Every great city has some building, or promenade, some work of art or nature, to which the recollections of childhood are attached. It seems to me that the _Prater_ should have this charm for the Viennese. No other city can match this splendid promenade through woods and deer-stocked meadows. The daily promenade at a fixed hour is an Italian custom. Such regularity would be impossible in a country where the pleasures are as varied as in Paris; but the Viennese could never do without it. Society folk in their carriages and the people on their feet assemble here every evening. It is in the Prater that one is most struck with the easy life and the prosperity of the Viennese. Vienna has the uncontested reputation of consuming more food than any other equally populous city. You can see whole families of citizens and artisans starting for the Prater at five o'clock for a rustic meal as substantial as dinner in any other country, and the money they are able to spend on it proves their industry and kindly rule. At night thousands of people return, without disorder, without quarrel. You can scarcely hear a voice, so silently do they take their pleasures. It is not due to sadness, but to laziness and physical well-being. Society is here with magnificent horses and carriages. Their whole amusement is to recognise in a Prater avenue the friends they have just left in a drawing-room. The emperor and his brothers take their place in the long row of carriages, and prefer to be considered just as ordinary private people. They only use their rights when they are performing their duties. You never see a beggar: the charity institutions are admirably managed. And there are very few mortal crimes in Austria. Everything in this country bears the impress of a paternal, wise, and religious government. _III.--On the German Language_ Germany is better suited for prose than for poetry, and the prose is better written than spoken; it is an excellent instrument if you wish to describe or to say everything; but you cannot playfully pass from subject to subject as you can in French. If you would adapt the German words to the French style of conversation you would rob them altogether of grace and dignity. The merit of the Germans is to fill their time well; the talent of the French is to make us forget time. Although the sense of German sentences is frequently only revealed at the very end, the construction does not always permit to close a phrase with the most piquant expression, which is one of the great means to make conversation effective. You rarely hear among the Germans what is known as a _bon-mot_; you have to admire the thought and not the brilliant way in which it is expressed.