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THE    DESIRABLE    ALIEN 

AT  HOME  IN  GERMANY 


THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN 

AT  HOME  IN  GERMANY  .  BY  VIOLET 
HUNT  .  WITH  PREFACE  AND  TWO 
ADDITIONAL  CHAPTERS  BY  FORD 
MADOX    HUEFFER    ^    ^    ^    ^    ^ 


LONDON  .  CHATTO  AND  WINDUS 
IN  ST.  MARTIN'S  LANE  .  MCMXIII 


TO 

MRS.  OSWALD  CRAWFURD 

WHO    LED    ME    INTO 
GERMANY 


PREFACE 

I  SHOULD  call  this  a  very  satisfactory  book  about  a 
country — I  mean  that,  at  the  end  of  reading  it,  the 
reader  will  have  been  presented  with  a  certain 
number  of  views,  and  that  those  views  square 
roughly  with  my  own  or  those  of  any  other  man 
of  good-will.  And  any  book  about  a  country  upon 
any  other  lines  cannot  well  be  a  satisfactory  perfor- 
mance. Any  man  may  say,  "  I  know  my  Germany," 
as  any  other  may  say  that  he  knows  his  London, 
and  he  may,  indeed,  have  a  knowledge  of  a  country 
or  of  a  city  that  is  based  upon  long  residence  in 
the  one  or  the  other  and  that  is  fortified  by  many 
statistics.  Yet  countries,  cities,  and  the  hearts  of 
men,  are  regions  so  wide,  or,  as  it  were,  streams 
so  profound,  that  it  would  appear  that  there  is  no 
man  fitted  to  write  a  book  of  a  factual  kind  about 
any  city,  any  country,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that, 
about  any  single  human  being. 

For,  as  far  as  facts  go,  we  have  nothing  but  them 
to  go  upon ;  and  facts  are  selected  for  us  either  by 
blind  Destiny  that  will  have  forced  us  into  certain 
paths,  or  by  our  own  inborn  predilections  that  set 
us  wandering  about  a  country,  directed  to  certain 
regions  by  who  knows  what  ? — by  the  recommenda- 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

tions  of  friends,  in  search  of  the  footsteps  of  the 
dead,  or  by  the  desire  to  slake  the  thirsts  of  our 
geologists'  hammers  in  certain  exposed  beds  of 
schist.  Destiny  might  make  you  an  Interpreter 
situated  at  Essen,  or  a  British  Consular  Represent- 
ative at  Frankfurt !  How  different  would  be  your 
views  of  a  country  that  for  me  is  partly  Muenster  in 
Westphalia,  with  its  dark  arcades  and  its  history  of 
blood,  and  that  is  still  more  the  Rhine  between 
Koblenz  and  Assmanshausen,  where  life  lives  itself 
so  pleasantly.  Essen  is  all  coal-dust,  grime,  and 
the  resounding  of  mighty  hammers ;  Frankfurt  is 
all  banks,  diamonds,  gilding,  prostitutes,  theatres, 
art  centres.  Which,  then,  is  Germany,  and  could 
any  one  soul  give  you  uncoloured  facts  about  both  ? 
It  is  unthinkable. 

If  you  live  in  Frankfurt  you  will  say  that  Germany 
is  the  most  cultured,  the  richest,  the  most  practical 
of  all  the  States.  You  may  realize  that  there  is 
Essen,  where  the  guns  come  from.  Or,  if  you  live 
on  the  Rhine,  you  may  well  say  that  the  German 
is  the  gayest,  the  most  careless,  the  most  musical, 
of  pleasant  men  since  Ireland  has  become  sober 
and  has  cultivated  a  Middle  Class. 

It  is  probable  that  first  impressions  will  colour 
all  that  you  see.  The  one-time  Consul-General  of 
a  Southern  kingdom  assured  me  solemnly,  after  he 
had  lived  for  fourteen  years  in  England,  that  Eng- 
land is  the  most  dangerous  of  all  countries.  On 
his  landing  at  Dover  he  had  come  across  some 
three-card-trick  gentry  who  had  given  him  a  rough 
time  ;  it  was  the  only  adventure  that  ever  occurred 
to  him  in  this  country,  yet  he  felt  himself  far  safer 


PREFACE  ix 

in  his  own  country,  where  the  gaols  are  filled  with 
revolutionists  and  forty  men  a  day  are  shot  in  the 
streets. 

You  will  see  this  irresistible  tendency  at  work  in 
the  author  of  this  book.  Her  first  impressions  came 
from  Milly  of  Paderborn,  who  was,  thank  goodness, 
a  good  Westphalian,  an  echte  Saeurlaenderin — and 
from  the  good  Grimm !  So  our  author  is  predis- 
posed to  like  the  Germans,  to  look  upon  them  with 
a  friendly  and  indulgent  eye,  to  find  them  instinct 
with  all  the  old  Germanic  virtues  of  kindliness, 
hospitality,  modesty,  and  sobriety.  You  see,  her 
first  impressions  are  formed  by  a  Germany  of  the 
pre-Franco-Prussian  War  type. 

God  forbid  I  should  say  that  these  early  German 
pieties  have  gone  out  of  my  countrymen !  But, 
were  I  writing  a  book  about  Germany,  1  think  that 
I  should  see  first  what  Bismarckism,  Nietzscheism, 
and  agnosticism  of  the  Jatho  type  have  made  of 
the  land  of  the  good  Grimm. 

It  is  all  so  very  bewildering,  and  statistics  are  of 
no  particular  good.  Last  year  I  was  sitting  talking 
to  an  Imperial  Forester  upon  a  stump  in  a  wood 
near  his  Foersterei.  He  insisted  that  he  had  been 
taught  in  school  that  witches  and  warlocks  exist. 
He  was  a  youngish,  quite  intelligent  man.  I  said 
it  was  impossible  that  he  could  have  been  taught 
that  in  a  German  public  school  six  years  ago.  He 
said,  "  Wait !"  and  went  into  his  cottage.  He  came 
out  with  his  school  textbook  of  Goethe's  "  Faust "  ; 
he  turned  over  the  leaves  until  he  came  to  the  scene 
of  the  Walpurgisnacht  on  the  Brocken.  "There !" 
he  said  triumphantly.     Yet  statistics  will  prove  to 


X  PREFACE 

you  that  Germany  is  the  best  educated  land  in  the 
world. 

God  forbid  that  I  should  say  that  Germany  is 
not  the  best  instructed  of  all  lands.  It  probably  is  ; 
though  the  most  looked  up  to  of  all  modern  novelists 
and  thinkers  of  England  of  to-day  lately  assured  me 
that  English  primary  instruction  is  by  a  long  way 
the  best  in  the  world ;  we  must  not,  however,  say 
so  for  fear  of  the  ratepayers.  He  may  be  right. 
Yet,  as  I  have  elsewhere  related,  I  had  once  a  small 
servant  who  had  just  passed  the  sixth  standard  in 
a  national  school  and  had  just  been  confirmed.  She 
refused  to  accompany  the  family  to  Germany  for 
fear,  if  the  ship  sank  in  the  Channel,  the  fishes 
should  eat  her  soul.  .  .  . 

So  you  have  here  a  book  of  impressions.  If  I 
did  not  like  it  I  should  not  be  writing  this  intro- 
duction ;  if  I  had  not  very  much  admired  the  kindly, 
careless,  inaccurate,  and  brilliantly  precise  mind  of 
the  author,  I  presume  the  book  would  never  have 
been  written.  The  blind  destiny  which  watches 
over  these  things  would  never  have  taken  the  writer 
into  my  beloved  country.  For,  after  all,  it  is  my 
beloved  country.  ...  A  year  or  so  ago  I  should 
have  said  that  I  detested  the  Prussianism  of  the 
congeries  of  nations  that  Germany  is.  Then  came 
the  Agadir  affair  with  its  revelation  of  the  inherent 
financial  weakness  of  the  Kaiserreich.  Now  we 
have  the  image  of  a  Germany  threatened  with 
immense  Slav  empires,  kingdoms,  and  states.  .  .  . 
And  I  confess  that  I  should  hate  the  thought  that 
this  proud  people,  full  of  free  passions,  should  cease 
to  bulk  large  in  the  comity  of  the  nations.  ...     I 


PREFACE  xi 

should  hate  to  think  that  one  of  the  horned  golden 
standards  that  are  borne  at  the  heads  of  so  many 
regiments — and  their  feet  literally  make  the  earth 
tremble  upon  the  Exerzierplaetze — that  one  of  these, 
amidst  the  smoke  of  battle,  should  fall  into  alien 
hands.  The  other  day,  over  the  door  of  a  dormitory 
in  a  French  barracks,  I  read  the  words :  "  Soldiers  ! 
Three  standards  of  your  regiment  are  in  the  Im- 
perial Museum  at  Potsdam.  Never  forget !"  Queer 
words  to  read ! 

France  is  the  darling  of  the  nations — the  Playboy 
of  the  Western  world  !  To  France,  in  the  end,  we 
all  owe  everything  that  in  the  realm  of  the  ideas  is 
worth  having.  And  I  think  that,  in  the  bottom  of  a 
sentimental  heart,  I  should  like  to  see  France  regain 
her  lost  provinces,  because  France  has  been  crest- 
fallen about  it.  And  I  think  all  nature  loves  a 
swaggerer  and  hates  to  see  his  downfall.  For  in 
this  dreary  world  there  is  so  little  happiness.  .  .  . 
But,  if  France  regained  its  loss,  Germany,  to  make 
the  fairy-tale  complete,  must  have  its  place  in  the 
sun,  and  Great  Britain  must  lose  nothing  either.  I 
do  not  know  how  that  quart  is  going  to  be  got  into 
that  pint  pot.  .  .  . 

Anyhow,  such  a  book  as  "  The  Desirable  Alien  " 
can  do  nothing  but  good  in  the  sense  of  letting 
people  understand  each  other  better.  It  is  better 
than  statistics  of  armaments,  for  these  can  be 
manoeuvred  to  prove  anything  the  writer  likes ;  it 
is  better  than  the  pompous  analysis  of  national 
traits,  better  than  the  analysis  of  mineral  wealths. 
For  it  lets  us  come  a  little  nearer,  seeing  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  Germany  as  distinct  from  Eng- 


xii  PREFACE 

land  ;  no  such  thing  as  England  as  distinct  from 
the  wide  lands  from  the  Rhine  to  the  Elbe.  It 
shows — and  that  is  the  note  of  the  modern  world — 
that  people  are  just  people,  taking  twopenny  tram- 
tickets  from  Ealing  to  the  City  or  from  Ringstrasse 
to  the  Domplatz,  doing  their  best  to  keep  their 
ends  up  in  the  struggle  of  an  industrial  existence, 
cultivating  as  best  they  may  the  muses  upon  a  little 
thin  oatmeal,  thinking  precious  little  or  nothing  at 
all  about  dark  machinations  for  the  flinging  of 
troops  into  either  East  Anglia  or  the  flat  lands 
behind  Borkum — but  just  people  like  you  and  me 
and  the  man  who  opens  the,  taxi-cab  door  for  you 
on  the  rank. 

FORD  MADOX  HUEFFE«, 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTRR  PAGS 

I.    INTRODUCTFON  :    HOW   ONE    BECOMES   AN  ALIEN               I 

II.    HAREM     SKIRTS,     STORKS,      AND      SOME  SOCIAL 

AMENITIES  17 

III.  SLEEPY    HOLLOW  30 

IV.  UTOPIA  45 
V.    PAX   GERMANICA:   servants,    fairy   TALES,   AND 

TAILORS  52 

VI.    BEER    GARDENS   V.    BEAR   GARDENS  65 

VH.    PRINCES   AND   PRESCRIPTIONS  88 

VIII.   BLUE   PATES  AND   SCHOPPEN  I06 

IX.   CHESTS   AND   COSTUMES  124 

X.    WAITERS   AND   POLICEMEN  141 

XI.   A   LANDGRAFIN   AND   HER   CONFESSOR  I52 

XII.   LIONS   AND   LACE   CURTAINS  161 

XIII.   GRAND   DUKES   AND   GIPSIES  173 

XIV.    GREAT  DANES,  GEESE,  MICE,  AND  SCHOOLMASTERS       1 82 

XV.    *'  DRIZZLING  "    AND   OFFICERS  I98 

XVI.    HOW  IT  FEELS  TO  BE  MEMBERS  OF  SUBJECT  RACES       2IO 

XVII.    QUEENS   DISCROWNED  220 

XVIII.    BONES,    BABIES,   AND   ANABAPTISTS  25O 

XIX.   CELLE  258 

XX.   TRIER  269 

XXI.    "  TAKE   US   THE   LITTLE    FOXES  "  293 

XXIL    ENVOI  321 


XUl 


THE    DESIRABLE    ALIEN 

AT  HOME  IN  GERMIANY 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION  :  HOW  ONE  BECOMES  AN  ALIEN 

Some  persons  are,  of  course,  born  Germans ;  some 
achieve  citizenship  of  that  great  and  good  nation. 
Others,  again,  have  the  honour  thrust  upon  them. 
And  one  fine  day  I  found  myself  in  the  last  category 
of  all,  with  no  reluctance,  but  through  no  fault  of 
my  own. 

And  I  took  to  my  new  position  quite  kindly  ; 
even  some  earth-shaking  ceremonies  through  which 
I,  in  common  with  my  nation  of  origin,  had  lately 
passed,  did  not  awaken  in  me  any  unpleasant  sense 
of  what  I  was  forfeiting  in  the  exchange.  King 
George  was  no  King  of  mine,  though  he  was  doubt- 
less to  prove  a  very  agreeable  King  to  live  under. 
So  it  appeared  to  me  on  that  particular  day  in  June, 
as  I  sat  at  ease  on  a  deal  bench  covered  with  red 
baize,  built  right  over  the  statue  of  Disraeli,  another 
alien,  whom  one  half  of  the  English  nation  at  least 
regards  as  eminently  desirable,  and  surveyed  the 
new  King  of  England's  acclaimed  and  gracious 
progress  through  the  capital  of  his  lieges. 


2  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  i 

Everything  all  round  me  was  fairly,  orderly, 
almost  Germanly  managed ;  and  that  reminded  me 
of  the  folk-tale  now  quite  embedded  in  the  English 
popular  consciousness,  of  the  "Oysters  and  the 
Carpenter."  The  white  roads  shone  in  the  sun; 
the  hoardings  were  painted  in  chaste  linear  sten- 
cilled patterns ;  the  usually  dirty  buildings  above, 
where  no  hoardings  could  reach,  seemed  polished, 
but  King  George's  police  had  contrived  to  arrange 
matters  so  beautifully ;  they  had  taken  such  care 
that  everybody  should  see  the  Procession  in  safety 
that  in  the  end  there  was  hardly  anybody  there  to 
see  it!  The  whole  thing  was  a  triumph  of  order; 
but  where  were  the  ordered  ?  The  streets  were 
cleared — for  the  people  who  were  cleared  away  ! 

Just  a  week  before  the  ceremony  of  the  Corona- 
tion I  had  marched,  along  with  forty  thousand 
Englishwomen,  through  the  streets  of  this  alien 
capital,  clamouring  peacefully,  constitutionally,  for 
the  gift  of  the  vote ;  and  my  legs  still  ached  at  the 
mere  thought  of  those  five  hours'  stringent  exer- 
cise. But  I  now  realized  suddenly  the  fact  that 
when  the  vote  was  won,  I,  as  an  alien,  would  never 
walk  on  those  same  legs  to  the  poll  along  with  my 
fellow-workers,  for  I  had  chosen  to  belong  to  a 
country  where  women  do  not  even  dream  of  eman- 
cipation— a  country  where  a  wife's  income,  though 
not  her  capital,  belongs  to  her  husband,  and  where 
that  husband  may  divorce  her,  willy-nilly,  if  she 
should  even  so  much  as  insist  on  wearing  colours 
that  happen  to  jar  on  him. 

I  brooded  over  all   the  privileges  which  I  had 
foregone  as   I   sat,  appropriately  enough,   on   the 


CH.  i]    HOW  ONE  BECOMES  AN  ALIEN        3 

English  Foreign  Office  seats,  among  other  desirable 
aliens,  or,  as  some  people  would  prefer  to  phrase  it, 
with  John  Ruskin,  among  "  persons  of  a  certain 
order  in  the  abyss." 

For  cheap  patriotism  may  run  to  such  forms  of 
ignorant  depreciation.  I  remember  the  noble  rage 
of  the  French  father  of  a  friend  of  mine  who  had 
married  an  Englishman,  as  he  recounted  to  me, 
long  afterwards,  his  son-in-law's  grudging  appre- 
ciation of  papa — "  Very  intelligent  for  an  English- 
man !"  Shortly  before,  he  had  informed  him  that 
"  clever  "  was  a  word  for  human  beings,  but  that 
"  intelligent  "  could  only  be  used  of  animals.  Yet 
these  good  people  collected  with  me  on  the  Foreign 
Office  stand  were  mostly  foreign,  all  of  them  well 
dressed,  and  presumably  quite  intelligent.  They 
were  by  no  means  downhearted  or  in  the  least 
"  out  of  it,"  for  salutes  were  continually  passing 
between  the  un-English  occupants  of  these  benches 
and  the  equally  un-English  occupants  of  the  State 
carriages.  I  saw  my  Grand  Duke,*  the  "  boss  "  of 
my  particular  province,  drive  by  with  his  Grand 
Duchess.  In  our  own  principality,  so  I  am  told  by 
Joseph  Leopold,  his  name  is  a  name  of  awe;  here 

'  My  august  Sovereign,  Ernest  Ludwig  Grossherzog  von  Hessen- 
Darmstadt  and  bei  Rhein,  was,  I  do  not  know  why,  the  only  Sove- 
reign Prince  present  at  the  Coronation  of  King  George  V.  It  is, 
that  is  to  say,  considered  a  solecism  to  allow  any  crowned  Sove- 
reign to  be  present  at  this  ceremony,  because  he  must  take  prece- 
dence of  the  British  Sovereign,  as  yet  uncrowned.  Why,  therefore, 
one  of  the  Grand  Dukes  of  Hessen- Darmstadt  should  have  been 
present  I  do  not  know,  for  they  certainly  do  not  take  rank  below 
any  of  the  other  confederate  Princes  of  the  German  Empire. — 
J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


4  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  i 

he  is  apt  to  get  casually  designated  as  "  a  German 
Princeling"  or  "some  Serenity  or  other."  But  he 
is  certainly  excessively  intelligent,  and  his  Grand 
Duchess  as  narrow  and  conventional  as  the  most 
straight-laced  Duchess  of  the  Dukeries ;  while, 
moreover,  she  of  Hessen-Darmstadt  has  a  good 
deal  more  control  of  les  mceurs  in  her  department, 
and  possibility  of  asserting  her  wishes.  In  fact,  she 
has  the  powers  of  a  Queen  Consort. 

In  the  distance,  did  I  but  raise  my  eyes,  I  could 
see  the  chimneys  of  My  Embassy.  And  in  the  road 
below  smart  officers  of  My  nationality  rode  abreast, 
wearing  the  handsome  uniform  of  Prussia  ;  but, 
thank  God — I  am  advised  to  thank  God — I  need  not 
call  myself  a  Prussian,  though,  perforce,  the  Kaiser 
— a  "  sacred  "  Prussian — has  constituted  himself  my 
First  War  Lord, 

All  this  added  immensely  to  the  significance  of 
the  Procession.  I  found  it  hardly  possible  to  be 
quite  frivolous  in  the  face  of  the  tremendous  volte- 
face  that  I  have  made.  The  signs,  the  symptoms, 
of  it  were  all  in  the  air  on  that  English  fete-day. 
It  remains  intangible,  mostly  made  up  of  symbols 
and  change  of  symbols  ;  but  it  gives  one  to  think. 

Artists  are  supposed  to  have  less  sense  of 
nationality — less  patriotism,  if  you  like  to  put  it 
so — than  other  people.  And  I  hope  I  am  an  artist. 
Anything  to  excuse  my  lack  of  sense  of  Empire  ! 
I  am  sure  I  should  duly  say  in  a  crisis :  "  My 
country,  right  or  wrong!"  and  I  am  glad  to  think 
I  did  not  flaunt  my  Pro-Boerdom  during  the  war, 
any  more  than  I  would  choose  to  "  swap "  horses 
in  the  middle  of  the  stream-     But  in  time  of  peace 


CH.  I]    HOW  ONE  BECOMES  AN  ALIEN        5 

I  am  only  too  ready  to  say  that  my  country  is  in 
the  wrong;  and  I  do  not  think  that  the  Germans, 
therefore,  got  a  very  good  bargain  in  me. 

Yet  my  Tedescan  sympathies  were  fairly  de- 
veloped ;  the  process  was  begun  by  my  father  and 
mother,  with  prophetic  insight,  perhaps,  from  my 
earliest  years.  German  nurses  cufifed  me  and  hushed 
me  in  my  wicked  and  virtuous  moods  respectively, 
till  I  knew  their  language  a  good  deal  better  than  my 
own,  and  an  order,  to  be  respected  and  duly  carried 
out,  had  to  be  given  to  me  in  German.  A  German 
nurse  from  Paderborn,  called  Milly,  tried  to  implant 
in  me  and  my  sisters,  I  fancy,  the  first  glimmerings  of 
that  meticulous  attention  to  detail,  that  respect  for 
the  printed  word,  that  habit  of  patient  martyrdom 
to  authority,  which  I  consider  distinguishes  Milly's 
fellow-countrymen  and  women.  Even  when,  later, 
I  had  a  French  nurse,  she  was  only  a  German  in 
disguise,  and  had  been  turned  out  of  Paris — sent 
away  by  the  last  train — as  a  spy,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  siege.     My  Germanhood  was  obviously  Fate. 

The  cook  was  in  the  habit  of  sending  up  three 
lightly  boiled  eggs  for  the  nursery  breakfast.  Milly 
then  arranged  my  two  sisters  and  myself  in  a  row 
at  stated  distances  from  where  she  sat  in  the  middle 
with  her  spoon.  Like  a  nestful  of  young  ravens  or 
a  posse  of  young  calves,  this  careful  woman  fed  us. 
She  took  the  three  eggs  seriatim,  putting  a  portion 
into  each  little  open  mouth  in  rotation,  beginning 
with  the  eldest.  It  was  as  much  as  our  places  were 
worth  to  murmur,  and  that  is  how,  now  that  I  have 
come  to  years  of  discretion,  I  understand  why  the 
German  system  of  State  Insurance,  which  is  the 


6  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  i 

model  for  the  one  that  has  been  set  up,  amid  tears, 
in  England,  came  to  be  so  patiently  tolerated,  years 
ago,  in  Germany. 

For  in  so  slight  a  matter  as  the  degustation  of 
three  eggs,  three  free-born  English  children  were 
aligned,  tabulated,  fitted  into  system,  and  we  re- 
belled far  less  than  I  have  seen  a  troop  of  calves  do, 
fed  in  the  same  arbitrary  way,  on  pailsful  of  skim 
milk.  Once  and  once  only,  at  the  age  of  four,  I 
rebelled  against  some  other  of  Milly's  petty  laws  of 
the  nursery.  I  called  her  a  "  nasty  cat."  Germans 
hate  cats ;  and  Milly  felt  it  deeply.  But  no  nursery 
rights  or  privileges  —  equally  systematized  they 
were,  too — were  mine  until,  at  the  end  of  three 
days,  I  begged  Milly's  august  pardon.  Nowadays, 
I  should  not  hesitate  so  long  as  that,  especially  with 
a  German.  For  as  often  as  I  **  come  right  up  against " 
this  highly  organized  and  quite  arbitrary  system  do 
I  realize  that  in  willing  or  even  sulky  subordination 
lies  the  German  strength,  and  in  the  studied  ignoring 
of  the  claims  of  the  unit  we  are  to  read  the  sense  of 
citizenship.  In  England  every  man's  house  is,  and 
must  remain,  his  castle,  where  he  may  practise  any 
abomination  he  pleases,  even  child  torture,  so  long 
as  screams  are  not  heard  outside,  and  thus  warrant 
an  officer  of  the  S.P.C.C.  in  entering.  The  roadway 
is  also  free  to  all,  and  the  soil  and  the  gravel  which  is 
on  it,  witness  the  following  illustration. 

