Lights and Shadows of German Life [Stories, Tr. by M.M. Montgomery]. - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1833. Excerpt: ... ing are opened to their absurdity; and, lastly, that she was well satisfied with her husband, because he suffered her to follow her own devices unmolested, with the tacit understanding that she should interfere as little with his. She farther confessed, that she did not love the Baron as well as she had loved me; "But, then," added she, with a look of malicious meaning, "he is better calculated for a husband than you are, though you may have been the most agreeable lover." I defended myself warmly on this point, but she turned all my arguments into jest; and, breakfast being announced, we proceeded towards the well-remembered garden--the scene of our parting ten years before. But the wellremembered garden proved to be as much changed as all the rest. The parterres had vanished, and in their place were clumps of young trees and shrubberies, intermixed with green sward and winding gravel walks, after the fashion of what the French have termed Jardins Anglois. The vine-arbour was transformed into a Chinese pagoda, over the bells of which waved the branches of the two old acacias. The interior was fitted up as a boudoir, in the newest and most expensive Parisian taste. A pink satin sofa, and a rich buhl table covered with coffee and chocolate, and all the et ceteras of a luxurious breakfast, served in sevres and chased silver, filled the place of the rustic bench and table of other (and to me at least), happier days. "Oh, where is our beautiful vine-arbour--our church--our altar, and the happy days of our childhood?--All gone!" said I, with a deep sigh, and a look which, probably, conveyed a melancholy reproach to Augustine. "Does happiness depend on a vine-arbour, then 1" she replied, laughing. "I almost think the reason you don't love me as well now as you ...