English undergraduates told me what philosophical and historical works
were being most read in the universities of Great Britain; Bohemian
students explained to me that in the German philosophical world Kant had
quite outshone Hegel and put him in the background.
The lady members of an American family from Boston treated me quite
maternally; the wife suggested almost at once, in the railway-carriage,
that I should give her when we reached the hotel whatever linen or
clothes I had that wanted repairs; she would be very pleased to mend
them for me. The husband, who was very pious and good-natured, had all
his pockets full of little hymn-books and in his memorandum book a
quantity of newspaper cuttings of devotional verse, which he now and
then read aloud enthusiastically.
But I also met with Americans of quite a different cast. A young student
from Harvard University, who, for that matter, was not in love with the
Germans and declared that the United States could with difficulty absorb
and digest those who were settled there, surprised me with his view that
in the future Bismarck would come to be regarded as no less a figure
than Cavour. The admiration of contemporary educated thought was then
centred around Cavour, whereas Bismarck had hitherto only encountered
passionate aversion outside Germany, and even in Germany was the object
of much hatred.
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