Worse still, they abandon science and its noble
fields for trade, arts, industry, as if there had not been in the former
glorious days much more curious industrial arts and pursuits than in our
own day! Witness the Hanseatic League, the maritime enterprise of Venice,
Genoa, and the Levant, Flemish manufactures, Florentine art, the triumphs
in art of Rome and Antwerp! No! all that is laid aside; people now-a-days
pride themselves upon their ignorance of those glorious days; above all,
they neglect our dear old Alsace. Now, candidly, Theodore, don't all
those tourists remind you of husbands leaving their fair sweet lawful
wives to run after ugly coquettes?"
And Bernard Hertzog shook his learned head, his eyes rounded with wonder
and excitement, just as if he had been standing before the ruins of
Babylon.
His partiality to the usages and customs of old times accounted for his
having, for forty years past, worn the full-skirted plush coat, the
velvet breeches, the black silk stockings, and the silver shoe-buckles of
our grandfathers. He would have thought himself disgraced had he put on
trousers; and to cut off his pigtail would have been a profane deed.
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