334 TS^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



steady fortitude and valiant laboriousness which have fought against, 

 and triumphed over, the gravest natural disadvantages, are not the re- 

 sult of university culture. But the strength and endurance which be- 

 long to the German, as a gift of race, needed enlightenment to direct 

 it ; and this was given by the universities. Into these establishments 

 was poured that sturdy power which in other fields had made the 

 wastes of Nature fruitful, and the strong and earnest character had 

 thus superimposed upon it the informed and disciplined mind. It is the 

 coalescence of these two factors that has made Germany great ; it is 

 the combination of these elements which must prevent England from 

 becoming small. We bless God for our able journalists, our orderly 

 Parliament, and our free press ; but we bless him still more for " the 

 hardy English root " from which these good things have sprung. We 

 need muscle as well as brains — character and resolution as well as ex- 

 pertness of intellect. Lacking the former, though possessing the 

 latter, we have the bright foam of the wave without its rock-shaking 

 momentum. Our place of study was the town of Marburg, in Hesse- 

 Cassel, and a very picturesque town Marburg is. It clambers pleas- 

 antly up the hill-sides, and falls as pleasantly toward the Lahn. On 

 a May day, when the orchards are in blossom, and the chestnuts 

 clothed with their heavy foliage, Marburg is truly lovely. My study 

 was warmed by a large stove. At first I missed the gleam and sparkle 

 from flame and ember, but I soon became accustomed to the obscure 

 heat. At six in the morning a small milch-brod and a cup of tea 

 were brought to me. The dinner-hour was one, and for the first year 

 or so I dined at an hotel. In those days living was cheap in Marburg. 

 Dinner consisted of several courses, roast and boiled, and finished up 

 with sweets and dessert. The cost was a pound a month, or about 

 eightpence per dinner. I usually limited myself to one course, using 

 even that in moderation, being already convinced that eating too 

 much was quite as sinful, and almost as ruinous, as drinking too much. 

 By attending to such things I was able to work without weariness for 

 sixteen hours a day. My going to Germany had been opposed by 

 some of my friends as Quixotic, and my life there might, perhaps, 

 be not unfairly thus described. I did not work for money ; I was 

 not even spurred by " the last infirmity of noble minds." I had been 

 reading Fichte, and Emerson, and Carlyle, and had been infected 

 by the spirit of these great men. Let no one persuade you that they 

 were not great men. The Alpha and Omega of their teaching was 

 loyalty to duty. Higher knowledge and greater strength were within 

 reach of the man who unflinchingly enacted his best insight. It was 

 a noble doctrine, though it might sometimes have inspired exhausting 

 disciplines and unrealizable hopes. At all events, it held me to my 

 work, and, in the long cold mornings of the German winter, defended 

 by a Schlafrock lined with catskin, I usually felt a freshness and 

 strength — a joy in mere living and working, derived from perfect 



