Regensburg

During my time in Germany, I had occasion to visit a Slovak friend working in Regensburg (he speaks extremely good German, and is teaching the language to various young refugees and other foreigners who need to get to A2 level in a hurry so they can get some German education.)

The inside of the train looked like this.

Regensburg is full of interesting buildings. I got out of the train station on the wrong side and saw this:

The cathedral was large and gothic. Last week there was a protest – some refugees were camping out there and refusing to be moved because Germany had decided to send them away from the peace and beauty of Bavaria to somewhere more brutal, less human, less prosperous – I can’t remember where but it was in north Germany. What they’ll do if Germany decides to send any of them back to Afghanistan, I dread to think.

Some bits of buildings.

The Jewish cultural centre.

I don’t know what this building is. Probably something important but I forgot to check on the map.

Elberries

Elberry, Zwoelfapostelkeller, Vienna, shortly before Christmas.

Elberry, smoking a pipe, somewhere in Vienna.

Elberry, drinking a cocktail, Munich, a week or two back.

A good time was had on both occasions. I am now ready to visit the Old Country again. More art was drawn in Germany, which will follow in the next few days.

Art

– Do you think, replied Epictetus, that, as in other things, so in speaking, there is an art by which he who understands it speaks skilfully, and he who doth not, unskilfully?

– I do think so.

– He, then, who by speaking both benefits himself and is able to benefit others, must speak skilfully; but he who rather hurts, and is hurt, must be unskilful in this art of speaking. For you may find some speakers hurt, and others benefited. And are all hearers benefited by what they hear? Or will you find some benefited, and some hurt?

– Both.

– Then those who hear skilfully are benefited, and those who hear unskilfully, hurt.

– Granted.

– Is there an art of hearing, then, as well as of speaking?

– It seems so.

– If you please, consider it thus too. To whom do you think the practice of music belongs?

– To a musician.

– To whom the proper formation of a statue?

– To a statuary.

– And do not you imagine some art necessary to view a statue skilfully?

– I do.

 

(The Discourses of Epictetus, ch. xxiv, tr. Mrs. Elizabeth Carter)