What a difference a little sunshine makes!  I could have forgotten the season the next day, but for the bare trees and swelling Main, as I threaded my way through the hundreds of people who thronged its banks.  It was that soft warmth that comes with the first spring days, relaxing the body and casting a dreamy hue over the mind.  I leaned over the bridge in the full enjoyment of it, and listening to the roaring of the water under the arches, forgot every thing else for a time.  It was amusing to walk up and down the pier and look at the countenances passing by, while the phantasy was ever ready, weaving a tale for all.  My favorite Tyrolese were there, and I saw a Greek leaning over the stone balustrade, wearing the red cap and white frock, and with the long dark hair and fiery eye of the Orient.  I could not but wonder, as he looked at the dim hills of the Odenwald, along the eastern horizon, whether they called up in his mind the purple isles of his native Archipelago.

The general character of a nation is plainly stamped on the countenances of its people.  One who notices the faces in the streets, can soon distinguish, by the glance he gives in going by, the Englishman or the Frenchman from the German, and the Christian from the Jew.  Not less striking is the difference of expression between the Germans themselves; and in places where all classes of people are drawn together, it is interesting to observe how accurately these distinctions are drawn.  The boys have generally handsome, intelligent faces, and like all boys, they are full of life and spirit, for they know nothing of the laws by which their country is chained down, and would not care for them, if they did.  But with the exception of the students, who talk, at least, of Liberty and Right, the young men lose this spirit and at last settle down into the calm, cautious, lethargic citizen.  One distinguishes an Englishman and I should think an American, also, in this respect, very easily; the former, moreover, by a certain cold stateliness and reserve.  There is something, however, about a Jew, whether English or German, which marks him from all others.  However different their faces, there is a family character which runs through the whole of them.  It lays principally in their high cheek-bones, prominent nose and thin, compressed lips; which, especially in elderly men, gives a peculiar miserly expression that is unmistakeable.  I regret to say, one looks almost in vain, in Germany, for a handsome female countenance.  Here and there, perhaps, is a woman with regular features, but that intellectual expression, which gives such a charm to the most common face, is wanting.  I have seen more beautiful women in one night, in a public assembly in America, than during the seven months I have been on the Continent.  Some of the young Jewesses, in Frankfort, are considered handsome, but their features soon become too strongly marked.  In a public walk the number of positively ugly faces is really astonishing.