I  lived,  when  in  London,  on  a  hill  that  is  the  curse 
of  horses  in  the  winter  months.  A  reluctant  vestry, 
much  plagued  of  its  more  philanthropic  represen- 
tatives, was  at  last  persuaded  to  dump  down  some 
sand  in  the  slipperiest  places  for  the  use  of  con- 


CH.  I]    HOW  ONE  BECOMES  AN  ALIEN         7 

siderate  carters.  A  German  vestry  would  do  this 
as  a  matter  of  course.  And  no  German  child  would 
be  so  lost  to  all  civic  feeling  as  to  make  these  heaps 
of  sand  into  a  jumping  ground.  In  England  it  was 
beaten  in  throughout  the  whole  day  by  hundreds  of 
little  feet,  and  trodden  into  a  hard,  unmalleable  crust, 
so  that  the  waggoners  in  their  need  were  too  lazy  to 
break  it  up  to  scatter  under  the  labouring  hoofs  of 
their  horses.  Besides,  they  had  no  spades.  They 
would  have  spades  in  Germany,  and  no  German 
policeman  would  in  the  first  instance  have  allowed 
children  to  make  havoc  of  these  heaps — in  Germany. 

Germans  seem  to  me  to  think  of  everything,  to 
know  everything  collectively,  and  yet  to  trust  no 
single  person,  individually,  to  do  either.  On  the 
front  of  every  post-box  these  Allwissend  warn  them- 
selves to  look  carefully,  before  posting  a  letter,  to 
see  whether  it  bears  a  stamp  or  not,  and  whether 
the  sender  has  even  omitted  to  put  the  address.  A 
wait  in  one  of  the  tiniest  of  station  waiting-rooms 
represents  amusement,  coupled  with  instruction. 
You  can  learn  your  duties  as  a  travelling  showman, 
also  how  many  live  lions  you  are  allowed  to  travel 
with  to  a  given  spot.  Do  many  people  want  to 
travel  with  dead  ones  ?  You  may  learn  that  it  is 
forbidden  to  give  theatrical  performances  at  all  in  a 
waiting-room,  place  bicycles  on  the  refreshment- 
room  tables,  or  carry  trees  across  the  line. 

The  German  character  reminds  me  of  the  brown- 
bread  ice,  once  fashionable  as  a  ball  supper  refresh- 
ment. Poetry  and  prose  are  in  it  most  oddly 
commingled.  The  romantic  side  of  my  own  nature 
seems  to  me  to  derive  from  and  to  have  been  fed  by  an 


8  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  i 

early  and  concentrated  study  of  the  great  "  Kinder- 
und  Hausmarchen"  of  the  brothers  Grimm,  I 
remember  the  winter's  evening  when  the  book  was 
first  brought  into  our  nursery,  the  leaping  firelight, 
the  strange  patterns  made  by  the  high  nursery 
fender  on  the  ceiling,  the  proud,  pleased  face  of 
Milly.  .  .  . 

The  first  story  that  was  read  to  us  out  of  that 
ugly  red  and  gold  and  blue  volume  published  by 
Edmund  Routledge,  was  "  The  Woodcutter's  Child." 
And  from  that  moment,  "Jack  the  Giant  Killer," 
even  "  Beauty  and  the  Beast,"  were  forgotten ; 
savage,  unromantic,  incomplete,  they  now  seemed. 
On  the  second  night  we  read  the  weirdest  story  of 
all — not  a  child's  story  by  any  means.  "Oh,  if  I 
could  but  shiver !"  It  was  horrible,  grotesque,  up 
to  the  final  incident,  when  the  beautiful  high-born 
Princess  pours  the  pailful  of  little  fishes  down  the 
naked  back  of  the  man  who  shivered  then,  and  not 
till  then.  Yet  we  children  found  romance  in  it; 
found  dim,  unearthly  terrors,  that  made  us  fall  silent 
and  our  eyes  grow  round,  so  that  after  that  night 
the  story  was  tabooed  by  our  elders,  who  would 
never  consent  to  read  it  aloud  to  us  again.  Milly 
herself  said  it  was  vulgar. 

As  one  grew  older,  one  was  promoted  to  the 
study  of  the  more  actual,  legendary  conies  of  the 
"  Deutsche  Sagen." 

This,  the  second  collection  of  the  brothers  Grimm, 
concerns  itself  more  with  certain  semi-historical  per- 
sonages, Graf  this.  Count  that,  who,  when  at  home, 
and,  as  one  might  say,  thoroughly  domesticated, 
represent  really  that  superior  thief,  called  in  German 


CH.  I]    HOW  ONE  BECOMES  AN  ALIEN         9 

legend  the  "  Robber  Baron."  It  is  really  he,  who, 
twice  a  day,  is  in  the  habit  of  descending  from  his 
Schloss  on  the  steep  to  rob  the  merchant,  whom  he 
is  able  to  perceive  from  his  fastness,  travelling 
timorously  along  the  valley  below.  It  is  also  he 
who,  on  pleasure  bent,  not  business,  descends  to 
hunt,  to  fish,  to  flirt  with  the  Nixes  of  the  stream, 
or  with  some  snaky  Melusine  or  Lady  of  the  Foun- 
tain. Great  families,  so  Grimm  says,  have  sprung 
from  such  alliances.  Grimm  tells  us  also  of  the 
humble  sort  of  Nix,  who  goes  to  market,  fondly 
hoping  to  pass  her  pretty  self  off  for  a  proper 
German  Mddchen.  She  is,  alas !  soon  recognized 
by  the  water  that  drips  from  the  corner  of  her  apron. 
The  Church,  the  Schloss,  the  Stream,  the  little  self- 
contained  Dor/,  with  its  houses  drawn  up  close  for 
company,  figure  in  all  the  tales.  And  so  do  the 
deep,  dark,  puzzling  woods  that  lie  so  near,  into 
which  children  may  stray,  and  whence  wild  beasts 
issue,  of  which  nothing  is  known  and  all  is  feared. 
I  have  never  seen  woods  like  those  of  Germany, 
where  one  hears  the  screech  of  the  wild  cat  in  the 
daytime  as  the  light  grows  lower,  where  the  very 
toadstools  have  an  unnatural  colour,  and  the  fairy 
plant  clusters  on  every  bough.  Do  not  Jorinde  and 
Joringel  still  wander  there,  looking  for  fern  seed,  and 
does  not  the  crooked,  twisted  witch,  jealous  of  so 
much  happiness,  lurk  and  peer,  desirous  to  turn 
each  young  lover  into  a  bird  and  add  him,  then 
and  there,  to  the  collection  of  birds  of  all  sorts  in 
cages  that  fill  her  cottage.  The  value  of  birds  in 
Germany  is  made  apparent  in  nearly  every  story. 
They  say  that  one  reason  why  Germans  more  or 


10  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  i 

less  detest  the  French,  is  because  that  fervently 
gastronomic  nation  prefers  little  birds  simmering  in 
the  pot  to  little  birds  singing  in  cages.  And  that  is 
also  why  there  are  so  few  cats  in  Germany. 

I  have  seen  them  now,  those  woods,  those  streams, 
those  castles  that  I  used,  as  a  little  child,  to  read 
about — carried  away,  entranced — sitting  in  the  hard 
window-seat,  overlooking  a  stony,  regular  London 
street.  And  I  was  quite  ready  for  that  summer 
morning  about  seven  when,  rising  from  my  berth, 
uncalled,  alone,  I  leapt  to  the  little  window  of  my 
cabin  on  the  Rhine  boat,  and  saw,  in  the  golden 
morning  light,  a  panorama  slowly  passing  before 
my  eyes,  that  beggared  my  English  dreams  of 
Thames  and  Ouse.  It  seemed  as  if  this  wonderful 
sight,  like  a  picture  hung  on  a  wall  in  a  lonely 
gallery,  had  waited,  calm,  indifferent,  careless  of  its 
effect,  through  all  the  years,  for  the  unexpectant 
eyes  of  me  and  my  like  to  rest  upon.  It  was  one 
long,  fair  procession  of  castled  heights,  each  tipped 
with  its  little  heap  of  broken  stones  that  had  once 
meant  so  much,  clad  with  soft  foliage  masking  the 
proud  decay  underneath ;  as  it  were  a  cloak  of  green 
mantling  the  ragged  fireplaces  and  deficient  corner- 
stones of  the  broken  robber  stronghold.  The  chari- 
table green  led  the  eye  of  the  beholder  gently  away 
and  down  to  the  edge  of  the  water  that  ran  along 
evenly,  its  great,  dark,  dull  flow  delving  into  the 
scarped  banks,  with  light  ripples  breaking  up  the 
darkness  near  the  middle,  whereon  I  was  borne 
slowly  along  in  my  quiet,  sleeping  boat. 

Nobody  minded,  nobody  seemed  to  wake  but  I ; 
we  were  all  on  our  way  to  Mainz,  on  business  or 


CH.  i]    HOW  ONE  BECOMES  AN  ALIEN       ii 

pleasure  intent;  we  were  all  Germans,  the  proud 
possessors  of  this  unique  waterway. 

Yet  to  one  so  recently  enrolled  in  these  civic 
benefits  as  I,  it  was  a  sight  for  tears,  in  its  gentle, 
passionless  dignity,  this  view  that  was  vouchsafed 
me  out  of  my  little  square  port-hole  straight  on  to 
romance.  For  the  Rhine  is  surely  the  most 
romantic  thing  in  the  world.  The  Rhine  has  every- 
thing. It  is  wide,  it  has  cliffs  on  both  sides  like  a 
cafion,  and  it  is  so  deep,  so  dreadfully,  awfully, 
deep  all  the  time.  And  there  are  holes,  deeper  still, 
that  are  the  dungeons  of  the  Lorelei.  The  full 
broad  smile  of  its  treacherous  shallows  masks  them  ; 
little  innocent  ripples  only  betray  the  death  that 
attends  the  lure  of  a  sweet  song  wafted  over  the 
water.  And  though  the  authorities  have,  for  utili- 
tarian purposes,  blasted  away  the  foot  of  her  rock, 
the  Lorelei  is  still  there,  and  Germans  know  it  well, 
for  Heine's  lyric  enshrined  her  in  the  German  con- 
sciousness for  ever.  Hats  go  off  as  we  pass  the 
jutting  promontory  whence,  by  her  voice,  she  once 
charmed  the  hapless  fisherman  to  his  doom,  and  if, 
in  these  modern  days,  she  no  longer  sings  her  song 
for  herself,  it  is  sung  for  her,  in  full  and  lusty,  yet 
soft  chorale,  by  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Heine's 
Germany. 

We  fare  on.  The  great  cliffs  on  both  sides  of  the 
stream,  with  their  full  rows  of  vines  crawling  up  to 
the  summit,  are  hung  before  our  eyes  like  an  oppres- 
sive dream  curtain.  Right  back,  on  the  tops  of  the 
hills,  out  of  our  sight  who  drift  on  the  stream  below, 
stretch  the  woods  of  the  Eiffel,  one  of  the  great  silent 
forests  of  Germany.   Horribly,  deadly  still  they  are, 


12  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  i 

devoid  of  the  prattle  of  birds,  undisturbed  in  their 
sinister  peace  the  whole  day  long,  except  for  the 
rustle  of  the  innocent  deer  and  the  more  violent 
crash  of  the  wild  boars  plunging  through  the  thickets 
on  their  way  to  drink.  "  The  woods,"  says  Joseph 
Leopold,  "  are  silent  because  there  are  hardly  any 
birds."  Another  reason  for  the  value  set  on  them  ; 
there  is  not  enough  water  for  these  little  creatures 
of  which  Germans  are  so  passionately  fond,  and  it 
is  a  long  way  to  fly  down  to  the  Rhine  for  every 
mouthful  of  moisture. 

Yes,  a  bird  is  a  creature  round  which  the  popular 
imagination  readily  fastens. 

Back,  back,  they  stretch,  these  terrible,  mysterious, 
unblest  wildernesses.  Terrible,  for  all  the  beasts  of 
legend  may  and  do  lurk  in  their  secret  recesses,  and 
the  stalwart  forester,*  in  his  lovely  green  and  grey 

*  This  official,  who  may  be  royal-imperial,  royal,  princely, 
or  merely  the  officer  of  a  private  domain  —  as  who  should 
say  a  private  policeman  —  leads  at  times  a  hfe  of  sufficient 
danger,  though  witches  may  be  absent  from  the  vast  tracts  of 
forest  over  which  he  rules.  The  German  poacher  and  the  German 
wood  thief,  who  will  chop  down  and  carry  off  in  a  night  from 
one  to  ten  fir-trees  or  half  as  many  wild  boars  or  fallow  deer, 
is  a  person  far  more  bloodthirsty  and  determined  than  any 
of  his  confreres  of  the  English  woodlands,  even  near  the  large 
manufacturing  towns.  It  is  a  pretty  comment  upon  the  predi- 
lection displayed  by  our  author,  in  common  with  every  other 
writer  upon  German  characteristics  for  enlarging  on  the  orderli- 
ness and  respect  for  law  that  she  imagines  herself  to  perceive  in 
the  German  nation,  that  the  percentage  of  crimes  of  violence  is 
higher  than  that  of  any  other  country  in  the  world,  with  the  sole 
exception  of  the  United  States  ;  that  Germany  is  the  most  heavily 
policed  nation  in  the  world  ;  that  forty  per  cent,  of  the  crimes 
of  violence  are  committed  against  policemen,  foresters,  postmen 
— who  are  robbed  and  murdered  in  the  solitary  and  romantic 
woodlands  with  a  lamentable  frequency— and,  by  an  odd  coUoca- 


CH.  i]    HOW  ONE  BECOMES  AN  ALIEN       13 

uniform,  with  his  distant  air  of  undefined  yet  limit- 
less authority,  is  king.  Whom  and  what  does  he 
not  govern  ?  Beasts,  of  course;  and  who  knows  what 
undisciplined  humanity,  what  savage  robbers,  and 
ladies  like  Schinderhannes,  their  picturesque 
accomplice,  he  may  not  meet  in  his  day-long 
wanderings  ?  In  this  silence,  this  sameness  and 
vastness,  one  has  a  feeling  that  anything,  everything, 
might  happen,  and  that  the  mild  blue-eyed  wood- 
cutters and  charcoal-burners,  of  whom  you  may  meet 
a  sample  or  two  in  the  course  of  a  long  day's  walk, 
may  have  grown  strangely  morbid  in  this  perverting 
solitude,  and  be  disposed  to  make  a  bad  use  of  their 
unsermoned  liberty. 

And  the  great,  populous,  indifferent,  waterway 
glides  though  these  secret  and  potential  mysteries, 
majestically  ignoring  all  save  what  comes  to  meet 
it ;  the  wild,  thirsty  creatures  that  brush  and  trample 
down  to  the  bank  for  water,  the  staple  of  their  life. 
But  the  stream  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  back- 

tion  of  psychology,  against  firemen.  The  fireman  in  Germany  is 
almost  as  detested  as  the  policeman  ;  I  can  only  imagine  because 
he  is  a  State  official,  wearing  a  uniform.  When  a  village  near 
St.  Goarshausen  was  being  burned  to  the  ground,  I  saw  the 
peasant  inhabitants  turn  out  in  a  body  and  stone  the  firemen  that 
came  galloping  up  along  the  Rhine.  It  was  true  that  this  was  attri- 
butable rather  to  a  desire  to  collect  the  insurance  money  than  to 
any  immediate  dislike  of  the  firemen,  but  such  a  proceeding  cannot 
be  held  to  argue  any  strong  respect  for  either  law  or  order.  The 
fact  is  that  every  non-official  German  detests  or  despises  every 
German  official  in  so  far  as  his  office  is  concerned — of  course  in 
varying  degrees.  He  abides  by  laws  and  regulations  because  he 
will  be  fined  with  unerring  swiftness  or  imprisoned  after  a  trial  of 
excruciating  slowness,  if  he  breaks  the  one  or  neglects  the  other. 
He  is,  in  fact,  not  so  much  law-abiding  as  kept  under  by  laws. — 
J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


14  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  i 

woods;  it  threads  languidly  the  countries  of  enchant- 
ment, avoiding,  as  it  were,  the  thought  and  oppres- 
sion of  them.  It  must  pass  on  its  way  to  the  noisy 
towns  of  commerce  beyond,  through  this  Valley  of 
Apollyon,  this  sinister  passage  commanded  by  the 
two  portals — the  rock  of  the  Drachenfels  on  the  one 
side,  and  Rolandseck  on  the  other.  Entering  here, 
it  passes  for  a  space  out  of  the  modern  world.  Even 
the  railway,  running  continually  like  a  covert 
insult  under  either  bank,  hardly  hints  modernity ; 
it  cannot  seriously  affect  a  flow  so  big,  so  black,  so 
simple,  and  so  deep  down  in  its  bed.  The  strong, 
sane,  morning  light  only  seems  to  touch  the  crests 
of  the  mountain  walls  that  enclose  that  river-bed, 
these  vast  mounds  of  closely-packed  leaves,  tipped 
with  castles,  that  hang  over  it.  Old,  grey,  helpless, 
and  forlorn,  the  banks  look  under  the  glare  of  the 
truculent,  virile  shafts  of  gold  that  are  fostering  and 
ripening  the  vine  screens  minute  by  minute. 

And  at  night  we  wandered  along  the  white, 
ghostly,  vine-bordered  road  by  Assmanshausen, 
desiring  deeply  to  see  the  fox,  whose  smell  be- 
wrayeth  him,  actually  at  his  thievish  work  among 
the  vines.  .  .  .  The  trains  rushing  along  under  the 
opposite  bank  looked  like  worms,  the  worm  of  legend, 
or  like  rattlesnakes  with  tails  of  gold.  One  is  almost 
glad  when  they  have  passed,  and  once  more  all  is 
quiet,  and  the  ripple  of  the  Rhine  assumes  again  its 
own  predominance,  and  the  black  bank  scoops  in  as 
before.  It  is  not  for  very  long.  There  is  a  line  on 
both  sides  of  the  Rhine  ;  and  very  soon,  on  the  side 
where  one  is  walking,  one  is  confronted  by  a  dusky 
mass  that  seems  to  have  a  kind  of  life,  advancing 


CH.  I]     HOW  ONE  BECOMES  AN  ALIEN       15 

with  its  bulldog  breast  and  body  of  lighted  carriages. 
It,  too,  passes,  rattling  by  complacently;  and  the 
scent  of  the  fox,  that  has  surely  lain  there  on  this 
patch  of  grass  by  the  roadside  all  night,  comes  out 
strongly  again.  .  .  . 

And  so,  after  three  lazy  days  of  sun  and  wind 
and  soothing  ripple,  I  go  gliding  into  the  country  of 
my  adoption,  insinuating  myself  by  these  peaceful 
methods  of  penetration.  I  am  borne  past  Boppard, 
where  sundry  squares  of  linen  are  waved  by  charm- 
ing relations  out  of  villa  windows  to  welcome  the 
desirable  alien.  At  Rens,  with  its  terrace  and  ruined 
tower,  where  a  holy  Roman  Emperor  once  met  his 
lieges,  more  charming  German  relations  !  I  get  off 
the  boat  there  for  a  moment,  and  walk  straight  into 
the  village  Kermesse,  now  in  full  swing,  and  I  am 
heartily  invited  to  dance  by  a  handsome  compatriot 
in  full  costume. 

But  these  few  alightings  on  German  soil  are  the 
merest  taking  of  seizin.  During  these  five  days  or 
so  I  am  at  home,  not  in  Germany,  but  upon  the 
steamer.  I  sleep  on  it,  I  eat  on  it,  I  travel  on  it, 
and  it  is  only  during  the  halts  to  take  in  cargo  that 
I  walk  upon  the  banks.  So  that  into  Germany  I 
have  only  made  as  yet  the  merest  swallow  flights, 
returning  to  the  safe  shelter  of  England.  For  a 
ship  is  always  EngHsh — at  least,  that  is  the  impres- 
sion that  I  have,  though  this  particular  ship  happens 
to  be  Dutch.  Still,  it  isn't  German,  and  its  cooking 
is  as  bad  as  anything  that  could  be  found  in  England. 
In  the  circumstances  of  my  adieu  of  my  native  land 
this  fact  seems  to  be  consoling  and  protective. 
At  Assmanshausen  there  are  a  great  many  hotels. 


i6  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  i 

The  sun  is  setting ;  the  vineyards  up  the  steep  hills 
are  blood-red.  And  when  I  step  off  here  it  is  all 
oVer  with  me.  For  here  upon  the  bank  there  stand 
the  nearest  relations  of  all.  They  are  going  to 
induct  me  into  the  sacred  and  mysterious  rites  of 
German  citizenship.  And  don't  they  do  it !  For 
they  conduct  the  literary  lady  to  the  Literary 
Hotel,  advertised  as  such.  Before  I  may  sit  down 
to  eat  Rhine  salmon  and  drink  Rhine  wine  I  must 
visit  the  Freiligrath  Room.  An  omission  on  my 
part  to  gaze,  fasting,  on  the  apartment  where  one  of 
Germany's  lyric  poets  stayed  several  summers,  and 
drank,  let  us  say,  nine  hundred  bottles  of  Rhine 
wine,  would  be  a  sign  of  the  grossest  disrespect, 
unpermissible  even  in  a  tired  alien. 

What  poet  in  England  could  draw  us  to  his  room 
before  we  have  washed  the  stain  of  travel  from  us, 
and  before  we  have  dined?  But  this  is  the  bank 
of  the  Rhine.  This  is  Germany.  And  as  I  sit  upon 
the  hotel  balcony  and  look  out  at  the  silver  expanse 
of  the  stream,  the  lights  upon  the  farther  bank,  the 
deep  purple  of  the  high  woods,  and  the  thin  paring 
of  a  new  moon  that  seems,  since  I  did  not  happen 
to  see  it  first  through  the  glass  of  any  window,  to 
offer  me  the  good  luck  of  Germany,  suddenly  it 
comes  into  my  head  that  when,  after  a  little  travel- 
ling across  this  broad  land,  I  again  set  foot  upon 
the  gangway  of  a  ship,  and  when  I  am  asked,  "  Are 
you  a  British  subject?"  I  shall  have  to  answer  "  No," 
because  I  have  tasted  of  these  grapes,  drunk  of  this 
wine,  and  heard  the  flow  of  this — oithe  river.  When 
I  return  to  my  native  land  I  shall  be  an — I  trust — 
desirable  alien. 


CHAPTER  II 

HAREM  SKIRTS,  STORKS,  AND  SOME  SOCIAL 
AMENITIES 

The  Rhine  is  all  very  well,  but  the  Rhine  is  the 
heritage  of  all  the  nations.  I  had  said  to  Joseph 
Leopold  that  I  could  never  feel  truly  German  until 
I  had  lived — positively  lived — watched  him  pay  rates 
and  taxes — in  a  German  town  with  no  topographical 
features  or  historical  associations  of  any  sort  where- 
with to  attract  tourists,  and  had  lived  in  a  house 
taken  in  our  own  name,  where  there  should  be, 
moreover,  a  correct  family  of  storks  domiciled  on 
the  roof.  So  accordingly,  one  night  in  May,  I  crossed 
back  from  England,  where  I  had  had  business,  and 
towards  the  evening  of  the  second  day  alighted  on 
the  platform  of  no  particular  town  in  the  Grand 
Duchy  of  Hessen-Darmstadt,  where  Joseph  Leopold 
and  his  mother,  already  settled  in  the  house  where 
the  stork — as  I  hoped — was  also  settled,  were  wait- 
ing to  receive  me. 

I  had  spent  a  night  in  Cologne,  in  a  very  gorgeous 
hotel  that  was  not  so  very  dear.  It  is  difficult  to 
take  much  interest  in  Cologne,  it  is  so  emphatically 
only  a  place  to  kick  off  from,  a  place  where  you  take 
the  train  to  the  interior,  buy  Tauchnitz  volumes  and 
go  to  see  the  Dom,  that  triumph  of  steeplejacks.     I 

17  2 


i8  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  ii 

had  done  a  little  more.  After  paying  my  respects 
at  the  Post  Office,  which  is  like  a  palace,  1  went  all 
round  the  city  in  a  tram.  And  I  was  taken  to  the 
theatre  in  the  evening  to  see  a  musical  comedy  in 
the  most  beautiful  drawing-room  that  ever  called 
itself  a  theatre,  and  was  quite  cheap. 

Next  morning  I  got  into  my  train,  and  it  was  like 
any  other  railway  journey,  only  I  was  sitting  in  an 
exquisitely-groomed  railway-carriage  fitted  with  all 
sorts  of  sensible,  comfort-loving  apparatus,  pro- 
vided for  a  sensible,  comfort-loving  people.  If  I 
had  wished  it,  the  art  nonveau  dun-velvet-coloured 
seats  would  have  pulled  out  to  make  me  a  bed.  In 
the  lavatory,  I  found  I  could  have  a  cake  of  good 
soap  and  a  clean  towel  to  wash  and  dry  my  hands. 
The  company  demanded  merely  the  slight  expendi- 
ture of  energy  on  my  part  which  would  be  involved 
in  the  insertion  often  pfennigs  in  the  slot-machine. 
I  did  so,  and  according  to  promise,  the  obliging 
machine  politely  flung  the  soap  and  a  clean  towel 
into  my  face. 

