قراءة كتاب James Frederick Ferrier

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James Frederick Ferrier

James Frederick Ferrier

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acted as her handmaid, and was only tolerated as such, was naturally affected in like manner by the change; and to her credit be it said, that instead of with averted eyes looking elsewhere, as might easily have been done, she determined to face the worst, and wisely asked the question whether in her department too she had not something she could learn from a sister country across the sea. Hence a great change was brought about in the mental attitude of Scotland; but we anticipate.

Ferrier, after leaving Heidelberg, paid a short visit to Leipzig, and then for a few weeks took up his abode at Berlin. From Leipzig he writes to Miss Wilson again: 'How do you like an epistola dated from this great emporium of taste and letters, this culminating point of Germanism, where waggons jostle philosophy, and tobacco-impregnated air is articulated into divinest music? It is fair-time, and I did not arrive, as one usually does, a day behind it, but on the very day it commenced. It will last, I believe, some weeks, and during that time all business is done on the open streets, which are lined on each side with large wooden booths, and are swarming with men and merchandise of every description and from every quarter of the world. It very much resembles a Ladies' Sale in the Assembly Rooms (what I never saw), only the ladies here are frequently Jews with fierce beards, and have always a pipe in their mouths when not eating or drinking. As you walk along you will find the order of the day to be somewhat as follows. You first come to pipes, then shawls, then nails, then pipes, pipes again, pipes, gingerbread, dolls, then pipes, bridles, spurs, pipes, books, warming-pans, pipes, china, writing-desks, pipes again, pipes, pipes, pipes, nothing but pipes—the very pen will write nothing but pipes. Pipes, you see, decidedly carry it. I wonder they don't erect public tobacco-smoke works, lay pipes for it along the streets, and smoke away—a city at a time. Private families might take it in as we do gas!'

Ferrier appears to have spent a week at Frankfort before reaching his destination at Leipzig. He describes his journey there: 'At Frankfort I saw nothing worthy of note except a divine statue of Ariadne riding on a leopard. After lumbering along for two nights and two days in a clumsy diligence, I reached Leipzig two days ago. I thought that by the way I might perhaps see something worthy of mention, and accordingly sometimes put my head out of the window to look. But no—the trees, for instance, had all to a man planted their heads in the earth, and were growing with their legs upwards, just as they do with us; and as for the natives, they, on the contrary, had each of them filled a flower-pot, called a skull, full of earth, put their heads in it, and were growing downwards, just as the same animal does in our country; and on coming to one's recollection in the morning in a German diligence you find yourself surrounded by the same drowsy, idiotical, glazed, stained, and gummy complement of faces which might have accompanied you into Carlisle on an autumn morning after a night of travel in His Majesty's mail coach.'

Berlin impressed Ferrier by its imposing public buildings and general aspect of prosperity. It had, of course, long before reached a position of importance under the great Frederick's government, though not the importance or the size that it afterwards attained. Still, it was the centre of attraction for all classes throughout Prussia, and possessed a cultivated society in which the middle-class element was to all appearances predominant. Ferrier writes of the town: 'Of the inside of the buildings and what is to be seen there I have nothing yet to say, but their external aspect is most magnificent. Palaces, churches, mosque-like structures, spires and domes and towers all standing together, but with large spaces and fine open drives between, so that all are seen to the greatest possible advantage, conspire to form a most glorious city. At this moment a fountain which I can see from my window is playing in the middle of the square. A jet d'eau indeed!! It may do very well for a Frenchman to call it that, but we must call it a perfect volcano of water. A huge column goes hissing up as high as a steeple, with the speed and force of a rocket, and comes down in thunder, and little rainbows are flitting about in the showery spray. It being Sunday, every thing and person is gayer than usual. Bands are playing and soldiers are parading all through the town; everything, indeed, is military, and yet little is foppish—a statement which to English ears will sound like a direct contradiction.'

Our traveller had been given letters to certain Berlin Professors from young Blackie, afterwards Professor of Greek in Edinburgh University, who had just translated Goethe's Faust into the English tongue. 'I went about half an hour ago to call upon a sort of Professor here to whom I had a letter and a Faust to present from Blackie—found him ill and confined to bed—was admitted, however, very well received, and shall call again when I think there is a chance of his being better. I have still another Professor to call on with a letter and book from Blackie, and there my acquaintance with the society of Berlin is likely to terminate.' One other introduction to Ferrier on this expedition to Germany is mentioned in a note from his aunt, Miss Susan Ferrier, the only letter to her nephew that has apparently been preserved: whether or not he availed himself of the offer, history does not record. It runs as follows:—

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