his father-land is there, where he finds what he seeks, and what his own country has denied him.  The South German must hence be more self-dependent, for he has a father-land at home full of blessing and beauty;—­the North German has to seek one elsewhere; and this makes him more pliant, more polished, more active; but also more ostentatious, less to be confided in, more adventurous.  This distinction is primeval.  The North Germans mingled themselves with the Britons, Gauls, Italians, and Slavonians; the Alemanni and Bavarians remained in their native country.

The southern sky draws forth a vegetable world more luxuriant, fierier, spicier; the northern, a much duller, waterier, colder, and the men are so too, except where government and education have powerfully encroached.  In the north the people have evidently less fancy and feeling, less genialness and versatility, even flatter, duller physiognomies, but also evidently greater intelligence, more consideration, seriousness, and constancy.  The wastes, storms, and floods, the unthankful, sandy, moory country, must of themselves make the people more serious, more enterprising, more capable of contentment than in the south, where Nature is not so like a step-mother, nay, has flattered her favourites, thereby rendering them light-minded, indolent, and desirous of enjoying.  Here the flesh triumphs over the spirit; there the spirit over the flesh, “nos besoins sont nos forces!”

The North German is hence more solid, gloomier, more retired, less kindly.  Here you may still find the athletic forms of Tacitus, with blue eyes and yellow, or, more properly, red hair, which are rarer in the south.  In the north the men seem to me more handsome, in the south the women.  The South German is softer, and on the other hand his speech harder.  The North German, though without wine, writes many a noble catch, which we in the south troll over our wine.  The inhabitants of the wine countries have fewer singers of wine than those of the beer countries; the latter sing of it, the former are fonder of drinking it.  It is as with songs of love; one sings of his mistress, seldom of his wife.

The North and South German bear the same relation to each other as beer and schnaps to wine, as bilberries to grapes, as butter and cheese to roast and dessert, as mountains and levels, as leagues and miles.  In the south or wine land prevails a lighter, sprightlier, tone of intercourse; in the land of beer and schnaps with its moist air, all seems more dubious and measured; and thus the moment of enjoyment passes over.  The sex is livelier in the south and more complaisant, without on that account being more wanton.  In the south there is everywhere more nature, in nature herself as in man, and most of all with the sex.  In the north more culture and art, in the south more natural capability, as well as more nature and life.