This  was  for  the  body ;  my  mental  peace  was 
attended  to  as  well.  In  the  corridor,  right  opposite 
my  eyes,  was  a  glass-walled  cupboard,  containing, 
plain  to  see,  a  pick  and  an  axe.  Supposing  an 
accident  should  occur,  and  my  centre  of  gravity 
and  that  of  the  compartment  I  was  in  came  to  be 
inverted,  all  I  had  to  do  was  to  break  the  glass, 
take  out  the  pick,  and  hew  myself  out.  The  most 
nervous  traveller  might  rest  tranquil,  and  survey 
in  peace  the  ordinary  sights  of  a  railway-line  until 
he  should  fall  asleep.  And  there  was  little  except 
this  extreme  of  comfort  inside,  and  the  queer  legends 


CH.  II]  HAREM  SKIRTS  19 

inscribed  on  waggons — grotesque  abbreviations  of 

words   not   realized,  like   Tragf- ,  and  Bodenfl- 

,  and  a  more  lugubrious  collection  of  letters, 

Ladengew — that  kept  me  puzzling  till  the  dusk  came 
and  merged  everything  into  the  same  dreary  dream 
of  travel,  to  tell  me  that  I  was  not  journeying 
along  quietly  under  the  evening  star  in  England. 

H is  a  junction,  so  the  station  is  large  and 

imposing  for  a  very  moderate-sized  town.  It  looked 
homely  in  parts,  palatial  in  others,  cheerful  every- 
where. As  I  got  stiffly  out  of  the  carriage  and  was 
led  by  Joseph  Leopold  and  his  mother  into  the  big 
hall  of  the  Bahnhof,  I  saw  that  its  roof  was  frescoed 
with  an  overarching  trellis  of  flowers — wild  flowers, 
producing  very  much  the  same  effect  as  the  roof  of 
Boxgrove  Priory  Church  in  England.  The  electric 
light  hung  in  elegant  festoons  of  pearly  globes 
strung  on  long  cords,  like  organ-pipes  of  different 
calibres.  I  was  tired,  and  I  was  hustled  into  a  cab, 
or  I  should  have  peeped  into  a  first-class  waiting- 
room,  and  perhaps  into  a  second-class  waiting-room^ 
both  decorated  in  the  most  excellent  taste,  both 
with  the  same  flower-painted  ceilings  and  wreathed 
pillars,  the  only  apparent  difference  between  first 
and  second  class  being  in  the  varieties  of  flowers 
selected  for  adornment.  If  I  had  had  to  be  fed, 
instead  of  waiting  till  I  got  home,  I  should  have 
been  given  a  cheap  meal  that  would  not  have  dis- 
graced the  Carlton,  the  cheapness  only  being  taken 
out  in  the  quantity.  A  real  c/?^  presides  over  most 
of  the  station  restaurants  in  Germany,  and  even  the 
railway  sandwiches — the  lacks,  or  ham  sausage  sand- 
wiches you  snatch  in  a  hurry — are  a  dream.     But  if 


20  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  ii 

you  have  time  to  sit  down  you  eat  a  carefully 
prepared  meal  in  a  decent  sort  of  quiet  hall  that  is, 
above  all,  soothing.  Large  artificial  roses  in  pots 
raise  their  delicate  sprays  above  the  welter  of  hats 
and  coats,  instead  of  the  scraggy  palms  that  always 
seem  to  have  a  pointed  leaf  ready  to  hit  you  in  the 
eye,  and  are  silhouetted  on  dark  wine-red  panelling 
instead  of  being  repeated  in  fly-blown  gilt  mirrors. 
And  while  you  are  waiting  you  need  be  under  no 
anxiety  as  to  the  starting  of  your  train.  An  electric 
clock  serves  a  large  enamelled  time-table  on  the 
wall,  and  you  are  aware  of  its  rapid  subtle  change 
by  the  unobtrusive  click  that  occurs  at  intervals 
over  your  head.  Besides  this,  an  individual  in 
gorgeous  garments,  with  the  presence  of  a  high- 
class  butler  in  an  English  family  of  rank  and  a 
voice  to  match,  flings  open  the  restaurant  doors 
every  now  and  then,  and  announces  the  fact  to  you 
that  in  five  minutes  or  so  you  may  begin  to  pay 
your  bill,  and  gather  your  odds  and  ends  and  go 
out  into  the  business  section  to  find  the  train  for 
Cassel,  for  Kirchain  or  for  Frankfurt,  as  the  case 
may  be,  waiting  for  you. 

I  was  taken  past  the  two  officials  in  blue,  gold- 
laced  coats  who  stand  on  each  side  of  a  turnstile 
furnished  with  a  penny-in-the-slot  machine.  Both 
Joseph  Leopold  and  his  mother  had  had  to  furnish 
themselves  with  these  penny  passes  before  they 
could  get  on  to  the  platform  to  welcome  me.  And, 
significant  fact,  all  residents — non-travellers,  anxious 
to  avail  themselves  daily  of  the  really  superior 
cuisine  of  the  Bahnhof—AxdM^  also  always  to  pass 
through  this  turnstile. 


CH.  ii]  HAREM  SKIRTS  21 

Supper  was  waiting  for  me  at  home  in  the  house 
where  I  confidently  expected  to  find  the  nest  of 
storks  which  were  to  represent  Germany  for  me. 
The  night  was  very  dark,  and  after  driving  for  some 
time  in  streets  of  villas  which  reminded  me  of  St. 
John's  Wood  or  Addison  Road,  we  came  to  a  tall 
building  with  scaffold-poles  girt  about  it,  looking 
ghostly  in  the  lamplight. 

"  This  is  our  house,"  Joseph  Leopold  remarked. 
"  It  is  new — very  new — too  new."  He  looked 
anxiously  at  me. 

I  looked  up  into  the  dim  empyrean.  It  did  not 
seem  as  if  a  nest  of  storks  would  find  that  high- 
pitched  roof  an  easy  platform  whereon  to  bring  up 
a  large  family;  but  I  was  patient,  ate  my  supper 
quietly,  and  decided  to  ask  for  sight  of  Germany's 
most  prominent  feature  next  morning. 

But  next  morning  I  saw  very  plainly  why  Joseph 
Leopold  had  looked  nervous.  The  house,  though 
replete  with  every  modern  comfort,  did  not  boast 
this  delightful  parasitical  growth,  and  I  was  told 
that  I  should  have  to  take  a  walk  and  visit,  perhaps, 

the  old  part  of  H before  I  saw  the  German 

substitute  for  the  homely  cabbage  which  ushers 
English  babies  into  the  world. 

In  my  first  walk,  however,  I  saw  one.    I  saw  two. 

Going  towards  Wieseck,  a  village  suburb  of  H , 

along  the  straight,  cheerless,  treeless  road,  my  eyes 
lingered  on  the  adjacent  moorland,  where  the  Hunnen- 
grdber  are — the  graves  of  buried  people  who  lived 
before  the  dawn  of  all  we  know.  Low,  stagnant  pools,* 

•  There  is  nothing  like  a  stagnant  pool  between  the  city  of 
H and  the  village  of  Wieseck.    There  are  excellently  fertile 


22  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  ii 

fringed  by  gloomy  belts  of  trees,  of  dark,  despondent 
grass,  stretched  away  under  a  drooping  sky,  and 
presently  two  great  birds  topped  the  trees  and  came 
sailing  towards  us  across  the  marshland.  They 
made  a  strong  note  of  tossing  black  and  white  in 
the  sullen  greyness,  and  something  majestic  in  their 
flight,  as  of  long  legs  folded  and  trailing  after,  struck 
me,  and  I  said  : 

"  These  are  the  storks  I  have  come  so  far  to  see." 

"  They  are,  indeed,"  Joseph  Leopold  said.  "  They 
come  out  of  that  wood.*  They  are  the  parent-birds, 
and  have  been  seeking  food ;  their  nest  is  probably 
on  the  roof  of  one  of  those  houses.  Let  us  watch 
and  see  where  they  go." 

They  flew  straight  for  the  twisted,  crooked-tiled 
roof  of  a  house  near  by.  It  was  the  village  inn. 
They  settled  and  stayed  there;  I  could  just  make 
out  their  unwieldy  forms  nestled  under  a  high  red 
chimney-stack.  And  we  went  on  and  surveyed 
the  village,  too,  an  old  place  that  stood  there 
long  before  the   modern   industrial  suburb,  which 

is  now  the  city  of  H ,  while  Wieseck,  the  old 

nodus,  has  fallen  to  the  rank  of  a  village  in  the 
outskirts. 

The  inn  was  quite  comfortable  and  modernized 
inside.  Extremes  meet  in  Germany,  and  the  roof 
that  shelters  the  stork  is  also  wired  for  electric 
light.  The  telephone-bell  rings  in  the  IVeinstube, 
where  bloused  peasants  sit  and  spill  their  wine  on 

green  plains,  owned  by  peasant  proprietors,  and  scientifically 
irrigated  with  running  water. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 

•  Storks  never  come  out  of  woods.  They  never  go  into  them. 
—J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  II]  HAREM  SKIRTS  23 

the  trestled  table,  and  men  who  never  have  worn 
evening-dress  except  at  a  wedding  or  a  civic  cere- 
mony, and  whose  wives  would  think  it  shame  to  go 
decolletee,  read  the  works  of  John  Galsworthy  and 
H.  G.  Wells.  So  I  found  when  I  began  to  return 
and  pay  calls. 

One  of  the  first  questions  that  Mutterchen,  on  my 
arrival,  had  asked  me  was  :  "  Have  you  got  it  with 
you  ?" 

She  meant  my  harem  skirt,  that  Joseph  Leopold 
had  begged  me  to  buy  and  bring.  The  harem  skirt 
was  a  beautiful  outdoors  fashion,  killed  by  too 
zealous  advertising.  Enterprising  advertising  agents 
suddenly  let  loose  a  whole  troop  of  lovely  women 
to  do  a  goose-step  in  the  gutters  of  London  Town 
-and  Paris  Town  wearing  a  costume  as  sensible  as 
it  is  beautiful,  and  short-sightedly  welcomed  the 
emeute  thus  caused.  For  when  their  object  of  mild 
advertisement  was  gained,  they  were  unable  to  say 
to  the  sea  of  comment  and  criticism  whose  onset 
they  had  provoked:  "Thus  far  and  no  farther!" 
They  overshot  the  mark;  the  police  found  them- 
selves interfered  with  in  their  functions ;  and  the 
harem  skirt  is  now  dead  as  a  door-nail.  It  is  no 
longer  outre  ;  it  is  worse — it  is  old-fashioned.  The 
papers  allude  to  it  as  "  meteoric." 

And  yet  it  was  a  mode  that  fashion  should  not 
willingly  have  let  die.  As  a  walking  costume  it  was 
ideal ;  and  short,  stumpy  women,  who  do  not  look 
well  in  short,  round  skirts,  should  have  cloven  to  it. 
It  was  length  without  breadth,  heroism  without  risk, 
a  long  garment  that  needed  no  holding  up,  and  did 
not  flop  and  collect  round  the  ankles. 


24  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  ii 

Soon  after  my  arrival  in  H ,  to  please  Joseph 

Leopold  and  his  mother,  I  put  it  on,  and  went  forth 
to  pay  a  call.  No,  it  was  not  a  real  call — real  calls 
in  Germany  are  paid  between  the  hours  of  twelve 
and  one  or  five  and  seven — it  was  going  out  to  tea 
in  a  friendly  way.     I  had  promised  to  show  Frau 

Rechtsanwalt  B and  her  husband  the  famous 

Hosen-rock,  of  which  they  had  heard  so  much,  actually 
in  wear.  These  dear  people  were  all  agog  to  see  it. 
They  had  seen  representations  of  it  in  the  illustrated 
papers,  and  read  of  it  in  the  accounts  of  police-court 
trials  for  disturbances  ;  but  they  had  not  seen  it,  as 
I  have,  travestied  on  the  cinematograph,  for  the  very 
simple  reason  that  respectable  German  people  of  a 
certain  class  do  not  patronize  the  cinematograph. 
The  Herr  Rechtsanwalt  was  going  to  get  away  early 
from  business  to  see  it.  A  Prussian  Major  whom  I 
had  seen  in  uniform  posturing  about  the  town  on  a 
fat  white  Schimmel,  was  coming  to  tea  to  see  it.  And 
Joseph  Leopold  and  his  mother  were  coming  to 
chaperone  it. 

The  Frau  Rechtsanwalt  B lived  just  across 

the  street  and  a  little  way  along  past  the  barber's 
and  the  boot  shop,  in  a  distracting  new  white  flat 
with  overhanging  balconies.  Joseph  Leopold  and 
his  mother  walked  one  on  either  side  of  me  appre- 
hendingly,  but  not  insultingly,  near. 

I  got  across  alive.  I  flattered  myself  that  my 
quiet,  unnoticeable  dark  blue  serge  banner-like 
flaps,  covering  the  innocentest  of  dark  blue  silk 
trousers,  representing  as  they  did  the  subtlest  pos- 
sible evading  of  the  necessary  bifurcation,  would 
pass  as  the  ordinary  skimped  skirt  of  the  year.    By 


CH.  II]  HAREM  SKIRTS  25 

the  way,  1  thought  scornfully,  remembering  the 
stampedes  I  had  seen  some  few  months  ago  in  Eng- 
land, what  a  fuss  to  make  about  a  woman  putting 
each  leg  into  a  separate  trouser,  when  the  present 
accepted  fashion  is  tantamount  to  her  getting  both 
legs  into  one  ! 

I  went  across,  walking  with  an  ease  and  freedom 
I  have  never  known  in  any  other  costume,  and  up 

Frau  B 's  easy,  broad  oak,  uncarpeted  staircase, 

and  quite  unabashed — for  there  is  really  nothing  in 
it  but  a  woman  walking  as  comfortably  and  un- 
obtrusively as  a  man  for  the  first  time  in  her  life — 
into  this  German  drawing-room,  with  the  tea  spread 
in  the  dining-room,  on  which  the  wide  folding-doors 
were  thrown  open.  I  saw  that  it  was  going  to  be 
what  one  remembers  as  an  old-fashioned  English 
sit-down  tea — not  a  "stout"  tea,  for  there  was 
nothing  on  the  table  but  the  ordinary  give-and-take 
of  thin  tea,  with  cake  and  bread-and-butter  handed 
round  in  cake-stands.  But  we  all  sat  down,  and  I 
seem  to  remember  that  we  had  dainty  napkins. 

"  It's  nothing !"  my  hostess  declared,  when  the 
first  shock  was  over  and  cake  handed.  **  I  shouldn't 
have  known  unless  you  had  told  me  beforehand." 

Her  husband  was  silent :  he  was  a  lawyer,  and 
might  possibly  have  seen  me  crossing  the  street. 
He  probably  already  saw  the  police  of  his  native 
town  politely  requesting  me  to  desist  from  giving 

the  natives  of  H food  for  reflection.     And  so, 

indeed,  it  proved. 

The  Prussian  officer,  a  man  of  few  words — literally 
of  few  words,  for  I  have  now  known  him  long,  both 
in  Germany  and  England,  and  I  have  never  heard 


26  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  ii 

him  say  anything  but  softly,  huskily,  seductive.'yi 
on  first  meeting  you,  "  Wie  geht's  Ihnen  ?" — the 
Prussian  officer  sat  at  my  side,  and  at  intervals 
murmured  sweetly,  more  to  himself  than  to  me, 
*^  Hosen-rock  r  He  reminded  me  of  Coquelin  in 
"  L'Indecis,"  murmuring  the  name  of  the  beloved : 
"  C'est  comme  du  sucre  dans  la  bouche." 

And  all  the  while,  as  far  as  was  consistent  with 
the  recurrent  effort  to  be  polite  in  Germany,  and 
accept  cake  and  pass  cake  in  that  almost  unknown 
language — appalling  at  first  but  later  a  matter  which 
it  seems  to  me  can  be  settled  fairly  adequately  by 
sprinkling  one's  conversation  with  civil  expletives 
and  flinging  ^^Bittes  /"  about  freely — I  was  allowing 
my  eyes  to  wander  about  the  room,  and  wondering 
why,  though  it  looked  different,  it  yet  looked  like 
"  somewhere "  in  England.  And  at  last  I  decided 
that  it  reminded  me  of  a  tea-party  that  I  once  went 
to  in  Birmingham  with  some  relations  who  had  a 
suggestion  of  Quakerdom  about  them.  It  was  the 
furniture,  the  self-embroidered  hangings,  the  saddle- 
bag chairs,  interspersed  with  cane  or  wicker  ones, 
the  pictures  on  the  wall  that  looked  like  chromo- 
lithographs (I  daren't  say  that  for  a  fact,  but  I  think 
they  were).*  And  had  I  come  all  the  way  into 
Hessia  to  look  at  Landseer's  "  Deer  at  Bay  "?  Or 
the  mantel  borders,  fringing  adequately  the  wood 
and  glass  affair,  looking  like  a  model  of  a  new  church 
that  was  erected  over  the  fireplace,  and  the  art 
plates,  transfixed,  pilloried  on  the  walls,  painted 
with  portraits  of  members  of  the  hostess's  family 

•  They  were  really  oil-paintings,  also  from  the  hand  of  the 
accomplished  hostess. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  ii]        SOME  SOCIAL  AMENITIES  27 

by  the  hostess  herself?  And  my  hostess  was  what 
would  be  called  a  notable  woman  in  England, 
because  she  managed  her  house  admirably,  and  did 
so  many  other  things  besides.  In  Germany  she 
was  just  ordinary.  Her  very  blouse  was  embroidered 
hieratically,  wherever  embroidery  would  lie,  by  her 
own  fair  hands.  I  found  myself  staring  covertly  at  the 
strange  mythological  figures,  complicated  and  inter- 
woven with  what  antiquaries  describe  as  the  Gothic 
worm  twist,  that  had  been  pressed  into  the  service 
of  decorating  the  bosom  of  this  dear  little  Hausfrau. 

Germans  are  still,  in  matters  of  decoration, 
wallowing  in  the  "aesthetic"  craze — the  strange 
modification  of  pre-Raphaelitism  which  insinuated 
itself  into  the  middle-class  consciousness  and  on  to 
the  walls  and  decorations  of  their  houses  under  the 
unconscious  impetus  of  Oscar  Wilde.  And  methinks 
that  practicality  and  aestheticism  make  an  odd 
mixture. 

The  master  of  the  house,  with  his  fine  head  and 
sensitive,  intelligent  mouth,  was  very  like  some 
early  portraits  of  Napoleon.  Paying  to  my  unusual 
costume  polite  French  compliments,  he  began  to 
talk  of  Shakespeare  and  the  musical  glasses.  This 
is  no  old-fashioned  figure  of  speech  ;  he  betrayed  a 
closer  acquaintance  with  Shakespeare  than  either 
Joseph  Leopold  or  I  could  boast,  while  Oscar 
Strauss'  "  Salome,"  so  long  interdicted  in  England, 
was  not  much  more  than  food  for  babes  to  him. 
H.  G.  Wells,  John  Galsworthy,  etc.,  were  house- 
hold names  to  this  instructed  person  ;  he  was  up  in 
their  latest  works.  Where  in  Birmingham  or  Salford 
should  I  have  met  with  this?    I  listened.    I  told 


8^  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  ii 

him  that  I  personally  had  had  the  pleasure  of  the 
acquaintance  of  both  these  godlike  personages.  He 
beamed  ingenuously,  and,  unlike  Birmingham  or 
Salford,  was  not  in  the  least  concerned  to  glean 
from  me  personal  details  of  the  households  and 
manners  and  customs  of  great  English  authors.* 
To  him  they  were  as  recondite,  as  undiscoverable, 
as  Shakespeare,  but  as  potent  factors  of  the  intel- 
lectual, existence  of  their  day  as  Shakespeare  was 
in  his.  He  needed  no  details  of  the  private  lives  of 
these  gentlemen  to  feed  his  interest  in  their  work. 

And  the  soft  murmur  of  "  Hosen-rock  "  went  on.  .  . . 
Frau  B made  fresh  tea  with  meticulous  pre- 
cision .  .  .  while  I  no  longer  felt  as  if  I  were  in 
Colmore   Row,   Birmingham,  and  was  quite  sure 

that  Herr  B was  not  responsible  for  the  painted 

plates. 

But  I  expect  I  was  wrong :  I  have  realized  by 
now  that  hand-painted  plates  and  real  culture  can 
live  side  by  side  in  Germany.  I  say  "  culture " 
advisedly,  for  I  consider  culture,  so-called,  to  be 
only  education-deep,  and  in  no  way  instinctive.  At 
least,  I  am  sure  it  may  be  so  in  Hessen-Darmstadt. 
My  host  was  educated ;  he  had,  moreover,  a  keen, 
an  open,  mind.  He  could  take  in  ideas,  he  could 
play  with  them,  but  he  could  not,  so  far  as  I  could 
see,  originate  them.  It  is  a  far  cry  from  that  solid, 
well-organized,  well-engineered  mind  of  his,  a  mind 
like  a  carefully  planned  house,  properly  architected 

•  This,  of  course,  is  very  un-German,  since  the  average  German 
will  read  with  avidity  any  details  of  the  life  of  either  Goethe  or 
Shakespeare,  and  comparatively  neglect  the  poetry  of  either 
writer.  But  even  in  Sodom  there  may  have  been  one  just  man. — 
J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  II]       SOME  SOCIAL  AMENITIES  29 

from  the  first  plan  on  paper,  as  it  were,  arranged 
up-to-date  and  for  the  future  with  every  modern 
convenience,  plus  the  powers  of  expansion  necessary 
for  the  introduction  of  new  inventions — it  is  a  far 
cry,  I  think,  to  the  tricksy,  moody  genius  of  the 
Englishman,  or  to  the  alert,  erratic,  passion-driven 
one  of  the  Frenchman.  I  think  the  Latin  mind  is 
like  an  empty,  old,  built-on-to  house  or  castle,  ruined 
in  parts,  decorated  art  nouveau  in  the  rest — a  house 
in  whose  corridors  you  never  know  whom  you  may 
meet,  whether  a  ghost  or  an  apache,  a  ci-devant  or 
a  socialist  ? 


CHAPTER  III 

SLEEPY  HOLLOW 

I  THINK  that  if  one  seriously  considers,  as  I  have 
done,  the  relative  genius  for  domesticity  of  the 
three  nations — France,  Germany,  and  England — one 
is  bound  to  place  France  first  and  England  last.  My 
readers  will  certainly  think  that  1  am  preparing  a 
laboured  epigram,  but  no,  I  am  deeply  serious.  In 
the  land  of  my  birth  the  sloppy  opinion  prevails 
that  the  English  home  is  the  focus  of  all  domestic 
virtues,  that  the  Englishman's  castle,  containing  the 
Englishman's  fireside,  is  inexpugnable.  Granted 
England's  pre-eminence  in  the  art  of  le  foyer,  it  is 
then  grudgingly  admitted  that  Germany  comes  in 
a  good  second.  But  France,  the  country  of  res- 
taurants and  long  collages  and  Christmas  spent  in 
the  streets  as  among  booths  and  merry-go-rounds 
at  a  fair,  is  supposed  to  be  absolutely  innocent  of 
any  domestic  fibre  at  all. 

I,  who  speak,  have  been  one  way  and  another 
considerably  "  at  home "  in  the  family  circles  of 
members  of  all  three  nations.  I  know  the  free 
whisky  and  "  Come  in  after  dinner  "  of  England  well 
enough  ;  the  "  after  "  does  not  spell  reserve  so  much 
as  meanness.    And  whereas  the  real  German  Haus- 

30 


CH.  Ill]  SLEEPY  HOLLOW  31 

frau  does  now  and  then  permit  people  to  "  drop  in," 
I  have  only  once  known  a  chance  visitor  admitted 
into  the  French  family  circle,  even  after  dinner. 
Relations,  of  course,  crop  up  insufferably  enough  at 
all  times  in  France,  mostly  into  one's  bedroom,  but 
relations  only  prove  my  contention.  In  England, 
as  we  all  know,  even  relations  do  not  invade  the 
Englishman's  fireside  with  impunity ;  the  English- 
man, besides,  is  more  or  less  safe  from  this  form  of 
intrusion,  for  he  is,  as  a  rule,  on  quite  bad  terms 
with  at  least  two-thirds  of  his  relations,  and  does 
not  acknowledge,  or  candidly  ignores,  the  other  third. 
I  have  seen  an  Englishman  pass  his  own  first 
cousin  in  the  street,  not  because  he  had  any  grounds 
of  quarrel  with  him,  but  simply  because  he  did  not 
know  him.  And  when  pressed,  he  lazily  explained 
that  through  some  quite  usual  circumstance,  their 
ways  of  life  lay  apart.  1  have  myself  been  introduced, 
at  a  London  dinner  party,  to  a  brilliant  and  popular 
male  cousin,  who  had  been  deputed  to  take  me  in  to 
dinner.  My  hostess  was  simply,  in  the  hurry  and 
bustle  of  a  London  life,  unaware  of  the  relationship. 
Why  should  she  know  ?  She  had  never  met  this 
relation  of  mine  at  my  house.  But  she  was,  of 
course,  quite  au  fait  of  the  people  she  was  in  the 
habit  of  asking  to  her  dinners  ;  she  knew  that  I  was 
neither  Scot  nor  Jew,  and  could  be  counted  upon, 
therefore,  to  be  easy  about  family  ties.  My  new- 
found cousin  took  me  in,  and  we  chatted  pleasantly 
through  our  allotted  span  of  intercourse,  and  parted 
quite  good  acquaintances.  But  I  have  never  seen 
him  since ;  I  did  not  want  to  ;  neither,  I  suppose,  did 
he  care  to  carry  on  his  acquaintance  with  me.    We 


J2  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  hi 

were  both  busy  and  undomestic  people,  that  is  to 
say,  of  English  extraction,  both  of  us. 

