But here, as in so many other cases, Germany, learned, indefatigable,
deep-thinking Germany comes to our aid. It is, after all, a blessing that,
in these revolutionary times, there should be one country where abstract
Thought can still take shelter; that while the din and frenzy of Catholic
Emancipations, and Rotten Boroughs, and Revolts of Paris, deafen every
French and every English ear, the German can stand peaceful on his
scientific watch-tower; and, to the raging, struggling multitude here and
elsewhere, solemnly, from hour to hour, with preparatory blast of cow-horn,
emit his _Horet ihr Herren und lasset's Euch sagen_; in other words, tell
the Universe, which so often forgets that fact, what o'clock it really is.
Not unfrequently the Germans have been blamed for an unprofitable
diligence; as if they struck into devious courses, where nothing was to be
had but the toil of a rough journey; as if, forsaking the gold-mines of
finance and that political slaughter of fat oxen whereby a man himself
grows fat, they were apt to run goose-hunting into regions of bilberries
and crowberries, and be swallowed up at last in remote peat-bogs. Of that
unwise science, which, as our Humorist expresses it,

"By geometric scale
Doth take the size of pots of ale;"

still more, of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seen
vigorously thrashing mere straw, there can nothing defensive be said. In
so far as the Germans are chargeable with such, let them take the
consequence. Nevertheless be it remarked, that even a Russian steppe has
tumult and gold ornaments; also many a scene that looks desert and
rock-bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited, into rare
valleys. Nay, in any case, would Criticism erect not only finger-posts and
turnpikes, but spiked gates and impassable barriers, for the mind of man?