The people took their pleasures seriously.

On their holidays, mostly occasions on which they celebrated an event in history or the birthday of a monarch or military hero, or during the hours which they could devote to relaxation, they gathered with serious, stolid faces in beer gardens.

If they danced it was mostly a cumbersome performance.

Generally they preferred to sit and blink behind great foaming tankards and listen to intellectual music.

No other nation had such music.