Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. IIGleig, G. R. (George Robert)
History
Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II
Gleig, G. R. (George Robert)
Austria -- Description and travel; Bohemia (Czech Republic) -- Description and travel; Germany -- Description and travel
regard for higher things than externals.
Why should I continue these details any further? We visited the
theatre, with the music and acting in which we were greatly delighted;
we dined on one of the islands in the Moldau, in the open air, in the
midst of a crowd, beneath the canopy of heaven, and with a well-managed
band to serenade us all the while; we spent an evening greatly to our
own satisfaction, under the shade of the trees in the Thiergarten. We
climbed the Strahow, inspected the monastery that crowns its summit,
admired the fine library, and gazed with reverence on the autograph of
Tycho Brahe; we wandered round the ramparts; we surveyed the field of
the battle of Prague; we examined more minutely the ground on which
Ziska had fought and conquered; we left nothing unexplored, in short,
which we found that it was possible to bring within the scope of
general observation; nor permitted any matter, concerning which
curiosity had been excited, to pass without investigation. The result
was a tolerably accurate acquaintance with every remarkable object in
the place, not excepting Count Nositz's small but excellent
gallery,--one of the most creditable collections of modern growth which
I have seen. Neither did we fail to form acquaintance with the people,
as well of the humbler as of the more exalted stations; of which the
result, in every instance, was, that the favourable impression which
had been made upon me, while wandering among the mountains, suffered no
diminution. I found them to be,--in the city, not less than among the
villages,--a kind-hearted, industrious, and most patient race. I saw,
indeed, that they were not without their grounds of discontent, and
that they felt their grievances keenly. The higher orders complained
because the ancient capital of their native land had sunk into a mere
provincial town. They pointed to palaces deserted and falling to decay,
and said, with natural bitterness, that it ill became Bohemians of the
best blood to prefer the pleasures of Vienna to the duty which they
owed to their father-land. They spoke, too, indignantly of the
centralizing system, of the ban that had gone forth against their
beloved language, of the extinction of their privileges, and the
efforts that are making, to blot out the very remembrance of their
nationality. "But it will not succeed," was the usual termination of
such harangues. "We have no idea of shaking off the yoke. We know that
in the present state of Europe, Bohemia could not exist one year as an
independent monarchy; but we shall never be content till the laws are
everywhere administered in a language which is intelligible to the
people, and we and they be permitted to exercise some control over our
own affairs." In like manner, the humbler classes,--the shop-keeper,
the mechanic, and the artisan,--spoke not unintelligibly of their
altered condition, since the native nobility were their best customers,
and taxation scarcely reached them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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