whose traits are of a more antique regularity, and whose noses, either aquiline like the Roman or straight like the Greek, often go into excess of length. It was very well remarked by a German that the English, when among Italians, look like statues with the noses knocked off.
"Yes, when we meet English people in a foreign country their defects first become striking by comparison. They are the gods of ennui, who, in shining, varnished coaches, drive extra-post through every country, and leave everywhere a grey dust-cloud of sadness behind them.[1] Hence comes their curiosity without interest, their bedizened, over-dressed coarseness,[2] their insolent bashfulness, their angular egotism, and their dismal delight in all melancholy things. For three weeks we have seen every day on the Piazza del gran Duca an Englishman who stands for hours gaping at the charlatan who, while seated on a horse, draws teeth. This spectacle is perhaps for the noble son of Albion an equivalent for the executions which he neglected to attend in his
- ↑ It is very characteristic of nervous, frivolous natures that they cannot conceive of gravity or calmness except as associated with dulness and suffering. The North American Indians are the most imperturbable of mortals, but they certainly suffer less from ennui than any others. But Heine had in reality only very second-hand stage-knowledge of the English.
- ↑ Geputzte Plumpheit. This implies rather a burly bluffness, not very much given to consider refined feelings. It is a little less than literal coarseness.
