A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2685, 30 August 1905, Page 76

A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD.

By G.V3131A.

FROM THINGS GHOSTLY TO THINGS

MATERIAL.

There is one thing in this city that every self-respecting tourist ticks off on his guide-book as a thing to be "done" — that is, the opened grave. It is the sort of thing that appeals to the popular imagination, and lends itself well to point a pretty moral. The grave in question stands in the churchyard surrounding the Garlenkirche ; in the same churchyard are bmied two famous women — Caroline Herscliol, sister and fellow-worker of the great, fstronomei, and Charlotte Kestner, whose fame lies not/ in her own greatness, but in that she was the original of Lotta in Uoethe's "Sorrows of Werther," and a woman who had no mean influence on the poet's life. But these two are not the graves to which your average modern pilgrim betakes himself ; they are mentioned rather incidentally in his guide-book, ■Hihereas the "opened grave"' has at least a paragraph, to say nothing of the postcard photographs of it in all the shop windows. The inscription on the tombstone runs: — ''This grave has become inalienable property, and shall never be opened." The words, dim and half-obliterated, are yet legible, but have all the air of having been cut at least two centuries ago. But, as if Nature had taken offence at the imperative "shall," and had wished to show to posterity the futility of man's will, a birch tree has sprung up through some chink in the great slab of stone that covers tho whole grave, and in its vigour of growth has actually rent the strong iron clamps binding the stones together, and forced the uppermost slab to tilt over on one angle, thus leaving a wide fissiue across the grave. Ii is truly the strangest of coincidences that the grave bearing this proud inscription should be the one where this young birch took root ; perhaps my guide-book may be pai cloned, its digression, on such a tempting occasion into flowery metaphoi and moral reflection. "The eternal ruling and creative power of Nature scoffs at -the frailty of the human will that would keep the tomb closed to eternity, and preaches unmistakably how the power of a new life breaks the chains of'destlj, aad how passing and death are but th® -transition to a more beautiful dawn." Which is certainly making the most of the occasion. This dipping into my guide-book hss brought hosts of reminiscences flooding upon me. The familiar cumbersomeness of thes-e many titles that the Germans stickle, so punctiliously for leajDo homelike

(o pit eyes. All the«e good dsad-and-gone folk who.^e a/ayes are in the grd.it cemetery on the road to Hildesh^i.n are still in death so far respected that the guidebook cnrtlnues to prefix " Sculptor," "Counsellor foi* Coinmei-ce," '"Chief Army fnug('ui\" "L\vei Dircv.tr v fcr- the Construction of CVmetsrico "' to their respective naiiies. I ha\e c\en heaid of one — but this was not in <i cemetery, in spite of its sujgxstuer.ess — whose official title vi-;, "Chief Measurer of Corpses for the Construction of Coffins." Imagine being addressed as ''.Nils, the Chief Meosmcr of/ ci.c , etc.. for they all hold strongly to these same titles, and fe-jl rather insu'tcd if addressed simp]}' as "Friu Smith." We had in our pension a "Fvev, the wife of the chief army surgeon,"' but we used to c;et over the difficulty in the days before we could say ' ObcrstaV.arzt " by calling her 'Gmcious lady," v, hich is ?l&o accepted, and even a trifle floticring. Th.ere is soir.'cihing about the topsyturvy order oi the sentences and the Mipe'rdbimdince of enthusiastic adjectives in the descriptions of this some guidebook that seen s t> waft me sdaigJit buck to Germany. Thai suspension cf the verb till the uul of the f-eitcnce, which is at first the great perplexity to foieigners, grows in time to be like a. conspicuous feature on the face of a friend — no longer remarkable, but pleasantly familiar. Here is a sentence taken at random, illustrating the different way that words end phrases arc marshalled in German writing: — The for the muaicipal museum and the municipal libiary ordered left wings will on the sits of tli3 Ivcstner Museum be pTaccd."' You would think it would need a brain specially constructed with extra patience cells to remain calm while all those adjectives nrsurp the place of the \crb; but it 'is surprising how soon one becomes used to it. To continue with the rather gloomy subject of graves and tombstones with which I opened, there is one pretty custom almost universally observed in Germany and France somewhere about the beginning of November. The day we call "All Saints' Day " they call "All Souls' Day," and either on thot day itself cr some day near then, \lonoul is done to the dead who sleep their last sleep in the graveyards. However distant be th. relationship, you go on that day to lay flowers on the graves of such of your family as rest there— : pa.rents and grandparents, sisters and brothers, cousins, and all. And at night, especially in parts of the country where there are many Roman Catholics, lighted candles are placed on the graves amidst the flowers. We passed such a cemetery once when we were travelling from Dresden to Berlin; the train was going along an embankment, and the cemetery lay below, a carpet of colour, with all its newly-decorated graves. Lassen's little song, "Allerseelen," took a new meaning : On -very grave are flowers all red and golden ; In Death's dark valley this is holy-day. In France the flowers are too often ugly artificial wreaths, .made of glass beads : in. Germany more, real flowers are used, and' the effect is charming. So much for graves and tombs and death ; let us, lest we become too lugubrious, turn from these to the comfortable material things of German life, — the large, hearty dinners, the lich sweets, and the over-heated rooms. All middle class Germans take their meals at .the same hours — coffee and rolls at 8 or halfepast, a heavy dinner at half-past 1 or 2, coffee at 4, and a sort of high tea or supper at half-past 7. Dinner is the -erions meal of the clay, so serious that it reduces most of the household to a state of somnolence ; from halfpast 2 till half-past 3 almost everyone in a German home is asleep, and woe tc%the daring foreigner who ventures, duving that ■hour, to lay a finger on the piano ! In the afternoon, when coffee or chocolate is drunk, ih very often has a layer of thick whipped cream on the top, and all sorts of rich cakes, likewise with whipped cream, accompany it. For tea at night, there is always at least one kind of German sausage on the table ; there are about ten kinds, and the shops that sell these goods are amongst the best patronised in Germany, for this is a very favourite article of diet. Dishes that are cooked are almost always prepared with more butter or fat than we use ; all prepared food is richer. Add to all this the enormous quantities of beer drunk by all classes, it is little wonder that, to English eyes, the Germans seem to be very tat.