15. TIME.—By half the world or more—by all who have much to do, whether by the head, the hands, or the feet—TIME is regarded next to health, as the most valuable article: by the other half—or a large portion of it—TIME is looked upon as little better than a drug, and readily bartered away for the merest trifles!—Nay, it is often voted to be a great BORE, and a thousand ways and means are invented to kill the bore. In Germany TIME is not over-rated, on the one hand, nor despised or hated, on the other. All Germans have something to do (for who is without his pipe), and few have very much work on hand. The German, therefore, takes everything leisurely and coolly—never permitting himself to be hurried or flurried—even by the sound of the dinner-bell, or the march to the table-d’hôte. It is seldom of any use to bribe the waiter or the postillion to increased velocity. The cook and the horses not being participators of the _douceur_, are not at all inclined to assist in the completion of the implied contract between the other parties. The German never attempts to “KILL TIME,” well knowing that in such a conflict the enemy must be ultimately victorious. But he daily and hourly offers him a _narcotic_, by which his scythe may be blunted, and his ravages obscured. Of all the mythological divinities, TIME is most familiar to us, through the medium of his works:—for he himself is invisible, inaudible, intangible. TIME is cloathed, on one side, with flesh and blood:—the other is a naked skeleton. In his right hand he holds a wand, by which he calls into existence, every instant, countless myriads of beings throughout the animal and vegetable world—leading them forward to maturity and age. His skeleton hand is clenched on a crooked falchion, with which he smites, destroys, and annihilates everything which he had previously created—thus realizing the fabled monster that eternally devours its own progeny![94] It is a melancholy spectacle—but it could not have been otherwise! It is possible that the Almighty could have created a single pair immortal—but the power of multiplying could not have been conferred without the penalty of death!