As  I  said,  in  England,  in  Mayfair,  it  provoked  no 
comment  whatever.  But  if  such  a  thing  could 
happen  in  Germany,  it  would  be  considered  at  least 
a  romantic  or  even  disagreeable  incident — there 
would  be  a  suggestion  of  "some  story  behind."  In 
France  it  certainly  could  not  happen  at  all.  No 
French  hostess  would  have  run  her  head  into  a 
noose ;  she  would,  before  asking  me  to  her  house, 
have  made  it  her  business  to  learn  which  of  my 
relations  I  was  on  good  or  bad  terms  with.  She 
would  be  quite  sure  that  I  could  not  in  the  nature  of 
things  have  been,  as  in  the  case  I  have  just  men- 
tioned, on  no  terms  at  all.  For  instance,  once  in 
Paris,  at  an  evening  party  at  the  house  of  Madame 
Taine,  the  widow  of  the  historian,  I  was  presented 
to  an  old,  be-diamonded  Vicomtesse  bearing  a  well- 
known  and  honoured  name  of  the  Faubourg  St. 
Germain.  I  was  not  thrown  at  her  head,  irrespec- 
tive of  consequences,  just  because  I  happened  to 
be  the  nearest  person  to  the  seat  where  she  was 
sitting ;  oh  no,  there  was  some  social  reason  for  my 
introduction.  But  I  was  first  of  all  solemnly  warned 
that  this  old  lady  was  not  on  terms  with  her 
daughter-in-law,  another  Vicomtesse  of  a  well- 
known  name.  This  was  as  well,  as  the  daughter- 
in-law  had  been,  in  her  green  youth  spent  in 
England,  a  school  companion  of  mine.  Of  course, 
Madame  Taine  could  not  have  been  expected  to 
know  that,  but  she  took  no  risks  and  cleverly  saved 
the  situation  in  advance. 

This  was  in  cosmopolitan  Paris. 


CH.  Ill]  SLEEPY  HOLLOW  33 

In  the  provinces — well,  let  me  say,  speaking  as 
one  who  has  sounded  the  very  depths  of  French 
provincial  life,  a  la  Balzac,  that  no  one  who  has  not 
done  so  can  have  the  very  slightest  idea  what  it 
is  like. 

You  may  think  of  the  dulness,  the  impenetrability 
of  it  all,  as  you  think  of  the  primeval  forests  of  the 
Amazon,  described  by  Joseph  Conrad  and  more 
recently  by  H.  M.  Tomlinson,  Only  it  is  a  forest 
of  undistinguished  people,  as  like  in  the  main  as 
one  ombu  tree  or  one  branch  of  liana  to  another. 
There  is  a  waterway  through  these  family  trees  as 
there  is  through  the  forest  depths  of  the  Amazon ; 
you  are  perhaps  staying  at  one  clearing,  and  you 
take  a  car  and  drive  to  visit  some  settlers  at 
another.  You  get  out  of  the  car,  you  march  up  the 
well-raked-over  carriage-drive  leading  to  the  house, 
and  ascend  the  four  or  five  well-tended  steps,  and 
are  introduced  into  the  salon.  You  have  no  idea  as 
you  go  in  how  many  families,  each  with  separate 
interests,  are  going  to  be  congregated  on  the  floor 
of  that  salon. 

There  it  is^  the  family,  or  families,  "  sitting  up  " 
on  its  ugly,  stiff  chairs  —  Monsieur,  home  from 
business  ;  he  begins  work  so  much  earlier  than  his 
English  confrere  that  he  is  well  home  by  the  early 
afternoon — grandmere,  perhaps,  and  surely  a  belle- 
mere  or  two.  Then  the  belle-fille,  bored  and  incom- 
prise,  with  all  the  household  cares  taken  off  her 
shoulders  so  that  she  may  the  better  emotionally 
attend  to  her  children.  Then  there  is  the  engaged 
couple — there  is  pretty  sure  to  be  one  engaged 
couple  or  more — and  even  the  engaged  couple  must 

3 


34  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  hi 

sit,  intensely  chaperoned,  in  the  common  sitting- 
room,  must  take  a  part  in  the  feeble,  banal  conversa- 
tion that  manners  prescribe  when  strangers  invade 
the  sanctity  of  the  home. 

These  people  are  undoubtedly  educated,  they  are 
often  clever,  they  may  even  be  original,  but  amid 
this  terrible  massing  of  communal  interests,  what 
individual  could  let  him  or  herself  go  to  the  extent 
of  demonstrating  that  cleverness  or  originality  ? 
It  would  be  too  communally  dangerous.  Each 
member  of  the  junta  listens  to  the  other,  and  as 
elsewhere,  least  said  soonest  mended.  Another 
feature  of  this  intense  domesticity  is  that  the  visitor 
has  no  means  of  distinguishing  the  parentage  of  all 
the  check-bloused  and  bare-legged  and  yellow- 
booted  children,  until  the  usual  incident  of  play 
occurs,  and  the  baby  with  the  pin  that  is  running 
into  it,  or  the  boy  who  has  been  gifle  by  the  girl, 
runs  stormily  crying  to  its  own  mother  to  be  as 
stormily  comforted. 

Now,  as  to  that  small  point,  I  have  never  seen  a 
German  baby  cry  like  an  English  or  French  baby, 
or  seen  a  German  mother  let  herself  go  in  the  same 
hysterical  way.  A  German  Mutterchen,  one  is 
almost  tempted  to  think,  is  not  addicted  to  the 
slightly  selfish  Latin  passion  for  her  own  child. 
There  always  seems  something  rather  communal 
about  the  maternal  attitude  towards  the  Kinder. 
And  German  children  are  not  so  universally  present ; 
I  suspect  the  reason  is  that  although  they  are  not 
so  hysterical  or  naughty  they  are  rougher,  more 
like  little  animals — less  presentable,  in  fact.  You 
rarely  see  the  children  if  you  go  to  pay  a  stiffish 


CH.  Ill]  SLEEPY  HOLLOW  35 

call  in  Germany.  You  see  the  person  you  have 
asked  to  see  and  perhaps  no  one  else,  just  as  you  do 
in  England.  They  give  you  tea  just  as  they  do  in 
England ;  the  fact  that  it  is  a  sit-down  tea  does  not 
stultify  and  make  it  formal,  since  the  eatables  are  of 
the  lightest  and  airiest  description,  and  uncompli- 
cated by  the  tedious  demands  of  ravenous  little 
children.  And  the  conversation  that  accompanies 
the  meal,  if  inclined  in  the  provinces  to  be  heavy 
and  unillumined,  is  still  conversation,  the  exchange 
of  ideas  and  individuals  may  and  do  assert  them- 
selves in  argument. 

You  pay  your  more  formal  calls  in  the  morning 
and  you  stay  just  twenty  minutes,  keeping  your 
card-case  in  your  hand.  You  are  stiflf  yourself  as 
you  know  how  to  be,  and  that  is  not  very  stiff,  and 
then  I  suppose  the  worst  of  that  is  they  think  you 
are  an  amiable  lunatic.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
it  is  your  turn  to  "  sit  up  "  and  receive  calls,  you 
think,  if  you  have  not  been  properly  drilled  and 
informed,  that  the  people  are  exceedingly  frigid  and 
disagreeable. 

I  could  not  think  why  Mutterchen,  who  naturally 
knew  the  ropes  a  good  deal  better  than  her  daughter- 
in-law,  seemed  so  well  pleased  with  the  visit  of  the 
Herr  Professor  and  Frau  Professorin  C.,*who  came 
one  sunshiny  morning  to  pay  me  a  formal  call.  They 
sat  on  the  very  edge  of  the  settee  and  talked  to 
Mutterchen,  who  speaks  quite  good  German.  I  sat 
beside  her,  keeping  my  needlework  in  my  hand, 
which  I  afterwards  found  I  ought  not  to  have  done, 

*  It  was  really  a  "  Wirklicher  Geheimer  Regierungs  Rath  "  and 
his  wife,  a  "Geborene  Freifrau  von  O "  (J.  L.  F.  M.  H.). 


36  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  hi 

and  tried  valiantly  to  add  airy  ungrammatical 
nothings  to  the  very  vapid  conversation  that  was 
being  held  in  my  honour.  That  was  the  point.  Yet 
nobody  took  up  a  word  I  said,  except  Mutterchen, 
who  seemed  all  the  time  on  thorns,  and  to  be  trying 
politely  to  bring  me  into  the  conversation,  bad 
grammar,  halting  sentences  and  all.  After  a  session 
of  exactly  twenty  minutes  the  pair  rose,  with  a 
handshake  of  the  stiffest  to  Mutterchen,  and  a  curt 
nod  to  me,  the  lady  of  the  house.  I  was  boiling  with 
rage,  and  said  to  Joseph  Leopold  :  "  If  this  is  the 
way  the  Fatherland  welcomes  alien  brides,  I  think 
1  could  have  dispensed  with  the  visit  of  the  greatest 

gun  in  K ,  as  you   say  he  is.    Why,  the  wife 

snubbed  me  to  death !  She  hardly  threw  me  a 
word.  ..." 

Very  slowly  Joseph  Leopold  removed  his  pipe 
from  his  mouth. 

"  They  took  you  for  my  mother's  companion,"  he 
said,  "  and  a  very  cheeky  one  at  that — putting  your 
word  in  every  now  and  then,  and  going  on  with  your 
sewing  1" 

That  was  a  mistake;   but  the  whole  lamentable 

incident  was  Joseph  Leopold's  fault,  for  confusing 

Mutterchen  and  me  in  his  introduction.     Of  course 

» 

Mutterchen  looks  ridiculously  young.  .  .  . 

In  the  afternoon  I  went  to  tea  with  Frau  L , 

and  relieved  my  mind  by  telling  her  in  bad  German 
all  that  had  befallen  me  on  the  occasion  of  the  first 
visit  that  had  been  paid  me.  I  ought  to  have  put 
myself  forward,  she  said,  and  put  my  work  away. 

I  had  looked  too  humble.     Frau  L had  been  in 

England,  and  she  realize  show  different  things  are 
there. 


CH.  Ill]  SLEEPY  HOLLOW  37 

Then,  when  the  mistake  was  cleared  up,  I  was 
asked  to  a  formal  Kaifee  Klatch.  This  is  a  tea-party 
in  England — a  five  o'clock — only  in  Germany  it  is 
always  at  four,  and  the  guests  are  expected — and 
endeavour — to  be  punctual  to  the  minute.  It  lasts 
till  seven,  and  people  bring  their  work.  I  have 
attended  such  parties  both  in  Germany  and  in 
Belgium.  The  ceremonial  is  very  much  alike  in  both 
countries.  I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  one  item 
of  the  polite  procedure,  for  in  every  book  about 
Germany  you  meet  a  description  of  that  business  of 
the  favoured  guest  and  the  Sofa  Platz.  My  mother 
impressed  on  me,  when  my  marriage  first  took  me 
to  Germany  (she  had  been  an  old  resident  in  my 
new  country),  that  whatever  else  I  did  when  I  first 
began  to  "  go  out "  there  was  one  unpardonable  sin, 
and  that  was  to  take  Sofa  Platz  uninvited.  However, 
as  a  bride,  the  phrase  "  Bitte,  meine  Frau,  woUen  Sie 
Sofa  Platz  nehmen  ?"  sounded  pretty  frequently  in 
my  ears.  The  rest  of  the  proceedings  surely  cannot 
have  altered  much  since  i860,  when  my  mother 
cultivated  German  society  at  Dusseldorf.  In  the 
first  place,  no  men  attend  as  in  England,  but,  unlike 
England,  men  are  not  expected  to  attend,  and  are  not 
complained  of  at  every  future  occasion.  There  are 
no  tea-cups  to  be  seen  in  the  drawing-room ;  but 
what  I  should  have  called  a  nursery  tea,  a  stout  tea, 
a  thick  tea,  is  set  out  in  the  dining-room,  on  long 
tables  covered  with  spotless  white  table-cloths. 
The  table  centre  has  generally  been  embroidered  or 
put  together  by  the  hostess,  in  some  cases  very  much 
as  a  bird's-nest  is  put  together,  of  the  most  hetero- 
geneous materials,  and  it  is  proper  to  admire  it.   The 


38  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  hi 

pieces  de  resistance  are  one  or  more  great  open  Torte, 
pasty  crusts  filled  with  fruit  and  jam  and  Schlagzahn 
— whipped  cream.  The  white-aproned  maids  run 
about  handing  cups  of  tea  and  coflfee,  poured  out  by 
the  hostess,  and  cream  to  put  in  it,  and  sugar ;  others 
dispense  the  prodigious  cakes  I  have  described,  and 
any  amount  of  smaller  ones  to  fill  up  the  gaps. 
That  is  why  there  are  no  gaps  in  Germans — they 
are  so  adequately  filled.  And  the  ladies  sit  for  an 
hour.  Then  they  troop  back  into  the  dining-room, 
and  more  needlework  is  done,  and  more  gossip 
spoken  and  more  Sofa  Platz  business.  About  half- 
past  six  everyone  is  marshalled  back  into  the  dining- 
room — for  beer.  Then  home  with  your  useful 
afternoon's  stitching  and  your  violent  indigestion — 
at  least  for  a  person  not  acclimatized. 

Official  dinners,  even  large  family  dinners,  are  very 
ceremonious.  And  the  food  is  very  good.  And 
instead  of  getting  away  from  a  dinner  in  time  to  go 
on  to  about  a  dozen  routs  and  receptions  and  dances, 
as  one  does  in  London  in  the  season,  a  German 
hostess  expects  to  entertain  you  till  about  four  in 
the  morning  or  else  her  party  is  not  counted  a 
success.  Such  a  lot  of  pounding  backwards  and 
forwards  to  a  dining-room  there  seems  to  be !  At 
least  my  ideas  on  these  social  peripatetics  are  a  little 
confused.  One  of  my  most  frequent  hostesses  had 
been  in  England — had  stayed  with  me  and  my  mother 
there,  in  fact — and  was  bitten  with  the  English  way 
of  doing  things.  She  especially  approved  of  the 
English  custom  of  the  retiring  of  the  ladies,  and  this 
is  the  way  she  managed  it.  The  gentlemen  rose 
when  the  ladies  did  and  followed  them  into  the 


CH.  Ill]  SLEEPY  HOLLOW  39 

drawing-room,  as  usual  in  Germany,  but  they  did 

not,  in  Frau  B 's  house,  stay  with  them  for  the  rest 

of  the  evening,  as  the  German  habit  is  *  No,  they 
went  back  to  the  dining-room,  and  kicked  their  heels 
there  for  a  bit,  and  1  daresay  they  found  the  inno- 
vation very  annoying.  But  Frau  B is  a  deter- 
mined little  person,  and  the  spirit  of  novelty  is 
working  in  her.  It  is  usual  for  the  whole  party 
again  to  troop  back  to  the  dining-room  towards  the 
small  hours,  to  consume  beer — you  never  get  very 
far  from  beer  in  a  German  menage. 

Frau  B has  a  neighbour — a  neighbour  who 

does  not  care  about  English  habits,  but  is  pushed 
by  her  strong  spirit  of  emulation  to  ostentation  and 
display.  She  had  adopted  the  plan  of  giving  a 
Bowie  at  the  end  of  a  party,  instead  of  the  milder 

intoxicant  of  beer.     And  so  Frau  B ,  after  her 

very  good  dinner,  insisted  on  giving  her  guests  a 
Bowie,  and  a  very  elaborate  Bowie,  too,  which  she 
had  compounded  herself  in  the  course  of  the  day. 

Herr  B had  not  expected  it,  and  when  the  fat, 

yellowish  mixture  was  produced,  looking  for  all  the 
world  like  egg  julep  that  I  wash  my  hair  with,  his 
face  was  worth  seeing.  He  knew  how  strong  it 
was,  egg-flip  or  noggin,  with  arack  in  it  and  a  dozen 
other  fierce  ingredients.  And  behold!  it  was  he 
who  suffered ;  I  heard  him  suffer.  Perhaps  all  the 
other  men  suffered.  I  do  not  know.  I  happened 
to  be  staying  in  the  B 's  house  at  the  time,  and 

®  I  should  like  to  point  out  that  this  is  the  normal  custom  in 
good  French  society,  where  the  gentlemen  escort  the  ladies  to  the 
salon  and  then  return  to  the  dining-room  for  a  short  interval. — 
J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


40  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  hi 

although  I  did  not  see  Herr  B till  late  evening  of 

the  day  following,  I  am  convinced  that  he  nearly  died. 

Poor  man!  It  was  not  his  fault,  but  Linchen's. 
He  did  not  ask  for  egg-flip,  only  for  mild  beer,  but 
once  it  was  there  he  could  not  refuse  to  make  himself 
hospitably  ill  with  the  rest. 

This  lusty  power  of  occasional  intemperance  and 
the  endurance  of  its  brief  condign  punishment  is  a 
useful  note  in  the  German  temperament.  "  Most 
drunk  is  soonest  cured,"  to  vary  the  common  proverb. 

The  continual  daily  indulgence  in  luscious  and 
humour-forming  foods  and  drinks  is,  I  really  think, 
the  raison  detre  of  the  Teuton's  immense  and  com- 
prehensive system  of  summer  Kurs.  The  German's 
over-greased  digestive  organs  are  the  counterpart 
of  those  of  the  abstemious,  constipated  Englishman. 
It  is  the  moral  incommodity  of  the  latter  that  he  is 
born  without  any  very  strong  pleasure  in  eating. 
It  is  his  boast  that  he  can  eat  anything  so  long  as 
he  can  get  his  teeth  through  it.  This  is  a  perfectly 
true  boast,  and  one  that  suggests  great  strength  of 
character ;  but  unfortunately  the  true  Briton  cannot 
also  persuade  his  weak  gastric  juices  to  attend  at 
the  behest  of  his  strong  will ;  and  he  whose  mouth 
has  never  watered  before  he  ate  has  never  profited 
by  these  tricksy  fluids,  which  are  only  evoked  by  the 
apprehension  of  the  toothsome  morsel.  Benighted 
man !  He  prefers  "  nice  plain  food,  not  messed  up," 
as  my  mother's  North-Country  cook  phrased  it — that 
is  to  say,  not  prepared  in  a  way  to  provoke  the 
enjoyment  that  would  cause  these  so  recalcitrant 
juices  to  flow. 

On  the  Continent,  where  the  belly  is  as  god — and 


CH.  Ill]  SLEEPY  HOLLOW  4X 

who  shall  say  unrightfully  so  ? — one  comes  across 
people  who  go  to  the  other  extreme  and  overeat 
themselves ;  but  even  these  professors  of  the  sin  of 
enormity  do  not  seem  to  sujRfer  from  the  permanent 
indigestion  as  the  ascetic,  patient,  plain  cook-ridden 
English  seem  to  do.  The  Englishman  of  means  is, 
of  course,  able  to  visit  Kurs  freely,  to  get  rid  of  his 
Christian  burden  of  indigestion.  Trotting  mildly 
along  esplanades  and  parades  he  meets  middle-class 
thrifty  Germans,  come  there  likewise  to  profit  by 
the  healing  waters  of  their  own  land.  Does  it,  how- 
ever, occur  to  any  of  my  ancient  compatriots  to  think 
that  in  so  doing  the  Teuton  is  both  eating  his  cake 
and  having  it  ?  The  Englishman  fares  to  Homburg 
or  Wiesbaden  sadly,  drearily,  to  try  to  modify  the 
results  on  a  poor  moral  body  of  a  moral  regime  self- 
prescribed.  The  German  goes  happily,  heartily,  to 
be  finally  and  absolutely  cured  of  a  plethora  of 
enjoyment,  of  a  year's  whole-souled  gormandizing. 
At  Homburg  or  Wiesbaden  they  meet,  they  walk 
backwards  and  forwards  for  a  month  or  so  in  com- 
pany, imbibing  the  dreadful  water  that  tastes  and 
smells  like  rotten  eggsr-but,  when  all  is  said  and 
done  and  digested,  the  foreigner  has  his  three 
hundred  and  thirty  good  dinners  to  the  good  1 

And  entertaining  in  Germany  is  not  always 
dinners  and  overfeeding.  I  have  been  to  many 
little  friendly  evenings  to  which  the  invitation  ran : 
"  Will  you  come  in  to  roulette  and  Bowie  ?" 
Then,  more  often  than  not,  the  little  reunion  gives 
occasion  to  another  kind  of  excess,  more  in  harmony, 
perhaps,  with  our  English  idiosyncrasy.  Germans, 
many  of  them,  are  great  gamblers.     The  German 


42  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  hi 

Hausfrau  legend  dies  hard,  but  I  know  of  two 
German  Fraus  who  permit  play  on  these  occasions 
and  one  who,  not  possessing  a  roulette  table,  allows 
her  friends  to  bring  their  own  roulette  cloth  and 
win  her  husband's  hard-earned  money  away  from 
him.  She  sits  serene,  to  outward  seeming  at  least, 
while,  as  host,  her  Mann  takes  the  bank,  which 
always,  in  private  houses,  must  lose  in  the  end.* 
Would  the  guest  who  sprang  such  a  mine  on  a 
quiet,  unsuspecting  hostess  in  England  ever  be 
asked  again  ?     No ;  and  I  am  sure  that  no  English 

hostess  was  ever  as   "  sporting "   as  Frau   B , 

who  sat  there  through  the  long  evening,  presiding 
at  the  roulette  table  and  over  another  little  table  as 
well,  placed  at  her  elbow  and  supporting  the  famous 
Bowie,  which  was  the  clou  of  the  evening. 

Bowie  is  a  delicious  beverage,  a  cup  composed  of 
spices  and  Rhine  wine  of  any  kind.  It  is  iced,  and 
served  in  little  glasses  that  the  attentive  host,  rising 
at  intervals,  fills  for  you.  It  is  strong — far  stronger 
than  the  claret  or  hock  cups  of  England — and  you 
can  get  tipsy  on  it  quite  nicely.  The  appearance 
of  Bowie  on  the  domestic  hearth  and  advertised  in 
restaurants  —  Mai  Bowie — Bowie,  in  large  capitals 
scrawled  in  by  the  waiter,  is  said  to  usher  in  the 
spring  season  in  Germany,  as  the  tap-tapping  of  the 
drums  of  the  recruits  does  the  autumn. 

•  This,  of  course,  is  nonsense.  In  German  houses  the  host 
practically  never  takes  the  bank,  because  the  bank  invariably  wins. 
On  the  evening  to  which  our  author  more  particularly  refers, 
the  host,  unfortunately  for  himself,  was  playing  against  the  bank 
a  modification  of  the  martingale,  invented  by  myself,  which,  how- 
ever, I  never  had  the  courage  to  put  into  practice. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  Ill]  SLEEPY  HOLLOW  43 

Does  not  everyone  remember  the  frigid  syphon 
of  England,  got  in  from  the  chemist's  round  the 
corner,  with  the  garish,  unharmonious,  coloured 
paper  label  denoting  the  place  of  its  provenance  ? 
Or  else  the  home-made  lemonade  or  barley-water 
for  the  ladies  ;  the  ugly,  unattractive  whisky-bottle 
of  fretted  glass  that  is  provided,  under  protest  as 
it  were,  for  the  men  ?  The  ladies,  of  course,  never 
touch  it.  '*  A  little  syphon,  please,"  one  hears  them 
murmur  as  they  are  putting  on  their  wraps  to  go. 

