reat as between the
Lady Amine eating rice with a bodkin, and the same fair one battening
ghoulishly upon the cold meat in the cemetery. Nothing can equal the
persevering industry with which a German crams himself at a public
table, where, having to pay a fixed sum for his dinner, he always seems
desirous to get as much as he can for his money. The _obligato_ bowl of
soup is followed by sundry huge slices of boiled beef, sufficient of
themselves for an ordinary man's dinner, but by no means sufficing for a
German's; then come fowl and meat, fish, puddings and creams, and meat
again; sweet, sour, and greasy--greasy, sweet, and sour, alternating and
following one another in inextricable and interminable confusion. Every
body eats of every thing largely and voraciously, and the short pauses
between the appearance of the dishes are filled up by nibblings at such
salutary and digestible _extremets_ as raw hams and herrings, pickled
cucumbers, and pickled grapes! German cookery is famous for odd
mixtures. M. Dumas is rather amusing on this head.

"At Bonn, the dinner they served me consisted of an unintelligible
sort of soup, full of round balls of a pasty substance; beef stewed
with prunes, hare dressed with preserves, wild boar with cherries;
it was impossible to take more pains to spoil things which
separately, would have been very commendable eating. I tasted them
each in turn, and each time sent away my plate. When I sent away the
wild boar, the waiter could stand it no longer.

"'Does not monsieur like wild boar with cherries?'

"'I detest it!'

"'That is singular; a great poet like monsieur.'

"'You are mistaken, my man: I make verses perhaps; but that is no
reason for calling me a great poet, nor for ruining the coats of my
stomach with your infernal fricassees. Besides, supposing I were a
great poet, what has poetry got to do with pig and cherry sauce?'

"'Our great Schiller adored that dish.'

"'Our tastes differ, then. I have no objection to William Tell or
Wallenstein, but---- take away your pig.'

"The waiter carried off the wild boar: meantime I tasted the beef
and prunes, but, to do more than taste it, was out of the question;
and, when the man returned, I bid him change my plate. His
astonishment was greater than ever.

"'What!' cried he, 'does not monsieur like beef and prunes?'

"'No.'

"'M. Goethe wa