obtain the slightest measure of
consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect? Carters,
porters, messengers--these are the beasts of burden amongst mankind;
by all means let them be treated justly, fairly, indulgently, and with
forethought; but they must not be permitted to stand in the way of
the higher endeavors of humanity by wantonly making a noise. How many
great and splendid thoughts, I should like to know, have been lost to
the world by the crack of a whip? If I had the upper hand, I should
soon produce in the heads of these people an indissoluble association
of ideas between cracking a whip and getting a whipping.

Let us hope that the more intelligent and refined among the nations
will make a beginning in this matter, and then that the Germans may
take example by it and follow suit.[1] Meanwhile, I may quote what
Thomas Hood says of them[2]: _For a musical nation, they are the most
noisy I ever met with_. That they are so is due to the fact, not that
they are more fond of making a noise than other people--they would
deny it if you asked them--but that their senses are obtuse;
consequently, when they hear a noise, it does not affect them much. It
does not disturb them in reading or thinking, simply because they do
not think; they only smoke, which is their substitute for thought. The
general toleration of unnecessary noise--the slamming of doors, for
instance, a very unmannerly and ill-bred thing--is direct evidence
that the prevailing habit of mind is dullness and lack of thought. In
Germany it seems as though care were taken that no one should ever
think for mere noise--to mention one form of it, the way in which
drumming goes on for no purpose at all.

[Footnote 1: According to a notice issued by the Society for the
Protection of Animals in Munich, the superfluous whipping and the
cracking of whips were, in December, 1858, positively forbidden in
Nuremberg.]

[Footnote 2: In _Up the Rhine_.]

Finally, as regards the literature of the subject treated of in this
chapter, I have only one work to recommend, but it is a good one. I
refer to a poetical epistle in _terzo rimo_ by the famous painter
Bronzino, entitled _De' Romori: a Messer Luca Martini_. It gives a
detailed description of the torture to which people are put by the
various noises of a small Italian town. Written in a tragicomic style,
it is very amusing. The epistle may be found in _Opere burlesche del
Berni, Aretino ed altri_, Vol. II.