In  France,  after  dinner,  there  are  no  drinks  at 
all.  There  is  tea  and  there  are  tisanes.  There  are 
no  droppers-in  with  roulette  boards — there  are  no 
droppers-in  at  all.  By  ten  o'clock  family  life  has 
closed  in  hopelessly  on  its  unprotesting  victims. 

But  Sleepy  Hollow  is  a  very  good  touchstone  of 
domesticity.  I  wish  to  put  on  record  my  convic- 
tion— my  knowledge,  in  fact  ;  and  I  fancy  even 
Joseph  Leopold  will  let  the  assertion  go  unchal- 
lenged— that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  easy-chair 
discoverable  on  the  whole  Continent.  On  that  par- 
ticular count  England  romps  in  an  easy  first,  and 
almost  spoils  my  present  contention.  But  no ; 
the  true  inwardness  of  the  easy-chair  lies  deeper 
than  domesticity ;  it  affects  the  brain  of  the  three 
nationaHties.  Meredith  noticed  it ;  he  actually 
made  it  the  criterion  of  power  of  English  and 
German  brains. 

English  people  hardly  realize  how  far  George 
Meredith's  genius  was  a  product  of  his  early 
training,  and  how  his  general  view  was  affected  by 
it.  He  spent  a  great  part  of  the  days  of  his  youth 
in  Germany,  and  if  we  read  "  Beauchamp's  Career  " 


44  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  hi 

we  can  see  how  that  country  impressed  itself  on 
him.  We  can  observe  the  results  of  German 
scholarship  in  his  style — his  style  that  some  people 
like  and  others  dislike  so  much,  without,  however, 
discovering  that  it  is,  partially  at  least,  a  result  of 
his  German  studies.  The  quotation  I  give  is  from 
'*  One  of  our  Conquerors." 

"  Have  the  Germans  more  brains  than  we 
English  ?"  This  is  the  simple  question  which 
preoccupies  the  genius  who,  like  other  geniuses,  is 
of  no  country.     He  goes  on  : 

"  The  comfortable  successful  have  the  habit  of 
sitting,  and  that  dulls  the  brain  more  even  than  it 
eases  the  person.  .  .  .  The  English,  their  sports, 
their  fierce  feastings,  and  their  opposition  to  ideas, 
and  their  timidity  in  regard  to  change,  and  their 
execration  of  criticism  as  applied  to  themselves, 
are  a  sign  of  a  prolonged  indulgence  in  the 
cushioned  seat." 


CHAPTER  IV 

UTOPIA* 
By  Ford  Madox  Hueffer 

Some  years  ago  I  was  discussing  with  a  friend — a 
friend  who  is  celebrated  for  his  building  of  Utopias 
— what  would  be  the  most  agreeable  form  that  it 
would  be  possible  for  a  country  town  to  take.  It 
was  to  be  a  country  town  which  was  to  be  suited 
for  our  own  living  in.  It  wasn't  therefore  to  be  too 
big,  and  it  wasn't  therefore  to  be  industrial;  thirty 
thousand  inhabitants  is  a  good  size  for  such  a  town. 
We  were  thinking  rather  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge, 
because  Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  probably  the 
only  towns  outside  London  where  there  would  be 
enough  of  lettered  society  to  make  living  possible 
in  England.  So  we  said  we  must  have  a  University 
in  our  town — not  too  big  or  too  distinguished  a  Uni- 
versity, because  that  would  make  the  society  of  the 
place  too  altogether  donnish.  No;  let  it  be  a 
University  founded  about  the  seventeenth  century, 
so  as  to  have  some  tradition,  but  one  which  has  not 
enormously  prospered,  so  that  it  may  not  be  over- 
bearing. It  ought  to  have  a  fairly  good  University 
library  that,  being  in  correspondence  with  other 
University  libraries,   should   be    able  of   itself  to 

*  This  refers  to  the  town  alluded  to  in  the  previous  chapter  as 

H (J.  L.  F.  M.  H.). 

45 


46  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  iv 

supply  most  of  the  ordinary  books  that  we  needed, 
and  from  its  correspondence  it  should  be  able  to 
supply  us  with  nearly  all  the  rarest  of  books  upon 
occasion.  Thus,  for  society,  we  should  have  the 
professors,  and,  on  account  of  the  educational  centre 
that  the  place  was,  we  should  have  the  advantage 
of  the  company  of  various  pleasant  families  who 
were  drawn  there  by  the  need  for  educating  their 
children.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  these  would  not 
be  persons  actively  engaged  in  commercial  pursuits ; 
they  would  be  officers  on  half-pay,  Civil  Servants  in 
retirement,  or  Colonial  Governors.  Of  course  it 
would  be  necessary  to  have  a  certain  sprinkling  of 
the  richer  industrial  classes  to  pay  the  town  rates. 
The  place  might,  for  instance,  be  a  centre  of  the 
cigar-making  industry.  Cigar  factories  are  not 
necessarily  buildings  of  an  overpowering  ugliness, 
and  we  must  have  the  town  fairly  wealthy  so  as  to 
present  a  clean,  flourishing,  and  spacious  aspect. 

The  centre  of  the  town  would  have  to  be  old  — 
with  narrow  cobbled  streets  and  high-gabled  houses. 
Thereare,  of  course,  objections  to  these  sins  against 
modernity.  But  the  electric  trams  will  just  have  to 
run  slowly.  And  as  for  sanitation,  there  will  be  no 
need  for  a  dense  population  in  the  centre  of  the 
town.  And  we  shall  gain  immensely  in  corporate 
and  traditional  feelings.  Of  course,  we  must  have  a 
small  market-place  with  an  old  gabled  town  hall. 
And  we  must  have  one  or  two  old  white  patrician 
houses.  I  don't  know  even  that  we  would  not  have 
an  old  palace,  a  big,  rambling  erection  of  ironstone, 
to  remind  us  of  the  time  when  there  were  patriarchal 
potentates.     Of  course,  within  the  town  walls  there 


CH.  IV]  UTOPIA  47 

would  not  be  too  many  old  buildings.  Even  when 
we  are  constructing  Utopias  we  have  to  remember 
that  we  exist  only  by  the  sufferance  of  history.  So 
that  where  the  sixteenth-century  houses  have  been 
cleared  away  we  can't  see  any  particular  objection 
to  white  square  houses  of  the  late  eighteenth  and 
early  nineteenth  centuries.  They  should  mostly 
have  green  shutters  and  all  of  them  stand  in  fairly 
large  gardens.  So  that  wherever  we  happen  to 
stand,  unless  it  was  actually  in  the  gabled  market- 
place, we  should  always  see  apple-boughs  pushing 
round  the  corners  of  walls  or  mulberry-trees  rising 
above  low  roofs. 

When  it  came  to  the  town  walls,  these  would  have 
been  swept  away  some  time  ago.  But  we  would 
not  have  let  the  space  upon  which  they  once  stood 
be  built  upon.  No  ;  eighty  or  ninety  years  ago  we 
would  have  had  them  planted  with  trees  of  a  fanci- 
ful kind,  flowering  shrubs  and  grass.  So,  in  the  hot 
weather  there  would  be  a  shady  walk  of  pleached 
limes  all  round  the  town,  to  give  us  exercise  when 
it  was  too  hot  to  go  farther  afield.  I  think  we 
would  be  the  chief  town  of  the  agricultural  province 
in  which  we  dwelt.  In  that  way  we  should  have  an 
excellent  railway  service  and  we  could  also  have  our 
own  courts  of  justice.  These  buildings,  of  course, 
would  have  to  be  outside  the  town  walls. 

You  might  say  that  the  courts  of  justice  ought  to 
be  in  the  old  palace.  But  the  old  palace  is  not  very 
adapted  for  that.  We  want  justice  to  be  despatched 
as  easily  and  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  we  don't 
want  to  be  stifled  when,  as  part  of  the  public,  we 
wish  to  attend  a  lawsuit.     So,  for  the  palace  itself 


48  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  iv 

we  shall  give  up  one  wing  to  state  apartments,  in 
case  the  reigning  Sovereign  should  choose  to  pay 
us  a  visit  and  walk  about  the  town  smoking  a  cigar. 
And  the  rest  of  the  palace  will  be  given  up  to  part  of 
the  garrison.  And,  of  course,  we  shall  have  our  two 
lines  of  electric  trams  running  every  seven  minutes 
from  the  railway-station  right  through  the  town,  past 
the  theatre,  and  out  to  the  beginnings  of  the  woods. 

For  of  course  we  want  a  theatre,  a  big,  finely 
decorated  building,  with  the  stage  large  enough  for 
the  production  of  anything  up  to  "  Parsifal."  In  the 
theatre  there  must  be  a  stock  company  that  can  play 
passably  well  almost  any  play  that  we  can  think  of. 
It  must  be  able  to  give  us  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice" 
and  someone  else  "Charley's  Aunt."  It  must  be 
able  to  give  us  a  translation  of  the  very  latest  French 
comedy  as  well  as  "  Mrs.  Warren's  Profession," 
Ibsen's  "  Lady  from  the  Sea,"  or  Sudermann's 
"  Die  Ehre."  You  may  say  this  is  impossible.  But 
we  are  dealing  with  Utopias. 

Of  course,  in  the  summer  months,  when  listening 
to  the  serious  drama  is  oppressive,  we  should  give 
the  stock  company  a  holiday  and  roving  licence. 
Their  places  would  be  taken  by  a  company  coming 
from  somewhere  else,  and  playing  operettas  and 
musical  comedies.  In  these  seasons,  when  it  is 
sultry,  the  sliding  roof  would  be  taken  off  the 
theatre.  The  prices  for  seats  would  be  so  small  that 
we  could  command  that  every  peasant  upon  the 
Sunday  should  have  not  only  his  fowl  in  the  pot, 
but  his  "  Pagliacci  "  in  the  evening.  And,  closing 
our  eyes,  we  seem  to  see  ourselves  looking  upwards 
from  the  auditorium  of  such  a  theatre  and  seeing 


CH.  IV]  UTOPIA  49 

above  us  the  stars  and,  craning  over  all  round  the 
balustrade  of  the  gallery,  the  quaint  caps  of  the 
peasant  women  and  the  three-cornered  hats  of  their 
husbands.  Of  course  that,  too,  is  Utopia,  but  we  are 
commanding  what  we  like  from  an  ideal  bill  of  fare. 
Let  us  continue  to  exhaust  the  intellectual  and 
artistic  sides  of  our  community.  For  two  days  a 
week  and  on  Sunday  afternoons  the  players  would 
not  play,  and  the  theatre  would  be  given  over  to 
the  Musical  Society  of  the  town.  This  Musical 
Society  would  be  fairly  rich  and  fairly  powerful. 
There  would  be  a  musical  faculty  at  the  University ; 
the  local  garrison  would  afford  us  wind  instruments ; 
on  full-dress  occasions  we  could  command  an 
orchestra  from  a  neighbouring  metropolis.  We 
should  be  able  for  a  night  now  and  then  to  pay  the 
fees  of  some  really  great  virtuoso  who  happened  to 
be  touring  in  that  countryside.  The  University 
would  lend  us  its  small  Aula  for  chamber  concerts, 
the  theatre  being  too  large ;  and  choral  music — we 
could  raise  about  five  hundred  voices  from  the  town 
and  its  surroundings — choral  music  would  be  ren- 
dered in  the  great  collegiate  church,  where  there 
would  be  a  fine  organ.  For  the  fine  arts  we  would 
set  aside  a  largish  gallery,  where  the  collections  of 
pictures  would  be  changed  every  two  months.  At 
times  we  would  outrage  the  townsmen  with  loan 
collections  of  Post-Impressionists  ;  at  times  we 
would  tickle  their  vanity  and  their  interests  by  col- 
lections of  pictures  representing  the  scenery  and 
the  history  of  the  neighbourhood.  Now  and  again, 
with  a  special  effort,  we  would  get  together  some 
Rembrandts  or  a  collection  representing  the  English 

4 


so  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  iv 

school  up  to  1820.  We  should,  of  course,  have  an 
excellent  museum  of  local  archaeology.  The  Univer- 
sity itself  would  look  after  stuffed  animals.  Probably 
three  or  four  cinematograph  theatres  would  spring 
up  in  the  place,  and  we  should  have  nothing  against 
them.  And  there  would  have  to  be,  say,  half  a 
dozen  cafes  where  one  could  drink  anything  from 
chocolate  to  cocktails,  listen  to  small  orchestras, 
and  read  the  foreign  newspapers.  There  would 
have  to  be  also  at  least  four  open-air  restaurants — 
one  in  each  wind-quarter  amongst  the  woods  that 
surrounded  the  valley  in  which  the  town  lay. 

The  town  itself,  I  think,  ought  to  be  in  a  broad 
grass  valley,  because  we  want  a  river  for  boating, 
and  river-meadows  where  the  washerwomen  can 
lay  out  the  linen  on  the  grass.  Near  the  town  there 
should  be  a  couple  of  old  castles  standing  high  on 
pyramids  of  basalt.  These  would  remind  us  of  the 
times  when  robber  Barons  kept  the  town  under, 
before  the  benevolent  potentates  of  the  old  palace 
unified  and  civilized  the  country.  They  would  also 
give  us  pleasant  places  to  which  to  make  excursions. 
In  the  valley  itself  we  would  have  a  very  rich 
peasantry,  so  that  whenever  we  stood  anywhere 
upon  a  little  hill  we  could  see  the  great  stretches 
of  rich,  pleasant  country  with  a  large  number  of 
little  villages — twenty  or  thirty  little  villages  with 
red  roofs  and  the  bulbous  leaden  spires  of  churches, 
and  the  storks  flying  down  to  the  streams  and  the 
woods  covering  all  the  hillsides.  And,  of  course, 
as  we  were  the  chief  town  of  the  province  we  should 
have  large  hospitals — but  very  large  hospitals  with 
the  most  modern  equipments  1      Naturally,   these 


CH.  IV]  UTOPIA  51 

would  be  attached  to  the  University,  and  naturally, 
the  University  would  have  for  its  professors  one  or 
two  of  the  finest  surgeons  in  Europe  and  one  or 
two  of  the  finest  physicians.  This  would  make  us 
feel  infinitely  safer  in  our  Utopian  country  town.  .  .  . 

Of  course,  such  a  town  is  impossible.  It  is  un- 
thinkable.    And  yet  from  this  town  we  are  writing. 

Yes ;  there  isn't  the  least  doubt  of  it.  Once  we 
may  have  lived  in  Arcady,  now  we  live  in  Utopia. 
There  isn't  a  single  thing  missing  of  all  the  things 
that  we  have  catalogued.  The  theatre  is  here  and 
the  University  library,  and  the  musical  society  and 
the  companies,  and  the  peasants  who  go  to  the 
opera,  and  the  electric  tramways,  and  the  palace 
and  the  hospital.  And  there  are  even  seven  book- 
sellers' shops  of  the  first  class,  whereas  in  London 
you  cannot  find  one  bookseller  of  the  first  class  in 
the  whole  of  the  western  suburbs.  So  that  when 
we  come  to  think  of  it  we  are  living  in  Utopia. 

Yet  in  High  Germany  the  town  of  which  we  are 
citizens  passes  for  a  very  miserable  little  nest,  and 
the  town  rates  are  not  as  high  as  they  are  in  any 
English  village.  It  is  odd,  we  are  living  in  Utopia  ; 
we  are  living  in  an  earthly  paradise.  There  can't 
be  any  doubt  about  it.  But  just  at  this  moment 
our  man  comes  in  and  tells  us  that  the  washing  will 
not  be  home  till  to-morrow  morning,  and  we  become 
frenzied  with  rage.  We  say  that  we  will  break  the 
neck  of  this  excellent  and  long-suffering  valet  if  he 
does  not  get  all  our  collars  back  by  three  o'clock. 
Yes ;  we  are  all  citizens  of  an  earthly  paradise,  but 
— if  we  may  be  permitted  the  expression — we  will 
be  damned  if  we  do  not  leave  by  the  6.9  for  London. 


CHAPTER  V 

PAX  GERMANICA:  SERVANTS,  FAIRY  TALES,  AND 
TAILORS 

Yes,  comparing  the  domestic  life  of  nations,  I  have 
come  to  think  that  there  is  a  certain  dead-level  of 
happiness,  or  at  least  contentment,  obtaining  in  the 
German  Empire.  It  is  enjoyed  soberly  enough,  it  is 
true,  but  enjoyed  in  the  same  degree  by  no  other 
nation.  "  Dead-level "  seems  the  exact  word  to  ex- 
press what  I  mean — the  organized  happiness  of  a 
sensible,  patient,  non-nervous  people.  It  is  a  hap- 
piness which  is  legislated  for,  happiness  that  is 
adjudicated  in  equal  portions  to  every  Teuton  in 
exchange  for  what  is  so  much  dearer  to  Latins  than 
any  amount  of  ease  or  comfort — their  libre  arbitre. 

The  Kaiser  is  pleased  to  dispense  happiness — nay, 
according  to  some  of  his  recent  utterances  he  con- 
siders himself  bound  before  God  to  do  so.  So  he 
spends  his  days  dispensing  legislative  ordinances 
which  beseem  the  genius,  fit  in  with  the  idiosyn- 
crasies, of  a  people  so  biddable  and  reasonable  as  his 
subjects.  He  simply  and  formally  guarantees  to  them 
a  fixed  sum  of  well-being,  and  I  think  he  does  his 
work  very  well.  No  misery  shows  in  Germany; 
there  is  no  large-eyed,  apathetic,  wizened,  deplor- 
able slum-child  to  be  seen  hanging  about  in  the 

squalid  alleys  of  H near  the  tenements  that 

52 


CH.  V]  PAX  GERMANICA  53 

house  them,  just  as  they  do  in  York  or  Birmingham. 
There  are  no  dreary  collections  of  sodden  rags 
slouching  along  the  gutters,  picking  up  refuse, 
shrieking  bad  language  if  interrupted,  that  answer 
to  the  name  of  "woman,"  such  as  one  sees  rarely 
and  more  rarely  now  in  London,  but  still  one  sees 
them  now  and  then.  And  the  sort  of  outdoor  Hotel 
Dieu  that  stretches  all  along  the  Thames  Embank- 
ment at  midnight ;  the  free  seats,  which  a  kind 
policeman  is  apt  to  warn  the  better  class  against 
sitting  on,  are  things  a  German  would  blench  to 
look  upon  and  refuse  to  believe  in  when  told. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  no  one  ever  looks  very 
happy  in  Germany.  I  never  saw  a  face  that  could 
be  called  at  all  symptomatic  of  the  joie  de  vivre.  No 
one  ever  seems  able  to  afford  to  go  "  on  the  bust," 
or  to  care  to  do  so.  In  England  "bust"  generally 
means  beer,  and  too  much  of  it.  In  Germany  the 
stream  of  good  liquor,  for  the  light-paying  almost 
for  the  asking,  flows  so  evenly,  so  unadulteratedly, 
that  the  delicious  forbidden-fruit  feeling  that  tempts 
a  man  to  exceed  is  absent.  Beer  in  Germany  is 
properly  made  and  properly  kept ;  it  is  excellent,  it 
is  delicious  sometimes.  But  it  is  no  treat ;  it  is  just 
common.  In  countries  where  wine  takes  the  place 
of  beer  there  is  no  such  thing  as  forbidden  grapes. 
Thus  on  all  hands  is  the  lure  of  the  unpermitted 
abolished  in  Germany. 

Taxed,  admonished,  cared  for,  managed  out  of  all 
individuality,  this  great  people  seem  to  lie  in  the 
hollow  of  the  iron  hand  with  a  collective  content- 
ment, realizing  all  through  the  course  of  their 
lives  Wordsworth's   senile   ideal   "to  live  without 


54  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  v 

ambition,  hope,  or  aim,"  and  growing  so  fat  upon 
the  regime  as  to  reassure  outsiders  that  there  is  no 
"  ayenbite  of  inwyt " — no  pulling  against  the  collar. 
There  is  no  official  cruelty.  Perhaps,  individually, 
Germans  dimly  realize  that  they  are  fulfilling  the 
ideal  summed  up  by  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern 
for  the  benefit  of  Hamlet — Hamlet,  too  greedy  of 
happiness — "  happy  in  that  they  are  not  over-happy." 
Nor  do  they  seem  to  be  v^rhere  these  cynical  gentle- 
men were  not  either — "  the  very  button  of  Fortune's 
cap." 

To  stand  for  a  few  minutes  in  a  German  waiting- 
room  and  survey  the  mandates  on  the  walls  is  to 
realize  how  this  patient  people  is  in  Government 
leading-strings.  Why,  the  entire  landscape  is  plas- 
tered over  with  quadrilateral  boards  bearing  the 
words:  "Verboten,"  "Verbotener  Weg,"  "Verbo- 
tener  Eingang,"  "  Verbotener  Ausgang,"  "  Rauchen 
Verboten,"  "  Nach  acht  Uhr  Morgens  Tischtucher 
ausschiitteln  verboten"  (Forbidden  road;  Forbidden 
entrance  ;  Forbidden  exit ;  Smoking  forbidden  ; 
Forbidden  to  shake  tablecloths  out  of  the  windows 
after  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  !).  All  these  for- 
biddings  meet  you  at  every  turn  in  Germany ;  they 
are  alternately  grotesque,  reasonable,  irritating,  and 
sufficient  cause  for  revolutions.  The  game  of  poker 
is  forbidden  in  every  State  in  Germany  except  in 
the  Grand  Duchy  of  Oldenburg.  It  is  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  forbidden  to  introduce  a  young  male 
acquaintance  to  a  young  female  acquaintance ;  be- 
cause, supposing  an  illicit  amour  should  occur  after 
your  introduction,  you  will  be  held  to  have  played 
the  part  of  Pandarus,  and  will  be  sent  to  prison  for 


CH.  v]  PAX  GERMANICA  55 

many  months.  It  is  forbidden  for  Socialists  to  be 
dancing-masters. or  teachers  of  athletics.  It  is  for- 
bidden for  post-ofEce  officials  to  give  back  the 
money  for  one  damaged  ten-pfennig  stamp,  but  they 
may  do  it  for  ten.  I  once  witnessed  the  pleasant 
scene  of  a  father  taking  three  penny  postage-stamps 
to  a  post-office,  over  which  his  little  boy  had  spilt  a 
bottle  of  ink,  and  requesting  threepence  in  return. 
The  post-office  official  cited  the  regulation  to  which 
I  have  just  referred.  The  father  then  purchased 
seven  more  postage-stamps,  gravely  tore  them  into 
fragments,  and  received  in  return  for  the  whole  one 
mark.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you  desired  to  travel 
to  Dorf  Entepfuhl,  in  the  centre  of  Pomerania,  or 
to  North-West  Chester,  a  village  in  Pennsylvania, 
U.S.A.,  and  if  you  will  go  respectfully  to  the  rail- 
way-station, it  will  be  the  duty  of  an  official  in  blue 
uniform  to  give  you,  written  out,  the  times  of  start- 
ing of  every  train  on  any  alternative  route,  and  of 
every  steamship,  from  the  one  place  to  the  other. 
Moreover,  he  will  telegraph  for  you  to  every  junc- 
tion that  lies  between  the  place  of  your  starting  and 
the  boundaries  of  the  German  Empire,  and  at  each 
junction  a  railway  porter  will  meet  you  and  present 
you  with  your  ticket  for  the  next  stage,  as  well  as 
with  baggage  checks  for  your  luggage. 

Then  there  is  their  comprehensive  system  of 
insurance — absurd,  but  far  more  sensible  than  the 
English  form  in  that  it  really  is  insurance,  while  the 
other  is  but  a  form  of  compulsory  saving.  Would 
English  servants  choose  to  give  their  services  under 
the  humiliating  conditions  which  affect  their  Ger- 
man counterparts?    The   German  man-servant  is 


56  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  v 

hardened  to  the  dossier  —  the  card  which  is  out 
against  him,  and  that  can  be  referred  to  by  the 
pohce  at  his  every  change  of  place,  and  severely 
modify  the  conditions  of  it.  He  is  humiliated  at 
every  turn,  and  takes  it  out  in  tips,  so  far  as  I  can 
make  out.  For  it  is  a  fact  that  he  is  entitled  to 
scrutinize  the  visiting  list  of  any  house  into  which 
he  is  about  to  enter.  And  for  what  purpose  ?  That 
he,  and  the  tax-assessor,  may  assess  adequately  the 
approximate  value  of  the  tips  that  he  will  receive. 
For  every  guest,  every  caller,  is  expected  to  tip  the 
man  or  woman  who  lets  him  in  or  takes  off  his  coat, 
and  every  time  he  calls.  An  ample  visiting  list, 
composed  of  rich  people — the  tax-assessor  takes 
this  fact  into  consideration  when  assessing  the 
amount  of  a  man  or  woman's  tax.  I  was  walking 
through  the  streets  of  a  small  German  town  with 
one  of  these  revenue  officials  who  was  a  connection 
of  Joseph  Leopold's,  when  he  observed  the  servant- 
maid  of  one  of  his  friends.  Said  he  to  me  :  "  That 
girl  has  got  a  new  feather  in  her  hat,  I  shall  have  to 
inquire  if  her  wages  have  not  been  raised."  This, 
of  course,  was  a  joke,  but  it  came  painfully  near  the 
knuckle.     Such  petty  tyrannies  abound. 

