This may, too, have been one of those numerous instances in which the
parties had already spent many evenings together in such a way as to
have diminished the interest of both in each other's society on the
first evening of married life. A genuine Munich man would never be
embarrassed like the Parisian, of whom the well-known story is told,
that, having been accustomed to spend all his evenings in the
drawing-room of a certain lady, he was advised, on the death of her
husband, to marry her, and promptly replied with the question, "_Where,
then, should I spend my evenings?_" A true South-Bavarian's plan of
spending his evenings is not affected by the trifling event of his
marriage.
Indeed, there is an aspect of this virtual dissolution of family-life
which has great interest as connected with German erudition. The English
or American scholar, whose social hours are mainly spent with his
family, or in the mixed society of the sexes, would never think of
introducing the subjects of his study into such circles, and hence is
without the best means of familiarizing his mind with the very topics to
which all his hours of close application are devoted; for no subject is
fully understood and reduced to material for ready use until it has been
in some form the theme of frequent familiar discourse.
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