Page:Stories Translated from the German.djvu/214

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sion in a different way, he said—"as the Franks had from the earliest period attempted to introduce their customs and politeness to the Germans, the lady could not find it unnatural, if he took her own billet as a pattern, and that he should endeavour to copy it, as far as his humble abilities would allow him to do so. He must therefore openly acknowledge, that this instance of her coarse vulgarity and impudence by far exceeded his own unparalleled stupidity, which she had so much admired in him."

He begged further to add, "that his own German bonhomie, which she had likewise excessively praised, was by no means so great—that he could smile at her gross presumption, or could consider it as any thing which might be pardoned in a lady, but that his anger was also of true German nature and constitution; that his self-respect and the esteem, which every learned man owed to himself, advised, whilst his position in the world, his fame, and his value commanded him, to reject and to break off, from henceforth and for ever, the acquaintance with such a thoroughly incorrigible French woman, and that in the strongest and most unequivocating expressions."