Note 113 — Chapter IX

Mr. Gobineau's remarks apply with equal, and, in some cases, with greater force, to other portions of Europe, as I had myself ample means for observing. I have always considered the character of the European peasantry as the most difficult problem in the social system of those countries. Institutions cannot in all cases account for it. In Germany, for instance, education is general and even compulsory: I have never met a man under thirty that could not read and write. Yet, each place has its local patois, which no rustic abandons, for it would be deemed by his companions a most insufferable affectation. I have heard ministers in the pulpit use local dialects, of which there are over five hundred in Germany alone, and most of them widely different. Together with their patois, the rustics preserve their local costumes, which mostly date from the Middle Ages. But the peculiarity of their manners, customs, and modes of thinking, is still more striking. Their superstitions are often of the darkest, and, at best, of the most pitiable nature. I have seen hundreds of poor creatures, males and females, on their pilgrimage to some far distant shrine in expiation of their own sins or those of others who pay them to go in their place. On these expeditions they start in great numbers, chanting Aves on the way the whole day long, so that you can hear a large band of them for miles. Each carries a bag on the back or head, containing their whole stock of provisions for a journey of generally from one to two weeks. At night, they sleep in barns, or on stacks of hay in the fields. If you converse with them, you will find them imbued with superstitions absolutely idolatrous. Yet they all know how to read and write. The perfect isolation in which these creatures live from the world, despite that knowledge, is altogether inconceivable to an American. As Mr. Gobineau says of the French peasants, they believe themselves a distinct race. There is little or no discontent among them; the revolutionary fire finds but scanty fuel among these rural populations. But they look upon those who govern and make the laws as upon different beings, created especially for that purpose; the principles which regulate their private conduct, the whole sphere of their ideas, are peculiar to themselves. In one word, they form, not a class, but a caste, with lines of demarcation as clearly defined as the castes of India. I have said before that this is not from want of education; nor can any other explanation of the mystery be found. It is not poverty, for among these rustics there are many wealthy people, and, in general, they are not so poor as the lower classes in cities. Nor do the laws restrain them within the limits of a caste. In Germany, hereditary aristocracy is almost obsolete. The ranks of the actual aristocracy are daily recruited from the burgher classes. The highest offices of the various states are often found in possession of untitled men, or men with newly created titles. The colleges and universities are open to all, and great facilities are afforded even to the poorest. Yet these differences between various parts of the population remain, and this generally in those localities which the ethnographer describes as strongly tinctured with non-Teutonic elements.—H. [113]