Still,  there  are  compensations — mighty  compensa- 
tions. I  had  it  driven  into  me  very  plainly  one 
rainy  Saturday  afternoon  when  we  had  taken  a 
tram-ride  from  the  town  of  Trier  to  a  village  called 
Eupen.  At  that  time  I  had  a  house  in  London,  and 
in  this  house  1  had  left  two  female  servants,  Norfolk 
girls — I  say  "girls,"  for  with  amiable  tolerance  one 
always  somehow  calls  servants  "  girls  ";  they  like 
it ;  but  these  were  women  who  had  been  with  me 


CH.  V]  PAX  GERMANICA  57 

for  eighteen  years.  They  lived  downstairs  in  a 
semi-basement,  light  enough,  comfortable  enough. 
They  had  no  distressing  dossier;  they  had  no  three- 
penny tax  to  pay  once  a  week  (as  yet !) ;  they  had 
no  need,  beyond  curiosity,  to  scrutinize  my  visiting 
list ;  they  had  what  they  loved — tradesmen  to  call 
for  orders.  They  were  utterly  self-contained — I 
mean  that  they  had  no  occasion  to  go  beyond  the 
front  gate.  They  did  not,  even  under  the  pleasant 
regime  of  the  telephone,  need  to  be  in  continual 
readiness,  to  be  sent  out  in  white  caps  and  aprons, 
as  was  our  cruel  fashion  in  the  eighties,  for  cabs  or 
to  send  telegrams.  Yet  this  system,  wrong-headedly, 
they  much  preferred.  Many  a  picture  had  I  drawn 
for  them  of  the  pleasant  Continental  fashion  of 
marketing,  the  "  life  of  the  city  square,"  the  on  dits 
of  the  village  pump,  the  occasional  street  row,  the 
fallen  horse,  the  derelict,  unwieldy  lads  being  haled 
to  the  lock-up,  the  interests  of  the  pavement  gener- 
ally. All  this  excitement,  I  said,  is  their  Continental 
sisters'  daily  pabulum. 

But  one  recognized  statutory  outlet  these  virgins 
of  the  rocks  cling  to,  and  goodness  knows  how  thin 
a  strand  of  pleasure  it  is — their  "  Sunday  out,"  their 
ineluctable,  indestructible  privilege!  But  it  is  all 
they  have,  and  what  the  eye  sees  not,  the  heart  does 
not  lack.  If  my  own  austere  and  middle-aged 
maids  had  been  with  me  at  Eupen  on  that  Saturday 
afternoon,  they  would  have  turned  away  with  loath- 
ing from  the  cheerful  sights  I  saw ;  they  are  too  old 
now,  and  they  have  not  been  brought  up  to  it. 
They  are  quite  content  with  their  own  particular 
Walpurgis  night  of  once  a  fortnight. 


58  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  v 

A  number  of  healthy,  nicely-dressed  girls  got 
out  of  the  tram  at  Eupen.  Some  were  alone,  some 
were  accompanied  by  young  men,  sheepish,  but  not 
nearly  so  sheepish  as  the  English  youth  of  the  same 
rank.  Some,  indeed,  were  quite  sprightly,  and 
wore  a  leaf  in  the  ribbon  of  their  soft  felt  hats.  All 
the  girls  were  gay,  and  with  good  figures,  though 
inclined  to  be  stout.  How  many  young  servant 
girls  in  England  have  decent  figures,  hold  them- 
selves up,  and  have  rosy  cheeks  ?  Indeed,  the 
exigencies  of  her  place  in  England  demand  that  an 
adequate  parlourmaid  should  be  slim  and  "  interest- 
ing-looking"— phthisic  if  possible.  We  had  a  girl 
once  with  a  delicate  complexion  like  a  rose-leaf,  that 
she  chewed  rice  and  starch  to  keep  up.  She  died 
later — not  much  later. 

These  young  people  fared  towards  a  restaurant, 
whose  porch  was  wreathed  with  vines.  Inside 
there  was  a  bar,  and  a  big  table  spread  with  different 
sorts  of  sandwiches.  Attendants  hung  about  ready 
to  dispense  them.  There  were  little  tables  with 
variegated  cloths  on  them  and  flowers  in  vases. 
There  was  a  string  band  of  a  dozen  performers  on  a 
raised  estrade,  and  a  large  open  space  in  front  of 
the  band,  fringed  by  the  little  tables. 

I  had  a  British  longing  for  tea,  or  at  any  rate  for 
coffee.  I  said  to  Joseph  Leopold :  "  Can't  we  go 
in  there  and  have  something  ?"  Joseph  Leopold 
showed  himself  strongly  averse  from  the  suggested 
proceeding. 

"^It  really  isn't  the  place  where  I  could  take  you," 
he  said,  and  I  exclaimed  : 

"  Why,  isn't  it  a  restaurant  ?" 


CH.  v]  PAX  GERMANIC  A  59 

"  It  is  the  place  where  the  servants  of  Trier  spend 
their  Sundays  out,"  he  said.  "  We  should  embarrass 
them  very  much  if  we  went  in  and  sat  amongst 
them.  They  will  drink  and  dance,  and  drink  and 
dance  with  their  sweethearts  till  it  is  time  to  go 
home." 

"  When  will  that  be  ?" 

"About  ten  o'clock.  What  time  do  you  expect 
your  cook  to  be  in  on  her  day  out  ?" 

"  But  if  we  lived  in  Trier,  and  had  a  house,  and 
had  servants,  should  I  allow  them  to  come  to  a 
place  like  this  ?" 

"  You  couldn't  stop  them.  It  is  the  proper  thing 
all  over  the  country.  You  probably  won't  know 
these  well-dressed  young  ladies  again  to-morrow 

when  you  go  to  call  on  the  Herr  Professorin  B , 

and  one  of  them  opens  the  door  to  you.  Think  how 
embarrassed  she  and  you  would  be  if  you  had  sat 
and  drunk  beer  in  her  company  to-day  and  watched 
her  dancing  with  the  man  of  Professor  G- ." 

"  Our  servants,"  I  said,  "  wouldn't  let  themselves 
down  so,  as  to  come  to  a  place  like  this." 

"  Have  our  servants  got  apple  cheeks  under 
flower -wreathed  hats,  and  bouncing,  springing 
figures  under  drab  mackintoshes  ?  I  consider  the 
English  system  of  grey  slaves  immured  in  basements 
disgraceful.  And  when  you  do  let  them  out  they  have 
nothing  more  lively  to  do  than  visit  other  grey 
slaves  in  basements,  or  walk,  the  pair  of  them, 
gloomy,  hopeless,  about  grey  streets,  and  stare  at 
the  closed  doors  of  theatres  and  restaurants.  Here 
happiness  is  catered  for,  pane  et  circensibus.  Weli, 
come  away  into   the  forest,   and   we  may  find   a 


6o  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  v 

forester's   lodge  where  they'll  give   us   beer,  and 
perhaps  a  slice  of  black  bread  and  some  butter.  .  .  ." 

We  walked  along  for  miles,  like  Hansel  and 
Gretel,  or  Jorinde  and  Joringel,  and  never  saw  a 
forester's  hut,  or  any  cottage  at  all. 

A  German  forest  is  a  forest ;  it  is  not  only  a  desert 
place  where  the  fere  —  the  wilde  teste  —  congre- 
gate. I  fancy  it  was  my  Grimm-fed  upbringing 
which  made  me  stare  with  all  my  eyes  when  I  was 
first  introduced  to  an  English  forest ;  the  New 
Forest,  the  heathery  open  waste  that  occupies 
nearly  the  whole  of  Hampshire.  "  This  is  beautiful," 
I  said,  "  but  it  is  not  a  forest."  It  is  no  more  a 
forest  than  my  native  Northumberland,  with  the 
wide,  wind-swept  moors  affording  cover  to  neither 
man  nor  beast.  Here,  in  William  the  Conqueror's 
great  piece  of  devastation,  no  tailor  could  lose  him- 
self, or  climb  into  a  high  tree  to  "  spy  the  glimmer 
of  the  lamp  in  a  woodman's  cottage  where  he  may 
spend  the  night."  Sentences  like  these  were  in  my 
mind  :  "  It  was  as  still  as  a  church.  .  .  .  Not  a 
breath  of  wind  was  stirring  .  .  .  not  even  a  sun- 
beam shone  through  the  thick  leaves.  .  .  ." 

These  legends  of  Grimm — read  by  the  nursery 
firesides  for  the  mere  story  and  sensation  ;  the  charm 
to  be  realized  afterwards  in  cold  middle  age — nearly 
all  begin  like  this.  Or  if  it  is  not  a  tailor,  it  is  a 
King's  son  who  has  a  "  mind  to  see  the  world." 
Setting  forth  alone,  or  with  only  a  very  faithful 
friend,  he  either  loses  his  way  or  he  comes  to  some 
charmed  cottage  inhabited  by  an  "  old  woman  who 
is  a  witch." 

But  it  is  a  real  forest  that  is  meant,  nothing  in  the 


CH.  v]  PAX  GERMANICA  6i 

least  like  the  New  Forest.  The  nearest  thing  to 
that  in  Germany  is  the  Luneburger  Heide,  and  that 
is  not  the  locale  of  these  tales  of  perilous  charm. 
Mr.  Walter  de  la  Mare,  I  think,  to  judge  from  his 
poetry,  must  have  walked  in  German  forests  through 
long  days,  and  felt  the  exciting  sense  of  wayfaring 
and  the  soothing,  numbing  impact  of  the  slow  pro- 
cession of  the  hours.  The  leafy  canopies  hide  the 
blue  sky,  and  those  hours  seem  to  pass  audibly  in 
the  ghastly  silence — like  the  stillness  of  a  room  with 
a  coffin  in  it — which  is  a  permanent  feature  of  these 
birdless  wildernesses.  They  are  full,  nevertheless, 
of  creeping,  prowling,  inarticulate  creatures.  The 
fall  of  a  decaying  leaf,  the  spring  of  a  bent  twig,  the 
sly  pad  of  a  deer  in  its  rustling  progress  through  the 
black  brushwood  in  search  of  rare  spring  or  distant 
river,  bears  an  uncertain  significance  that  makes  the 
heart  stand  still.  It  is  bound  to  feed  the  sense  of 
romantic  excitement  to  which  every  person  brought 
up  on  legend  is  inclined  to  give  way  on  the 
slightest,  vaguest,  appeal  to  the  basic  faiths  of 
his  childhood. 

Though  it  is  nearly  always  a  forest  in  German 
legend,  it  is  not  always  a  Prince.  Sometimes  it  is  a 
wonderful  fiddler,  or  an  experienced  huntsman,  and 
more  frequently  than  either  of  these  it  is  a  tailor. 
The  Germans  have  a  particular  fondness  for  tailor 
heroes.  They  are  little  and  plucky,  like  Pepin 
d'Heristal,  who  must  really  have  been  the  original 
of  the  superstition  that  good  stuff  is  packed  in  little 
bundles.  And  I  am  sure,  moreover,  that  they  must 
have  come  from  Germany.  The  Prince  is,  as  a  rule, 
a  faineant.    He  sits  down,  and  puts  his  head  in  his 


62  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  v 

hands  after  he  has  lost  his  suite,  and  does  not  know 
which  way  to  turn.  A  Princess  is  generally  found 
at  once  to  look  after  him.  But  the  experienced 
huntsmen  and  the  wonderful  fiddlers  and  the  lusty 
tailors  are  of  a  finer  invention.  They  climb  into 
trees  to  get  their  bearings ;  they  pass  the  night  on 
one  of  the  branches  to  avoid  falling  a  prey  to  wild 
beasts,  and  in  the  morning  they  generally  see  daylight 
and  a  way  out,  or  plunge  still  deeper  to  find  the 
"  charmed  cottage,"  and  the  old  woman  in  it  who  is 
a  witch. 

I  must  quote  some  verses  of  a  poem  of  Walter  de 
la  Mare's  which,  to  me,  exquisitely  renders  the  sense 
of  imminence,  the  almost  fear  of  the  magic  loneliness 
induced  in  the  romantic  mind  by  prolonged  periods 
spent  in  a  German  forest.  Weary,  pleasingly  ex- 
hausted, one  is  ready  for  such  faint  otherworld 
suggestions  as  Mr.  de  la  Mare  is  able  to  give  us  by 
a  touch,  a  word,  a  cadence  : 


THE  JOURNEY 

"  Heart-sick  of  his  journey  was  the  Wanderer  ; 
Footsore  and  sad  was  he  ; 
And  a  Witch  who  long  had  lurked  by  the  wayside, 
Looked  out  of  sorcery. 

"  '  Lift  up  your  eyes,  you  lonely  Wanderer,' 

She  peeped  from  her  casement  small  ; 
'  Here's  shelter  and  quiet  to  give  you  rest,  young  man, 
And  apples  for  thirst  withal.' 

"  And  he  looked  up  out  of  his  sad  reverie, 
And  saw  all  the  woods  in  green, 
With  birds  that  flitted  feathered  in  the  dappling. 
The  jewel-bright  leaves  between. 


CH.  V]  PAX  GERMANICA  63 

"  And  he  lifted  up  his  face  towards  her  lattice, 
And  there,  alluring- wise. 
Slanting  through  the  silence  of  the  long  past, 
Dwelt  the  still  green  Witch's  eyes. 

•  «  «  o  • 
"  And  there  fell  upon  his  sense  the  briar, 

Haunting  the  air  with  its  breath, 
And  the  faint  shrill  sweetness  of  the  birds'  throats, 
Their  tent  of  leaves  beneath. 

"  And  there  was  the  Witch,  in  no  wise  heeding ; 
Her  arbour  and  fruit-filled  dish, 
Her  pitcher  of  well-water,  and  clear  damask — 
All  that  the  weary  wish. 

"  And  the  last  gold  beam  across  the  green  world 
Faltered  and  failed,  as  he 
Remembered  his  solitude  and  the  dark  night's 
Inhospitality." 

•  o  •  •  • 

On  that  particular  afternoon  when  Joseph  Leopold 
and  I  walked  to  find  a  cottage  for  tea,  the  sun  was 
not  "  shining  bright,  no  gentle  breeze  was  blowing 
among  the  trees,  and  everything  did  not  seem  gay 
and  pleasant."  (That  is  one  favourite  beginning  of 
Grimm's.)  No,  this  was  such  a  God-forsaken 
afternoon  as  that  described  in  "  Jorinde  and 
Joringel."  For  as  these  two  doomed  young  lovers 
went  out  to  wander  in  the  forest  all  was  beautiful 
and  bewitched.  "  The  sun  was  shining  through  the 
stems  of  the  trees,  and  brightening  up  the  dark 
leaves,  and  the  turtle-doves  cooing  softly  between 
the  may  bushes."  Then,  feeling  the  deadly  influ- 
ence of  witchcraft,  Jorinde  begins  to  cry,  and  sits 
down  in  the  sunshine  with  Joringel,  who  cries  too. 
"They  had  wandered  too  far,  and  come  too  near 
the  enchanted  castle,  whose  walls  they  saw  through 
the  brushwood  close  to  them."    Yes,  all  unwittingly 


64  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  v 

they  have  come  into  the  circle  of  the  charm,  and  the 
old  witch  who  lives  in  the  castle,  and  who  must  have 
had  a  grudge  against  Jorinde  and  been  in  love  with 
Joringel,  changes  the  maiden  into  a  nightingale. 
She  begins  to  "Jug  !  jug!  jug  !"  into  the  ears  of  her 
agonized  sweetheart  as  he  sits,  spellbound  with 
horror,  beside  her.  He  rises  to  his  feet  and  stands 
like  a  stone,  and  cannot  stir  or  weep,  while  the  witch, 
in  the  form  of  an  owl,  mocks  them.  And  when  the 
sun  sets  at  last  she  comes  out  of  the  bush  in  her 
human  shape,  and  carries  off  the  nightingale,  still 
jug-jugging. 

The  glamour  of  that  tale  was  on  me  as  I  walked 
through  the  woods  at  the  side  of  Joseph  Leopold, 
and  watched  the  sun  going  down.  Strange  red 
toadstools  began  to  glow  under  the  dead  leaves  in 
between  the  twisted  tree-roots.  We  were  on  the 
fringe  of  a  much  deeper,  darker  patch  of  forest,  and 
our  path  seemed  to  sway  and  grow  more  meagre, 
and  finally  to  lead  straight  into  it.  It  was  about 
five  o'clock.  We  were  three  miles  from  Treves,  and 
we  must  follow  that  path  to  get  home.  I  caught 
hold  of  his  arm,  and  wondered  what  terrible  sound 
would  soon  break  the  stillness.  .  .  . 

Just  as  we  turned  into  the  wild  wood,  and  lost 
even  the  consoling  sight  of  the  red  disc  of  the  sun 
setting  between  the  fir-trees  below  and  glowing 
like  a  woodcutter's  fire,  I  heard  a  cry  I  had  never 
heard  before,  and  one  more  terrible  than  I  have  ever 
imagined.  Harsh,  raucous,  something  between  a 
laugh  and  a  roar,  it  left  me  nearly  as  spellbound  as 
Joringel  when  he  missed  his  love  from  his  side.  .  .  . 

"  What's  that  ?    Oh,  what's  that  ?"  I  breathed. 

"  A  wild  cat,"  Joseph  Leopold  said  composedly. 


CHAPTER  VI 
BEER  GARDENS  v.  BEAR  GARDENS 

The  German  social  institution  called  Wirthschafts- 
garten  is  usually  roughly  translated  in  England  by 
the  words  Beer  Garden.  And  these  two  words  are 
always  pronounced  in  England  with  a  certain  degree 
of  tolerant  moral  deprecation — "  And  did  you  really 
go  to  one,  my  dear  ?" 

The  Wirthschafts  garten  is,  to  my  mind,  one  of 
the  most  reasonable,  utilitarian,  and  at  the  same 
time  poetical,  arrangements  of  a  reasonable,  utili- 
tarian, and  poetical  people.  In  England,  where 
some  emancipated  souls  read  Faust  in  translations, 
the  scene  in  Auerbach's  cellar  is  always  taken  to 
represent  this,  the  German  people's  staple  form  of 
amusement;  hence  the  shocked  question  I  have 
quoted  which  greets  travellers  on  their  return  from 
Cologne  or  Bremen.  I  should  say  that  the  parallel 
of  the  scene  in  the  cellar  might  perhaps  have  been 
found  in  the  'sixties  in  London  night  cellars,  so 
painedly  described  by  Thackeray  in  "The  New- 
comes."  Colonel  Newcome,  who  had  attended  the 
same  form  of  entertainment  in  the  'thirties,  before 
he  went  to  India,  is  said  to  be  indescribably  shocked, 
and  takes  his  young  son  away  with  fracas. 

65  5 


66  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  vi 

But  the  open-air  decent  entertainment  which  the 
modern  Garten  Wirthschaften  represent  also  ob- 
tained in  England  in  his  day.  I  have  faint  recollections 
of  the  last  flickering  symptoms  of  it  in  my  own  youth. 
I  remember,  in  those  summer  days  of  childhood 
which  seemed  so  long  and  so  much  more  summery 
than  any  summer  afternoons  that  can  occur  to  me 
now — I  remember  walking  forth  with  my  parents, 
and  perhaps  some  other  parents  and  children,  in 
very  hot  weather,  about  a  mile  out  of  Durham,  along 
the  banks  of  the  Wear,  thinly  flowing  on  its  parched 
bed  under  Pelaw  Wood.  And  we  went  to  a  place 
called  The  Strawberry  Gardens  near  Maiden  Castle. 
The  children  were  buoyed  up  on  their  long  walk 
by  talk  of  strawberries  to  be  gathered  off  the  bushes. 
And  when  we  got  there  we  all  had  to  sit  down  on 
rustic  benches  made  in  one  with  tables  that  you  had 
to  fit  your  legs  into  and  not  kick.  These  seats  were 
placed  in  the  narrow  alleys  of  the  wide,  dullish,  not 
very  gay  garden.  We  consumed — well,  it  is  so  long 
ago  I  only  remember  what  I  consumed,  and  that 
was,  I  think,  strawberries.  And  these  strawberries 
were  gathered,  all  of  them,  from  the  beds  at  our  feet, 
and  they  were  grown  in  what  is  now  as  black  as  the 
Black  Country — black,  but  still  comely,  and  not  so 
black  as  it  is  to-day — under  the  drifting  pall  of  smoke 
that  sways  hither  and  thither  as  the  wind  lists,  and 
cloud-wreaths  that  incalculably  pass  low  overhead, 
and  stoop,  and  deposit  the  smutty  death  over  the 
land  that  lies  prone  at  their  mercy.  Its  ruin  is 
certain  now ;  no  strawberries  would  grow  in  Maiden 
Castle  Wood  in  these  days,  even  if  the  railway  had 
not  swallowed  up  their  habitat. 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  .  67 

My  parents,  on  these  occasions,  drank  tea,  I  think 
— they  certainly  did  not  drink  beer.  Beer  would 
probably  have  been  cheaper,  but  by  that  time  small 
beer  was  no  longer  the  drink  of  the  gentry.  And 
we  ate  our  strawberries  on  leaves,  not  on  plates ; 
that  I  do  remember. 

This  was  not  the  only  place  in  the  little  cathedral 
town,  where  such  mild  junketing  as  pleased  English 
people  then,  and  pleases  Germans  now,  was  catered 
for.  I  remember  another  place  of  the  same  descrip- 
tion supplying  the  same  felt  want  of  simple  people, 
situate  on  the  other  side  of  Durham,  a  wild  and 
weedy  garden  among  the  ruins  of  the  old  leper 
hospital  of  Kepier.  I  believe  the  tea-garden  was 
run  by  the  patrons  of  an  old  inn,  "  The  George," 
fragments  of  which  still  cumber  the  uncared-for 
meadow  where  the  tea-gardens  were.  The  garden 
was  tended  then,  and  there  were  borders  of  flowers 
that  children  must  not  run  across.  Now,  the  un- 
tidiest  living  animal  in  the  world — that  is  to  say  a 
hen — picks  about  in  the  mossy  grass  full  of  worm- 
casts,  and  a  donkey  of  the  raggedest  browses  close 
up  to  the  summer-house  where  my  mother  sat 
with  her  friends  round  her,  and  1  ran  up  and  down 
outside  in  front  of  them,  propelling  a  rickety  per- 
ambulator. That,  too,  is  gone ;  the  doll  in  the 
perambulator  has  been  relegated  to  the  lower 
classes ;  you  never  see  a  "  lady's  child  "  with  one 
nowadays.  The  summer-house,  I  remember,  was  a 
domed,  white-painted  construction  of  plaster,  with 
a  convex  roof  and  entrance  pillars  admitting  you 
into  a  crescent-shaped  enclosure  of  no  particular 
depth.    Something  very  like  it  used  to  stand  in  the 


68  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  vi 

avenue  of  trees  in  front  of  Kensington  Palace,  which 
v/as  moved,  Heaven  knows  why,  and  placed  near 
the  Lancaster  Gate  entrance.  There  is  yet  another, 
forming  part  of  the  block  of  the  palace  buildings 
immediately  adjoining  the  little  old  door  into  the 
gardens  opposite  the  barracks,  where  vagrants  used 
to  congregate,  but  are  now  chivied  away  by  zealous 
park-keepers,  so  that  pure,  clean  nursemaids  with 
their  charges  may  shelter  from  the  rain.  They  are 
all,  these  erections,  purely  Georgian,  and  so  was  the 
one  at  Kepier. 

