Of all our poets, Moore should seem the least allied to a German taste. Shall I confess to you? He reminds me perpetually of Prince Potemkin's larder, in which you could always have _petits-patés_ and champagne, _ad libitum_, but never a morsel of bread or a drop of water!
The simile is e'en too wickedly just; but I except his Irish ballads: by the way, I was pleased to find some of our beautiful Irish melodies almost naturalized in Germany, and sung either with Moore's words, or German versions of them. I remember that at Stift-Neuberg I heard the air of Ally Croker sung to an excellent translation of Moore's words,[28] and with as much of the national spirit and feeling as if we had been on the banks of the Shannon instead of the banks of the Neckar. The singer, an amateur, and a most extraordinary musical genius, who had joined our circle from Heidelberg, did not understand, or at least did not speak, English; yet there was no Irish, or Scotch, or English air which he had not at the ends of his fingers; and when he struck up, "Of noble race was Shenkin," it was as if all the souls of all the Welsh harpers since High-born Hoel had inspired him. This gifted person was, however, of your sex, and our discourse, at present, is of mine.
I heard an English lady, who had resided for some time in Germany, remark, that the "German mothers _spoiled_ their children terribly;" in other words, the children lived more habitually with the mothers, were under little restraint, and behaved in the drawing-room much as if they were in the nursery, and were treated, as they grew up, on more equal terms.
That high exterior polish, those brilliant conversational talents, which I have seen in many English and French women, must be rare among the Germans: they are too simple, and too much in earnest. The trifling of a polished French woman is often most graceful; the trifling of an Englishwoman gracious and graceful; but the trifling of a German woman is, in comparison, heavy work; to use a common expression, it is not _in them_. I met with _one_ satirical woman. You know I once ventured to assert that no woman is _naturally_ satirical, and to touch upon the causes which foster this artificial vice--and here was a case in point. It was that of a mind which had originally been a piece of nature's noblest handiwork, first bruised, then gradually festered by the action of all evil influences.