Germany and the Germans from an American Point of ViewCollier, Price
History
Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View
Collier, Price
Germany; National characteristics, German
One to one and a half fluid ounces of alcohol is about the amount
which can be completely oxidized in the body in a day. This quantity
is contained in two fluid ounces of brandy or whiskey, five fluid
ounces of port or sherry, ten of claret or champagne or other light
wines, and twenty of bottled beer. All this means that a pint of
claret, or two glasses of champagne, or a bottle of beer, or a glass
of whiskey with some aerated water during the day will not hurt a man,
and adds perhaps to the "agreeableness of life," as Matthew Arnold
phrases it. At any rate, this table of contents is a much safer
standard of comparison, in judging the eating and drinking habits of
other people, than either your habits or mine.
The German student probably drinks too much, and it is said by safe
authorities in Germany that his heart, liver, and kidneys suffer; but
he has been at it a long time, and in certain fields of intellectual
prowess he is still supreme, and as we only drink with him now
occasionally when he is our host, perhaps he had best be left to
settle these questions without our criticism.
In general terms, I have always considered, as a test of myself and
others, that a healthy man is one who lies down at night without fear,
rises in the morning cheerfully, goes to a day's serious work of some
kind rejoicing in the prospect, meets his friends gayly, and loves his
loves better than himself.
It is folly to maintain, that it does not require pluck and courage to
stand up to a swinging Schlaeger, and take your punishment without
flinching, and then to sit without a murmur while your wounds are sewn
up and bandaged. I cannot help my preference for foot-ball, or
baseball, or rowing, or a cross-country run with the hounds, or grouse
or pheasant shooting, or the shooting of bigger game, or the driving of
four horses, or the handling of a boat in a breeze of wind, but the
"world is so full of a number of things" that he has more audacity than
I who proposes to weigh them all in the scales of his personal
experience, and then to mark them with their relative values.
First of all, it is to be remembered that these Schlaeger contests
between students are in no sense duels; a duel being the setting by
one man of his chance of life against another's chance, both with
deadly weapons in their hands. These contests with the Schlaeger at the
German universities, wrongly called duels, are so conducted that there
is no possibility of permanent or even very serious injury to the
combatants. The attendants who put them into their fighting harness,
the doctors who look after them during the contest and who care for
them afterward, are old hands at the game, and no mistakes are made.
There is no feeling of animosity between the swordsmen as a rule. They
are merely candidates for promotion in their own corps who meet
candidates from other corps, and prove their skill and courage auf die
Mensur, or fighting-ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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