I  visited  Kepier  Hospital  recently  with  Joseph 
Leopold  and  went  round  to  where  the  ruined  tea- 
garden  lies,  and  stood,  a  mature  German  Frau,  on 
the  very  place  where,  in  my  blue  muslin  frock  with 
spots  on  it,  I  pushed  a  perambulator  about  in  front 
of  my  Early  Victorian  mother,  sitting  dignified  in 
the  summer-house,  wearing  a  blue  silk  dress  with 
a  lace  collar  and  a  large  hair  brooch  placed  just 
under  her  jugular  vein.  Now  a  bed  of  dark  green 
nettles  grows  and  leans  against  the  building  that 
used  to  shelter  her,  some  of  the  bricks  that  formed 
it  were  showing  under  the  plaster,  which  had  fallen 
down  on  the  broken  floor.  Scrubby  thorn-bushes 
dotted  the  hummocky  sward,  where  an  old  mare  and 
an  old  donkey  cropped  the  bare  sustenance  awarded 
them  through  cheap  humanitarianism  by  the  users  of 
their  prime.  And  then  on  another  day  I  visited  the 
other  place  that  I  remembered.  Long,  long  since  "  les 
lauriers  sont  coupes  "  in  Pelaw  Wood,  on  the  way  to 
Maiden  Castle,  where  my  father  used  to  set  up  his 
easel,  and  paint  the  distant  cathedral  towers  in  the 
hot,  yellow,  summer  haze.     The  ticket-office  of  the 


CH.  vi]  BEER  GARDENS  69 

line  to  Shincliffe  occupies  the  wooded  spaces  where 
we  used  to  sit  on  our  dark  green  painted  seats  with 
twisted  legs,  and  gaze  down  on  to  the  little  island 
in  the  middle  of  the  Wear.  That,  too,  has  dis- 
appeared. It  was  just  such  an  island  as  the  Lamb- 
ton  Worm  might  have  coiled  around. 

People  in  Durham  ceased  to  come ;  they  preferred 
a  stuffy  cinematograph  to  an  innocent  jaunt  on  a 
summer  afternoon  such  as  the  German  loves.  It  is, 
perhaps,  the  restless  Celtic  elements  in  the  English 
population  coming  to  the  top  that  has  unsettled  it, 
and  bred  this  change.  Or  is  there  a  more  simple 
reason — the  climate  ?  And  for  that  to  be  the  reason, 
I  must  adduce  a  suspicion  of  my  own  that  can  have, 
I  suppose,  no  possible  ground  in  atmospheric  fact, 
and  that  the  meteorological  data  of  the  last  fifty 
years  will  not  even  support.  Was  the  weather  in 
England  ever  less  changeable  ?  I  sometimes  think 
it  must  have  been,  at  any  rate,  for  a  long  term  of 
years,  and  for  the  many  years  of  my  childhood.  It 
seemed  then  to  be  more  like  the  weather  in  Ger- 
many now,  where  spring  comes  so  quickly,  so 
vividly,  so  dashingly,  as  to  justify  the  enthusiasm 
of  poets  for  this  season ;  their  printed  rhapsodies 
which,  in  view  of  the  English  symptom  of  the  spring, 
seem  fulsome  in  their  excessive  jubilation.  And 
English  poetry  of  the  period  is  full  of  nightingales. 
May  mornings,  violets  bathed  in  dew — we  have 
nothing  nowadays  to  set  against  all  the  poet's  ex- 
pressed raptures  except  a  speech  of  Douglas 
Jerrold's  :  "  I  blame  nobody,  but  they  call  this 
spring  1" 

At  any  rate,  this  lost  social  occasion  flourishes 


70  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  vi 

exceedingly  in  Germany,  where  climatic  conditions 
coincide  with  the  social  inclinations  of  the  mass  of 
the  people.  Not  a  provincial  town  in  Germany, 
not  even  a  manufacturing  centre  like  the  town  of 
Giessen,  which  in  some  sort  corresponds  with  the 
Durham  of  my  childhood,  but  has  its  belt  of  neces- 
sary tea-gardens.  What  would  Germans  do  with- 
out the  regular  family  exodus  of  an  afternoon  to 
some  place  a  mile,  or  a  couple  of  miles,  away  from 
the  region  of  their  toil  ?  This  is  really  a  vital  con- 
dition of  middle-class  existence. 

And  it  is  catered  for  most  admirably.  Foresters' 
lodges  high  up  in  the  wooded  heights  of  the  Eiffel 
or  the  Teutobiirger  Wald,  abandoned  monasteries, 
distant  farms — all  have  been  included  in  this  service 
of  fresh  air.  Many  a  time,  at  Hildesheim,  or 
Giessen,  or  Trier,  I  have  watched  the  mile-long 
stream  of  tea-drinkers,  faring  laboriously,  but  with 
quiet  glee,  along  the  dusty,  tree-bordered  roads  to 
the  high  garden  terrace  of  some  such  old  convent  as 
the  SchiiTenberg  at  Giessen,  situated  on  a  hill  of  a 
high,  strong  strategic  position,  or  to  some  valley- 
deep  settlement  such  as  Kloster  Arnsberg,  which 
lies  low  in  a  pleasant  river-meadow  like  Rievaulx  in 
England,  Or  they  take  their  tickets  for  the  Zahn- 
radbahn  up  into  the  Eiffel  at  Boppard,  and  march 
miles  when  they  get  to  the  top,  till  they  reach  the 
forester's  hut  on  Fleckerts'  Hohe,  where  there  is  an 
Aussicht.  And  from  an  Aussicht  this  enthusiastic 
artistic  people  will  not  be  deterred  even  by  rain.  I 
have  journeyed  with  them,  and  finding  myself 
turned  out  of  the  Zahnradbahn,  with  a  two-mile 
tramp  before  me  in  the   pouring  rain,  have  mur- 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  71 

mured  emphatically  and  aloud  my  wish  to  turn 
back.  Joseph  Leopold,  obediently  turning  aside 
from  the  promised  land  of  the  view  at  my  behest, 
was  forced  to  listen  to  the  animadversions  of  the 
rest  of  the  party  on  his  pusillanimity. 

"  Er  ist  unter  dem  Pantoffel,"  they  observed  con- 
temptuously, and  turning  their  backs  to  us,  they 
trudged,  every  man  Jack  and  woman  Jill  of  them, 
sturdily  on  in  the  rain  in  the  other  direction. 

But,  indeed,  on  golden  afternoons  I  ask  nothing 
better  than  to  join  on  to  the  procession  of  father, 
mother,  aunts  and  cousins,  and  babies  in  arms,  and 
older  children  circling  round  their  parents  like  dogs 
doubling  the  distance,  and  cheering  along  Gross 
Mutterchen  or  Xante,  robed  all  in  decent  black,  and 
marching  with  a  will.  The  men  carry  satchels  full 
of  home-made  buns  ;  all  that  the  restaurant  will  get 
out  of  them  will  be  the  price  of  the  beer  and  the 
coffee,  that  they  cannot  well  bring  with  them.  The 
women  have  their  knitting  or  fancy  work  in  their 
great  underpockets.  They  are  carefully  and  tidily 
dressed.  It  was  a  privation  to  me,  but  out  of  polite- 
ness I  had  always  to  keep  my  hat  on  and  so  had 
Joseph  Leopold.  Any  member  of  the  hatless  brigade 
would  have  deeply  shocked  these  dear  decent  people. 

Up  to  the  Schiffenberg,  near  Giessen,  it  is,  as  I 
have  said,  a  desperate  climb.  There  is  a  zig-zag 
path  up  to  the  top,  of  which  I  availed  myself,  but 
I  noticed  those  stout  sable-clad  German  Frauen 
nimbly  scaling  the  hill  where  it  was  steepest,  and 
where  there  was  no  path  at  all.  Up  they  went,  the 
stoutest  first,  up  the  sheer  bank,  treading  on  slippery, 
beech-mast,  catching  on  to  ineffectual  sticks  of  brush- 


73  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  vi 

wood,  prodded,  hoisted  and  pulled  by  their  husbands 
and  brothers — I  dare  not  say  sweethearts,  in  view 
of  the  extremely  familiar  points  dappui  by  whose 
means  the  services  of  the  strong  arm  were  made 
available.  They  looked  like  a  large  party  of  beetles 
scaling  the  sheer  sides  of  a  precipice. 

Oh,  but  the  blessed  calm  of  the  arched  convent 
porch  and  stone  terrace  when  once  one  did  get  up 
there!  Sitting  on  the  terrace,  in  the  old  cloisters 
with  tables  set  in  the  narrow  way  that  nuns  in 
meditation  had  so  often  paced,  we  called  for  refresh- 
ments, and  looked  down  on  the  scene  of  our  efforts. 
Later  on,  we  rose  and  went  into  the  inn  inside  the 
walls  and  priced  old  oak  chests.  The  walls  of  the 
staircase  were  whitewashed,  and  yet  they  appeared 
to  bear  a  leafy  pattern,  like  a  well-known  Morris  wall- 
paper. I  discovered  it  to  be  a  living  wall-paper, 
composed  of  fir-branches  of  even  lengths  disposed 
at  regular  intervals  along  the  dado  and  placed  in  a 
leaning  attitude,  so  that  a  fair  copy  of  the  paper 
Mr.  Morris  aptly  christened  "Evenlode"  was  pro- 
duced. All  the  rooms  were  papered  in  the  same 
simple  fashion,  and  visitors  could  live  there  at  the 
rate  of  three  marks  a  day,  pension. 

These  conventual  offices  were  built  in  a  circle 
enclosing  a  large  Platz,  part  grass,  part  gravel,  with 
an  orchard  and  a  farmyard,  a  carriage  yard,  and  a 
garden.  Nothing,  however,  was  railed  or  partitioned 
off.  There  was  only  one  building  out  of  use  and 
not  kept  in  repair,  and  that  was  the  church. 

We  went,  Joseph  Leopold  and  I,  and  an  eccentric 
American  poet  of  tenderish  years,  into  that  church. 
Half  one  side-aisle  was  open  to  the  day,  and  farm 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  73 

implements  were  stored  in  it — rusty  ploughshares, 
carts,  and  lumber — repugnant  enough  to  its  former 
inhabitants  had  they  been  alive  and  cognizant  of  the 
desecration.  On  the  more  sheltered  side  of  the 
building,  where  the  roof  was  still  good  and  whole, 
was  an  object  which  was  surely  an  old  thing  when  the 
last  nun  left.  It  was  a  stage  on  which  miracle  plays 
had  been  enacted.  We  all  know  that  the  very  name 
Stage  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  fundamental 
necessity  of  the  actors  for  a  raised  scaffolding.  It 
is  the  primary  sense  of  the  word — the  "  two  boards 
and  a  passion"  of  the  Middle  Ages.  There  were 
two  floors  to  this  erection,  and  on  the  upper  one  the 
actors— God  the  Father,  Mary  the  Virgin — enacted 
their  parts,  and  the  heroes  of  the  play,  each  with  his 
Vice  at  his  elbow,  ranted  or  intoned  theirs.  Below, 
roughly  speaking,  it  was  Hell,  and  there  the  Devil 
and  the  powers  of  Evil  lived,  and  through  a  trap- 
door ascended  to  the  floor  above  and  worked  their 
mischief  But  they  always  went  down  again  abruptly 
and  ended  in  the  lower  regions.  This  machine  was 
portable  and  perishable,  and  made  of  wood  gaily 
painted.  It  was  about  the  size  of  a  modern  motor 
omnibus,  the  upper  floor  borne  up  by  fluted  pillars, 
rudely  carved  and  painted.  And  just  such  a  stage, 
stained  faintly  with  stained-glass  window  colours, 
worm-eaten  and  ragged  with  Time's  defacement 
and  the  insidious  damp  of  every  day,  stood  on  the 
cold  stone  flags  of  the  ruined  chapel  of  the  nuns 
of  the  Schiffenberg.  This  remarkable  object  was 
quite  rotten  with  age  and  the  ravages  of  worms, 
but  even  in  its  decay  it  was  a  decorative  object. 
The  traces   of  original  vivid  painting  in  primary 


74  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  vi 

colours  still  clung  to  the  decaying  woodwork,  and 
the  trap-door  appeared  to  be  intact.  But  the  re- 
spectable way  up  for  the  heavenly  choir  of  performers 
had  long  since  disappeared,  and  the  American  poet 
wanted  to  get  up  on  top.  Very  much  against  our 
judgment,  he  insisted  on  clambering  up  by  the 
fluted  pillars,  and  further  scraped  and  denuded 
them  of  the  painted  arabesques  that  decorated  their 
poverty  -  shrunken  bulk.  Presently  we  saw  him 
pottering  about  on  top  and  declaiming  his  own  verse 
in  a  sort  of  medieval  chant  which  would  not,  per- 
haps, have  disgraced  one  of  the  original  performers. 
And  then,  with  a  small  insidious  crash,  he  dis- 
appeared and  made  his  descent  into  hell,  covered 
with  the  powder  off  heaven's  floor,  which  he  had 
gathered  in  his  passage  through  the  airy  boards 
upholding  it. 

The  poet  was  not  much  hurt — Heaven  had  let  him 
down  easy — but  we  had  to  pay  half-a-crown  for  the 
damage,  and  I  fear  we  very  much  knocked  another 
nail  in  the  coffin  of  the  past.  That  stage  will  go  the 
way  of  all  stages  the  sooner  for  my  young  friend's 
careless  impairing  of  it,  for  though  he  is  a  medieval 
poet,  and  thin  and  hungry-looking,  he  is  over  six 
foot,  and  an  athlete. 

Another  time,  some  German  friends  took  us  to  tea 
at  a  convent  in  the  valley — the  convent  of  Kloster 
Arnsberg — but  very  often  it  was  to  quite  modern 
establishments  that  we  went;  erections  like  a  smaller 
Crystal  Palace,  where  those  who  prefer  it  can  drink 
their  tea  or  their  coff'ee  in  glass  and  under  glass.  I 
have  lingered  outside  and  watched  the  children 
playing  ball,  and  wondered  to  see  their  elders  sitting 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  75 

mewed  up,  packed  like  herrings,  eating  indigestible 
cakes  in  very  large  sections. 

At  Herrenhausen,  in  the  tea-garden  there,  after 
we  had  ordered  our  coffee  we  were  invited  by  the 
waiter  to  do  as  everyone  else  was  doing,  and  enter 
a  glass-house  close  at  hand  and  choose  our  own 
confectionery.  There  neat-handed  Dienst-m'ddchen 
were  deftly  dispensing  to  moist-eyed  votaries  of 
pleasure  sections  of  the  most  various  and  voluptuous 
Kuchen  that  imagination  can  conceive  or  melting 
tongue  render.  The  tables  were  covered  with 
wooden  trenchers,  supporting  discs  of  multicoloured 
pastry  covered  with  sugar  icing,  and  set  with 
crystallized  fruit  and  flowers.  Numb  with  awe, 
you  pointed  to  the  most  bewildering  example  of  all 
this  riot  of  confectionery ;  at  once  a  large  slab  was 
cut  off  for  you,  deposited  on  a  cardboard  plate,  and 
you  carried  it  out.  Thus  did  I,  rejoining  a  slightly 
sceptical  Joseph  Leopold ;  the  sneer  of  the  Dieted 
was  on  his  face. 

And  I  sat  down  and  ate  my  slab.  It  was  good, 
but  not  so  very  good  ;  it  was  good  as  a  cake  could 
be,  I  suppose;  it  probably  would  give  me  a  mild 
indigestion,  after  the  manner  of  rich  cakes,  but  it 
would  not  lay  me  under  the  table.  Yes,  I  was 
forced  to  admit  that,  although  I  had  chosen  it  for 
its  tumultuous  suggestion  of  excess,  its  wild  promise 
of  poisonous  joys,  it  was  only  a  cake,  and  not  so 
very  rich  at  that.  It  was  just  like  life,  or  a  novel  of 
the  East  by  a  modern  English  novelist.  It  had 
momentarily  given  me  the  Eastern  feeling,  and 
allowed  me  to  imagine  that  for  once  I  was  prac- 
tising the  sin  of  enormity.    Inside  that  glass-domed 


76  THE  DESIRABLE  ALTEN        [ch.  vi 

mosque,  where  the  choice  had  been  made,  I  had 
dared  to  think  that  I  was  Sinbad  in  the  Valley  of 
Emeralds,  or  a  pure  Englishman  in  a  bazaar  in  the 
naughty  end  of  Cairo.  The  next  moment  I  realized 
that  the  grey  reality  of  greed,  stripped  and  shorn 
of  the  prismatic  colours  lent  it  by  the  fecund 
imagination,  was  just  a  plain  piece  of  Sand  Kuchen 
with  sugar,  nothing  more.  And  I  am  afraid  it  is 
very  much  the  same  with  novelists'  accounts  of  the 
acme  of  dissipation,  when  the  unhappy  showman  is 
driven  to  set  down  for  his  readers  a  picture  of  the 
terrible  enormities  that  he  has  been  hinting  at  and 
suggesting  all  through  his  earlier  chapters. 

Joseph  Leopold  was  drinking  honest  beer,  and 
knew  nothing  of  these  imaginations  of  mine.  For 
German  beer — properly  made  and  kept  beer — is  the 
main  point  of  all  this  vast  system  of  out-of-door 
junketing,  and  do  not  let  us  forget  it.  And  the 
reason  that  the  institution  of  the  Garten  Wirthschaft 
does  not  flourish  in  England  is  mainly  a  question  of 
beer. 

In  one  particular  Bier  Garten  in  the  environs  ol 
Hildesheim  of  which  I  am  thinking,  on  a  certain 
summer  afternoon  a  troop  of  orderly,  sober,  decent, 
suave  and  gentle  persons  of  all  ages  and  sexes  were 
sitting  on  freshly-raked  gravel,  at  little  tables  covered 
all  with  red-chequered  table-cloths  and  with  coffee- 
cups  and  glasses  on  them.  Their  children  sat 
beside  them,  and  their  dogs  couched  at  their  feet  or 
circulated  about  the  feet  of  other  clients.  Birds 
hopped  about  under  the  tables,  picking  up  the 
crumbs  which  these  gentle  people  from  time  to  time 
cast  to  them.    There  they  sat,  stolidly,  composedly, 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  n 

as  if  butter  wouldn't  melt  in  their  mouths,  gulping 
down  grosse  Hellers  and  kleiner  Dunklers,  and  more 
and  more  of  them,  with  no  diminution  of  their  holy 
calm.  Their  dogs  did  not  quarrel,  the  birds  still 
hopped  about  their  toes  in  utter  confidence ;  every- 
one was  sure  that  no  chairs  would  be  hurriedly 
pushed  aside  or  angry  words  flout  the  sweet  air 
they  were  taking  in,  amid  smoke  of  cigars  or  pipes, 
and  the  soft  breath  of  human  converse.  And  dis- 
creet wives,  with  their  children  of  all  ages  to  think 
about,  kept  an  eye  on  the  sun  and  saw  that  it  was 
declining.  When  they  thought  it  was  time,  they 
folded  up  their  fancy  work,  wrapped  up  the  re- 
mainder of  the  buns,  shook  the  crumbs  off  their 
children's  bibs  and  folded  them  up  likewise,  and 
turned  their  eyes  westwards  to  where  the  gilded 
spires  of  Hildesheim  seemed  to  point  them  to  their 
homes.  Then  men  got  up  and  shook  themselves, 
and  paid.  There  was  in  them  plenty  of  beer,  but 
not  the  least  bit  of  harm  in  the  world.  Could  the 
same  have  been  said  of  men  and  women  in  a  like 
case  in  England  ? 

Think,  even  if  other  circumstances  had  been 
equal,  what  it  would  have  been  after  a  couple  of 
hours'  seance — in  England  !  We  should  have  had 
the  ugly  sights  and  sounds  so  demoralizing  for 
children  that  an  enlightened  Government  —  in 
England — has  decreed  that  father  and  mother  must 
run  their  own  errands  to  the  public-house.  Gross 
words  would  have  broken  the  calm  of  the  evening 
hour  in  the  country  of  strenuous  temperance 
and  protective  liquor  laws !  But  there  are  no 
places  of  this  kind  in   England.     And  if  even  a 


78  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  vi 

place  of  this  description  should  have,  somehow  or 
other,  scraped  through  with  a  licence,  what  manager 
would  have  dared  to  risk  the  responsibility  of  the 
direction  of  such  a  hot-bed  of  trouble  and  drunken- 
ness ?  Why,  even  if  he  had  got  the  Government  to 
lend  him  a  force  of  police  to  hold  in  readiness  he 
could  not  manage  it !  It  is  to  a  certain  extent  the 
quality  of  English  beer  which  prevents  the  estab- 
lishment and  survival  of  the  innocent  form  of  weekly 
saturnalia  that  I  am  advocating  in  England  I  German 
beer  is  not  in  the  least  like,  in  strength,  in  quahty, 
or  maturing,  to  the  stuff  which  notoriously  wrecks 
the  Englishman's  peace  of  mind,  his  pocket,  and  his 
home.  It  is  not  heady,  it  is  diluted ;  it  is  not  drugged 
or  doctored,  and  it  is  kept  properly. 

I  never  saw  in  Germany  anything  tantamount  to 
the  swinish  buvette  of  France,  the  terrible  nouvel 
art  Bottle  and  Jug  Entrance  of  England,  where 
brutal  men  and  haggard  women  slouch  in  and  out 
in  search  of  their  anodyne  against  the  cold,  dull, 
pallid  misadventure  of  their  homes.  For  the  public- 
house  in  England  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a 
chemist's  shop,  where  the  best  drug  of  all  is  sold 
across  the  counter,  and  where  light  is.  Light,  more 
light,  and  yet  more  light !  Does  anyone  realize  the 
exhilarating  powers  of  mere  light  on  these  animals 
coming  blinking,  peering,  out  of  dark,  airless  caves, 
where  they  grovel  on  the  fringe  of  destitution? 

I  am  glad  to  think  that  the  Puritan  spirit  in 
England,  which  vetoes  colour,  charm,  gaiety,  and 
all  attempts  at  beauty,  true  or  meretricious  (mere- 
tricious beauty  is  better  than  none  at  all),  cannot 
prevent  the  gas-lamp's  flare,  however  dreary ;  the 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  79 

coarse  irradiation  that  forcedly  illumines  every 
three  or  four  paces  of  the  dim  street  or  alley.  One 
hears  the  temperance  advocate  bewailing,  "  Every 
third  house  is  a  public-house !"  Can  they  wonder  ? 
The  large  coloured  bottle  in  the  windows  of  chemist's 
shops  are  not  there  for  nothing  ;  light  attracts,  and 
both  forms  of  drug-stores  have  discovered  that 
elementary  fact. 

In  Germany  I  am  constantly  pulling  Joseph  Leo- 
pold by  the  coat  and  praying  him  to  let  us  enter 
here,  into  this  or  that  prettily  decorated  little  hotel  or 
restaurant,  with  flowering  oleanders  in  pots  near  the 
door,  and  soft  brise-bise  curtains  in  the  windows  and 
not  too  much  brass  about,  but  plenty  of  nice  brown 
panelling.  And  as  often  as  not  he  refuses  because 
a  gentleman  cannot  take  a  lady  into  what  is,  after  all, 
a  public-house  corresponding  to  the  gin-palace  in 
England.  Any  place  of  call  in  England  which 
permitted  itself  to  be  as  attractive  as  any  one  of 
these  would  indubitably  lose  its  licence.  Govern- 
ment morality  would  be  on  its  hind  legs  at  once  lest 
vice  should  masquerade  as  health,  as  joy,  as  beauty. 
It  carefully  penalizes  joy  and  merry-making  by  the 
enforcement  of  due  ugliness  in  every  place  where 
this  habit  is  permitted  to  be  indulged.  Does  an 
English  landlord  desire  to  make  his  hotel  or 
restaurant  the  least  bit  attractive,  he  wisely  sends 
out  for  his  liquor  sooner  than  ask  for  the  licence 
that  is  sure  to  be  refused  him  on  the  pleasant  face 
of  it. 

I  have  on  several  occasions  persuaded  Joseph 
Leopold  to  consent  to  take  me  on  a  Sunday  after- 
noon or  evening  when  a  concert  of  some  sort  is 


8o  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  vi 

announced  by  a  placard  over  the  door  of  The  Anker 
or  The  Hirsch.  And  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  form, 
in  front  of  a  table  with  a  white  cloth  and  a  mug  of 
beer  in  front  of  me  on  a  white  pad  to  catch  the 
drips,  I  have  watched  the  other  quiet  people, 
husbands  and  wives,  brothers  and  sisters,  sweet- 
hearts, lonely  bachelors,  all  likewise  occupied,  and 
the  strains  of  a  good  German  band  resound  in  my 
ears,  less  cultivated  than  those  of  the  modest  couple 
beside  me,  or  the  sweethearts  who  break  off  their 
lover's  talk  to  listen.  And  yet,  socially  speaking,  I 
have  really  no  business  to  be  there,  and  the  solemn 
Frauen  who,  maybe,  come  next  day  to  sit  on  the 
edges  of  the  chair  for  a  brief  statutory  visit,  would 
perhaps  leave  off  calling  if  they  knew  where  I  had 
been  sitting  the  day  before.  For  it  is  just  as  if  I  had 
been  sitting  with  a  hall  porter  and  his  wife,  with 
Mary  Jones  who  opens  the  door  to  me,  with  the 
men  who  clean  the  windows  in  a  public-house, 
neither  more  nor  less.  Oh  no,  I  never  mention  it, 
nor  that  I  am  writing  a  book  about  Germany  as  an 
excuse  for  my  indecent  gregariousness. 

