mentioning these as proof that Breitmann, as I have depicted him,
is not a contradictory character, I cannot refrain from a word of
praise as to the energy and patience with which the German "under
a cloud" in America bears his reverses, and works cheerfully and
uncomplainingly, until, by sheer perseverance, he, in most cases,
conquers fortune. In this respect the Germans, as a race, and I
might almost say as individuals, are superior to any others on
the American continent. And if I have jested with the German new
philosophy, it is with the more seriousness that I here
acknowledge the deepest respect for that true practical
philosophy of life -- that well-balanced mixture of stoicism and
epicurism -- which enables Germans to endure and to ENJOY under
circumstances when other men would probably despair.

Breitmann is one of the battered types of the men of '48 --
a person whose education more than his heart has in every way led
him to entire scepticism or indifference -- and one whose
Lutheranism does not go beyond "Wein, Weib, und Gesang." Beneath
his unlimited faith in pleasure lie natural shrewdness, an
excellent early education, and certain principles of honesty and
good fellowship, which are all the more clearly defined from his
moral looseness in details which are identified in the
Anglo-Saxon mind with total depravity. In such a man, the
appreciation of the beautiful in nature may be keen, but it will
continually vanish before humour or mere fun; while having no
deep root in life or interests in common with the settled
Anglo-Saxon citizen, he cannot fail to appear at times to the
latter as a near relation to Mephistopheles. But his "mockery"
is as accidental and naif as that of Jewish Young Germany is keen
and deliberate; and the former differs from the latter as the