one would suppose, to see farther in the mist of the political storm
than other people. The military, however, influenced perhaps by the
example of their aristocratic young officers, have shown themselves,
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