Lord George and James worry me greatly for my admiration of Germany and the Germans. They talk, in slang, on themes that require a high strain of intelligence to comprehend or even appreciate. No wonder, then, if their frivolity offend and annoy me! The Bitter von Wolfenschäfer is an unspeakable relief to me, after this tiresome quizzing. Shall I own that Cary is their ally in the same ignoble warfare? Indeed, nothing surprises, and at the same time depresses me more than to remark the little benefit derived by Caroline from foreign travel. She would seem to sit down perfectly contented with the information derived from books, as though the really substantial advantages of a residence abroad were not all dependent on direct intercourse with the people. "Why not read Uhland and Tieck at home at Dodsborough?" say I to her. "To what end do you come hundreds of miles away from your country, to do what might so easily have been accomplished at home?" What do you think was her reply? It was this: "That is exactly what I should like to do. Having seen some parts of the Continent, having enjoyed the spectacle of those wonderful things of nature and of art which a tour abroad would display, and having acquired that facility in languages which comes so rapidly by their daily use, I should like to go home again, adding to the pleasures my own country supplies, stores of knowledge and resources from other lands. I neither want to think that Frenchmen and Germans are better bred than my own countrymen, nor that the rigid decorum of English manners is only a flimsy veil of hypocrisy thrown over the coarse vices of a coarse people." Now, my dear Kitty, be as national and patriotic as one will; play "Rule Britannia" every morning, with variations, on the piano; wear a Paisley shawl and a Dunstable bonnet; make yourself as hideous and absurd as the habits of your native country will admit of,--and that is a wide latitude,--you will be obliged to own the startling fact, the Continent _is_ more civilized than England. Daily life is surrounded with more of elegance and of refinement, for the simple reason that there is more leisure for both. There is none of that vulgarity of incessant occupation so observable with us. Men do not live here to be Poor-law guardians and Quarter Sessions chairmen, directors of railroads, or members of select committees. They choose the nobler ambition of mental cultivation and intellectual polish. They study the arts which adorn social intercourse, and acquire those graceful accomplishments which fascinate in the great world, and, in the phrase of the newspapers, "make home happy." I have now come to the end of my paper, and perhaps of your patience, but not of my arguments on this theme, nor the wish to impress them upon my dearest Kitty. Adieu! Adieu!