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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/348

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334
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

steady fortitude and valiant laboriousness which have fought against, and triumphed over, the gravest natural disadvantages, are not the result of university culture. But the strength and endurance which belong 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 expertness 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 pleasantly 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