But  the  use  by  my  class  of  the  open-air  tea- 
gardens,  some  of  them,  is  not  more  reprehensible 
in  Germany  than  sitting  in  the  park  on  a  Sunday, 
on  the  slopes  in  Kensington  Gardens  in  England. 
It  depends  on  the  neighbourhood,  of  course,  but  in 
a  garrison  town,  say,  like  Trier,  you  sit  next  officers 
in  full  uniform  with  long  swords  trailing  in  the  dust 
beside  them,  and  smart  German  ladies  with  their 
dachshunds  and  poodles.  The  carriages  that  have 
brought  them  out  of  Trier  stand  with  the  shafts 
flung  back  on  the  green  hard  by,  waiting  to  take 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  8i 

them  back.     There  is  quite  an  atmosphere  of  "  the 
best  people  "  about  it  all. 

We  had  no  carriage  and  no  motor_,  and  we  did  not 
know  our  way  about.  One  afternoon,  at  Treves,  or 
Trier — what  do  I  mean  by  spelling  it  the  French 
way  ? — we  crossed  the  river  aimlessly  and  reached 
the  suburb  called  Pallien.  And  there  the  idea  of 
tea  —  I  say  tea  from  alien  habit :  it  is  generally 
coffee — overcame  us,  and  we  wondered  at  the  end 
of  what  nice  longish  walk  a  pleasant  Wirthschaft- 
garten  might  exist  ?  We  followed  a  certain  German 
family,  who  had  crossed  in  the  ferry  with  us — a 
family  of  about  six  persons,  an  obvious  papa  and 
mamma,  a  little  boy,  a  little  girl,  a  father-in-law  (?), 
and  a  sister  (?),  also  a  white  Pomeranian  dog. 

We  stepped  side  by  side  with  them  to  the  foot  of 
a  sheer  red  marl  cliff  with  a  long  ascent  of  stone 
steps  cut  out  of  it.  They  were  obviously  preparing 
to  climb  it,  so  as  to  attain  to  the  heavy  woods  that 
clothed  the  summit.  It  seems  preposterous  to  earn 
one's  tea  in  so  painful  a  manner,  but  as  Joseph 
Leopold  said,  what  they  can  climb,  surely  we  can 
climb  !  And  though  my  spirit  fainted  many  a  time, 
where  a  stout,  heavily-clad  German  Frau  leads 
cheerfully,  must  not  a  slight,  wiry,  lanky,  ex- 
Englishwoman  follow  ?  And  for  nothing  in  the 
world  would  Joseph  Leopold  have  desisted  once 
the  battle  was  joined.  So  we  came  after  them,  at  a 
respectful  distance,  and  began  to  ascend  the  stone 
steps. 

At  the  top  we  had  a  few  moments  to  survey  the 
famous  Marien  Saule.  This  is  an  altar  to  Minerva 
which  the  Roman  occupiers  of  Trier  placed  there 

6 


82  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  vi 

years  ago.  The  pediment  remains ;  for  Minerva  the 
Virgin  has  been  newly  substituted.  So  placed,  she 
dominates  the  town,  and  at  night  the  fan  of  seven 
electric  lights  that  is  arranged  over  her  head  in  a 
sort  of  smoke  cowl,  winks  and  stares  like  a  beacon. 

We  passed  her,  we  passed  the  gates  of  two  tea- 
gardens.  They  appeared  damp  and  closed  for  the 
season ;  it  was  October,  and  a  little  late  in  the  year 
for  outdoor  amusements.  We  passed  them  by. 
On  the  way,  the  little  white  dog  showed  an  inclina- 
tion to  nag  the  big  brown  dog ;  the  big  dog  showed 
the  smaller  at  once  that  it  did  not  intend  to  allow  it, 
and  our  wise  guides  endorsed  the  demonstration, 
though  it  was  evidently  attended  with  some  dis- 
comfort to  the  little  white  dog,  who  was  a  fool  and 
a  pet.  Having  learned  its  limitations  it  subsided, 
and  there  was  no  more  fighting  that  journey. 

We  all  crossed  a  sunken  meadow  at  the  top  which 
seemed  to  me  to  be  the  crater  of  an  extinct  volcano, 
the  sort  of  Kessel  in  which  the  whole  village  of 
Schwalbach  is  built — a  valley  sheltered  in  a  hilltop. 
Then  we  proceeded  to  go  uphill  again  through 
covered  ways  where  only  two  could  walk  abreast. 
These  were  skilfully  engineered  in  the  sides  of  the 
mountain,  banked  by  spreading  tree-roots  and 
roofed  by  their  branches.  We  ceased  to  see  the 
sky  or  to  know  how  much  farther  we  should  have 
to  ascend.  The  thin  stems  of  the  trees  stood  away 
on  either  side  of  the  hollow  pathway  :  they  were  of 
a  vivid  coppery  green  that  spoke  eloquently  of 
damp.  We  went  along  in  comparative  silence.  We 
felt  bound  to  leave  a  correct  distance  between  us 
and  the  party  in  front  lest  we  should  annoy  them. 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  83 

and  lead  them  to  suppose  that  we  were  making  use 

of  them  and  did  not  know  the  way  to to  the  place 

where  we  were  all  going,  quite  as  well  as  they 
did. 

But  ,  wherever  it  was,  was  a  very  long  way 

off.  And  we  mounted  always.  Joseph  Leopold 
was  growing  visibly  and  audibly  thinner.  Indeed, 
we  both  puffed  and  blew.  We  were  not  near 
enough  to  our  guides  to  ascertain  whether  they 
were  also  out  of  breath,  but  I  fancy  they  were  not. 
You  see,  they  knew  exactly  how  far  their  powers  of 
endurance  would  be  tested,  and  they  were  sure  of 
tea  and  buns  at  the  end.  At  least,  we  hoped  so ; 
but  the  dreadful  supposition  occurred  to  me  :  Were 
they  all  on  their  way  to  visit  friends  ? 

"  Yes,  probably  going  out  to  tea  on  some  German 
Campden  Hill  or  other,"  Joseph  Leopold  sneered. 

He  considers  my  old  home  and  its  customs  as 
painfully  and  ineluctably  suburban,  and  never  misses 
a  chance  of  a  gibe  at  it.  But  he  did  not  want  to 
upset  me  too  much,  and  he  was  quite  amiably  sure 
that  a  tea-garden  of  sorts  was  the  vision  that  lay 
on  the  eyeballs  of  our  precursors — a  vision  of  an 
actuality,  and  no  false  mirage. 

Still  the  road  wound  uphill  all  the  way,  which  is 
quite  contrary  to  the  usual  run  of  roads  to  dissipa- 
tion of  any  kind.  The  spindle  legs  of  the  child  in 
front  began  to  wobble  for  me,  and  I  ached  and 
groaned  audibly.  We  had  come  a  good  four  miles 
without  seeing  so  much  as  one  glimpse  of  encourag- 
ing daylight,  and  were  thus  absolutely  unable  to 
gauge  the  probable  height  of  the  ascent  we  had  so 
rashly  taken.     After  all,  this  couldn't  be  the  Eiffel, 


84  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  vi 

for  it  wasn't  marked  large  and  looming  on  the 
map.  .  .  . 

And  suddenly  we  lost  them,  the  white  dog,  the 
spindle-legged  child,  and  the  rest.  They  seemed  to 
sink,  with  all  our  hopes  of  tea,  below  the  verge.  .  .  . 

And  that  is  exactly  what  had  happened.  We  had 
now  reached  the  very  top  of  the  hill,  and  the  path 
had  taken  to  going  down  as  steeply  as  it  had  come 
up.  We  hastened  on,  and  peered,  as  it  were,  over  the 
edge  and  saw  their  heads,  and  observed  the  man  of 
the  party,  stooping,  take  the  white  dog  off  the  lead. 
We  now  gained  hope.  They  must,  by  this  sign, 
feel  that  they  were  near  a  goal  of  some  kind,  and 
that  therefore  the  little  cherished  white  dog  could 
neither  lose  itself  nor  getinto  mischief  And  although 
hope  now  waxed  strong,  our  poor  tired  legs,  braced 
to  the  ascent,  resented  the  reverse  movements  of 
descending. 

We  saw  only  a  moral  daylight ;  no  actual  ray 
pierced  the  leafy  canopy  overhead.  But  we  were 
careful  to  lose  the  pioneers  no  more  ;  we  kept  them 
well  in  view  until  such  time  as,  after  a  fit  of  pain- 
fully increased  velocity,  we  seemed  to  tumble  and 
fling  ourselves  down  into  a  small  green  clearing, 
fathoms  below,  with  the  dull  shimmerof  a  little  river 
running  peaceably,  and  not  in  the  least  like  the 
mountain  torrent  it  should  by  rights  have  been. 
And  on  its  little  banks  there  were  orchard  trees  and 
a  little  house,  and  beyond,  a  green  prairie  dotted 
with  little  tables — tables  with  the  tea-heralding  red 
cloths  upon  them.  A  high  hill,  covered  closely  with 
trees  like  the  hill  we  had  just  descended,  rose  up 
on  the  other  side  of  the  valley,  and  shut  the  little 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  85 

paddock,  where  the  grass  grew  very  green,  com- 
pletely in.  And  when  we  came  nearer,  right  down  to 
the  foot  of  our  hill  where  the  rustic  bridge  was  that 
admitted  into  the  little  pocket  garden,  I  saw  the  glint 
of  an  officer's — the  glint  of  two  officers*  uniforms. 
I  saw  a  handsome  landau  with  its  shafts  turned  back, 
and  I  saw  a  man  in  a  tree  gathering  plums  on  the 
river's  brink.     My  pains  were  assuaged. 

We  took  a  table,  ordered  coffee  and  Strufel  Kuchen 
—  all  there  was  —  and  waited  till  a  handmaiden 
should  appear,  bearing  the  usual  packed  tray,  tread- 
ing delicately  in  the  long  grass,  for  fear  it  should 
throw  her  down.  Joseph  Leopold  smoked  a  fat 
German  cigar,  and  I  talked  to  all  the  friendly  dogs 
that  galloped  round  about  and  came  to  me  and  asked 
for  pieces  of  Kuchen.  Some  of  the  officers  who 
owned  these  dogs  approved  of  my  advances ;  some 
of  them  didn't,  and  called  their  beasts  austerely  to 
heel.  I  was  up  against  German  convention  again  ! 
So  I  desisted,  and  sat  still  and  kept  my  eyes  in  the 
boat,  and  watched  the  purple  plums  fall  on  the 
grass  as  the  man  in  the  tree  shook  them  down  hard 
by  where  I  was  sitting.  I  watched  a  lady  at  the  next 
table  to  me  get  up  and  take  a  fidgety,  fractious  child 
— a  very  fidgety,  fractious  child  for  Germany — to 
stand  under  the  tree  and  perhaps  succeed  in  catching 
a  plum  in  the  lap  of  its  frock.  And  I  heard  the  lady 
say  in  German,  smiling,  however,  as  sweetly  as 
possible  on  the  rest  of  the  party,  **  I  leave  my 
character  behind  me." 
And  I  turned  to  Joseph  Leopold,  and  said  : 
"  How  like  Campden  Hill !  Would  you  like  to  leave 
at  once,  and  look  for  something  less  cosmopolitan  ?" 


86  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  vi 

But  Joseph  Leopold  was  happy,  and  busied  with 
guide-books  to  enable  him  to  find  a  different  way 
back  to  Trier.  Neither  of  us  wanted  to  climb  all 
over  the  Dead  Councillor  again.  What  a  name  for 
a  hill !  So  I  went  on  listening,  trying  to  find  out  if 
the  family  of  the  lady  who  had  taken  the  naughty 
child  to  see  the  plums  fall  were  really  taking  her 
character  or  not — schwiitzen.  I  don't  believe  they 
mentioned  her ;  she  had  apparently  disarmed 
criticism.  They  sat  and  watched  the  good  children 
that  remained  consuming  Strufel  Torte,  a  very  whole- 
some cake,  appropriated  for  young  ravens,  because 
it  is  so  dry  that  you  are  compelled  to  chew  it 
adequately. 

A  way  was  found.  We  left  the  Dead  Councillor 
severely  alone,  and  walked  home  by  the  road  to 
Trier,  through  the  valley  that  broadens  out  as  you 
approach  the  city.  We  saw  by  the  guide-book  that 
ruins  of  the  seats  of  Roman  country  gentlemen  flank 
the  road ;  we  were  not  very  far  from  Neumagen, 
where  Constantine  built  himself  a  palace. 

The  road  from  Altenhausen — it  was  Altenhausen 
where  we  had  had  our  coffee — was  very  lonely  in  the 
gathering  dusk.  The  carriages  in  the  inn  yard  had 
long  since  been  inspanned  and  had  driven  away. 
The  road  was  bordered  with  white  stones — at  least, 
they  were  white  only  on  the  sides  where  they  faced 
the  approach  to  the  road  at  right  angles ;  the  sides 
parallel  to  it  were  tarred  black.  It  is  inconceivable 
that  I  should  have  had  to  ask  Joseph  Leopold  the 
reason  of  this,  and  I  will  not  really  insult  the  reader 
by  passing  on  the  explanation  that  was  given  me. 
Only,  I  was  under  the  impression  that,  even  with  so 


CH.  VI]  BEER  GARDENS  87 

much  beer  about,  the  German  coachman  could  always 
be  trusted  to  know  his  way  home  in  the  dark. 

It  was  quite  dark  when  we  at  last  reached  the 
outskirts  of  the  town  of  Trier,  ugly  and  unsightly, 
as  even  the  outskirts  of  beautiful  places  are.  Waste 
matter  is  always  pathological  and  repulsive,  and  the 
bigger  and  finer  the  house  the  greater  amount  of 
waste  product  will  be  engendered.  And  one  has 
somehow  to  take  the  detritus  of  civilization  into 
account,  and  make  room  for  it.  It  is  like  toleration 
in  marriage :  there  must  be  a  midden  and  a  box- 
room.  But  high  up  and  far  away  on  the  heights 
we  had  travelled  over  that  afternoon  Minerva — 
Virgin,  Goddess,  under  whatever  name  we  know 
her  by — brooded,  and  flung  her  seven-rayed  light 
wide  over  dark  alleys  and  railway  sheds  and 
trucks,  and  the  converging  tram-lines  of  the  city 
she  protects  and  dominates. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS 

The  Kur — that  great  German  institution  in  which 
Englishmen  and  Englishwomen  are  glad  to  partici- 
pate— would  appear  to  be  specially  designed  for  the 
traditional  German.  The  traditional  German  eats 
a  great  deal,  drinks  a  great  deal,  and  takes  no  exer- 
cise at  all.  Real  Germans — a  good  many  of  them 
that  I  have  known — eat  very  sparingly  of  food 
cooked  "^  la  mode  du  pays  de  France,"  and  walk 
twenty  miles  a  day.  There  are  always,  however, 
the  obese  and  unregenerate  of  both  nations,  and 
these  are  pretty  well  represented  at  the  dear,  smart 
little  towns — towns  without  personality  or  civic 
character  of  any  kind — which  lie  scattered  all  over 
Germany.  That  is  the  horrid  part  of  it.  If  you  are 
well  enough  to  do  what  is  called  "  poke  about " 
Homburg,  or  Ems,  or  Nauheim,  or  Schwalbach,you 
are  all  the  while  disagreeably  conscious  of  the 
purely  parasitical  nature  of  the  dull  louts,  male  and 
female,  who  look  sheepishly  out  of  cottage-doors, 
or  slouch  about  with  pails  and  spill  things  into  the 
gutter.  These  good  people,  you  realize,  are  tamely 
going  about  their  business  of  living  under  the  heel 
of  the  alien  crowd  of  visitors  by  whom  they  exist. 

88 


CH.  VII]    PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS    89 

I  suppose  villes  des  eaux  and  spas  have  a  mayor 
and  corporation  ;  but  in  the  case  of  these  sort 
of  towns  one  feels  they  are  only  there  for  the 
convenience  of  visitors,  and  to  adjust  any  matters 
of  business  that  may  arise — say,  such  a  serious 
undertaking  as  the  cure  of  illustrious  and  marked 
persons. 

I  happened  to  be  at  Nauheim  during  the  stay  of 
the  Tsar  at  Friedberg,  a  romantic  visit  undertaken 
for  the  cure  of  the  Hessian  Princess  who  is 
the  spouse  of  the  shadowed  despot  of  All  the 
Russias.  It  was  supposed  by  her  physicians  that 
the  ruined  nerves  of  the  royal  lady  might  benefit 
by  a  stay  at  one  of  the  baths  of  her  native  country, 
so  the  marked  pair  abandoned  their  policed  palace 
and  their  royal  safety  yacht,  and  came  to  Hessen, 
and  motored  in  from  the  Castle  of  Friedberg,  three 
miles  distant  from  Nauheim,  every  day.  Detectives 
swarmed  every  yard  of  the  way  ;  Friedberg  was 
full  of  them.  And,  indeed,  before  His  Majesty  the 
Tsar  could  even  be  allowed  to  take  up  his  abode  in 
that  place  or  visit  Nauheim,  the  place  of  his  wife's 
cure,  the  mayor  and  corporation  of  Friedberg  had 
insisted  on  the  royal  guest  insuring,  out  of  his  own 
pocket,  all  the  principal  buildings  !  Bombs  will 
occur  even  in  the  best  police-regulated  establish- 
ments. And  when  the  unfortunate  royal  guest, 
having  complied  with  all  these  behests  of  a  careful, 
tactless  burgomastery,  came  over  to  Nauheim  with 
his  children,  and  essayed  to  walk  quietly  about  in 
the  streets  of  the  town  he  was  himself — pecuniarily 
at  least — protecting  against  the  possible  conse- 
quences of  a  too  ready  hospitality,  he  was  mobbed  and 


90  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  vii 

followed  and  persecuted.  He  complained  bitterly, 
so  we  heard,  and  presently  an  urgent  but  polite 
notice  did  appear  in  the  corridor  of  all  hotels,  asking 
the  guests  to  be  so  good  as  not  to  mob  the  Tsar. 
I  fear  very  few  of  them  attended  to  the  prohibition. 
"  La  chasse  au  Tsar "  continued,  and  to  track  the 
poor  man  into  a  shop,  and,  making  what  is  called  a 
feint  of  an  "  ugly  rush,"  lead  him  to  believe  that  he 
was  in  a  guet-apens,  was  recognized  as  a  lawful 
amusement  by  certain  dull,  enervated  people,  who 
form  the  staple  of  the  patrons  of  Nauheim. 

Anyone  who,  as  I  did,  expected  to  see  an  enor- 
mous proportion  of  traditional  Germans  in  these 
sort  of  places  would  be  disappointed.  It  was 
rather  the  other  way — at  any  rate,  at  Nauheim  or 
Schwalbach.  For  one  fat  German  I  saw  two  lanky 
Englishmen,  with  wives  to  match.  English  dys- 
pepsia seems  to  attenuate,  not  increase  the  girth. 

I  saw  ethereal  heroines  of  English  causes  celebres 
walking  about,  reading  good  books.  I  saw  croupy 
young  Englishmen  doddering  along  the  pleached 
alleys,  with  glasses  in  their  hands,  the  murky  con- 
tents of  which  were  connected  with  their  mouths 
by  a  tube,  and  little  napkins  to  wipe  out  said  glasses, 
tucked  into  their  sleeves.  English  self-indulgence 
would  appear  to  take  the  form  of  malnutrition,  and 
weak  hearts  to  be  the  result,  not  of  intemperance 
in  diet,  but  some  mad  riot  of  nerves. 

However,  there  they  all  were,  parading,  prome- 
nading, taking  short  red  walks  or  long  blue  walks, 
according  to  their  physical  capacities  for  relating, 
and  that  of  the  friend  who  accompanied  them  for 
listening,  to  detailed  and  never-ending  recitals  of 


CH.  vii]    PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS   91 

their  symptoms.  A  Kur  is  the  only  place  where  it 
is  literally  manners  to  talk  of  your  stomach.  With 
brief  intervals  for  the  reconnoitring  of  the  paint 
marks  on  the  green  trunks  so  considerately  put 
there  by  the  Kaiser's  orders,  each  part  of  a  system 
for  pointing  the  way  for  the  walk  of  a  given  dura- 
tion, the  conversation  in  a  Kur  promenade  is  all 
pathological,  deeply  egoistical,  and  boring  to  the 
hearer  who  is  not  in  a  position  to  offer  up  one  of 
his  own  defaulting  nerves  for  dissection  on  the 
platter  of  friendship. 

There  is,  indeed,  only  one  way  of  enjoying  one- 
self at  a  Kur.  Every  prospect  pleases,  and  so  on. 
But  one  must  be  allowed  to  forget  the  reason  why 
man  is  admitted  into  this  paradise.  Once  and  once 
only  I  paid  the  toll  to  Caesar ;  took  a  bath  and  took 
a  drink.  The  drink  upsets  you  for  days  ;  the  bath  is 
neither  here  nor  there.  It  was  at  Schwalbach  I  was 
immersed.  I  felt  as  if  I  were  champagne,  with 
beaded  bubbles  winking  at  the  brim.  This  agree-" 
able  sensation  lasted  ten  minutes.  Then,  plotzltch 
an  impartial  machine  of  a  stout  bathing  woman 
came  noiselessly  into  the  Bad  Zimmer,  unceremoni- 
ously brushed  the  mousse  off  me  with  a  large 
bathing  towel,  and  I  became  myself  again,  with 
only  such  bubbles  of  the  spirit  as  Nature  has 
endowed  me  with. 

Though  people  at  a  Kur  unmistakably  enjoy 
talking  about  their  symptoms,  one  notices  that 
perhaps  the  most  fanciful  and  discursively  descrip- 
tive among  them,  while  anxious  to  retain  the 
sympathy  of  their  fellow-sufferers,  are  chiefly  intent 
on  evading  the  more  tiresome  minutiae  of  the  cure 


92  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  vii 

— on  having  a  good  time,  in  short.  And  the  cunning 
German  physicians  are  no  doubt  fully  aware  of  that, 
and  depend  on  the  good  air  of  the  place  and  the 
fascinations  of  the  Landrath — he  is  always  a  good- 
looking,  fine-set-up  man,  it  appears  to  me — far  more 
than  on  prescriptive  rules  which  are  meant  for 
really  ill  people.  These  form  the  dark,  grey  back- 
ground of  the  crowd  of  merrymakers.  These  are 
the  people  who  do  actually  die,  and  whose  remains 
are  hustled  away  in  the  night  or  early  morning  to 
avoid  unpleasantness.  And  a  German  hearse  is  of 
th€  most  sinister.  Grim  chargers,  with  black  trap- 
pings that  come  down  to  the  ground,  suggesting  the 
armoured  destrier  of  the  days  of  feudal  fighting, 
through  which  the  vast  round  eye  of  the  horse 
gleams  forth,  large,  portentous  in  its  rim  of  sable, 
strike  a  foolish  terror  to  the  beholder,  and  remind 
him  disagreeably  of  the  fact  that  doctor's  orders  are 
not  always  made  to  be  disregarded. 

But,  seriously  speaking,  a  real  cure,  undertaken  in 
a  business-like  manner,  with  a  pure  liver  and  a  con- 
trite stomach,  simply  means  putting  one's  neck  into 
a  collar  of  slavery.  If  you  do  not  consistently 
regard  your  doctor  as  a  meddling  rival,  neither  your 
time  nor  your  money  is  your  own.  Whereas,  if  you 
keep  up  a  proper  degree  of  spirit  in  your  dealings 
with  him,  you  have  the  cheerful  sensation,  so  con- 
ducive to  health,  of  moral  self-assertion,  a  moral 
victory,  something  done,  something  accomphshed, 
and  the  really  excellent  air  of  Nauheim,  or  Schwal- 
bach,  or  wherever  you  have  elected  to  reside,  to  the 
good.  The  iron  in  which  these  regions  abound, 
enters  then  into  your  body,  not  your  soul,  and  you 


CH.  VII]    PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS    93 

benefit  by  the  Kur;  you  flirt  with  the  handsome 
Landrath  (whom,  as  I  have  remarked,  is  always 
good-looking  enough  to  be  worth  while  in  these 
carefuUy-catered-for  health  places) ;  you  win  enor- 
mous sums  at  bridge — enough  to  pay  all  your  home 
debts  which  are  secretly  worrying  you — and  j'ou  do 
really  and  truly  benefit  by  the  cure,  in  your  own 
way,  which  is  the  best. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  you  virtuously  lay  yourself 
out  to  observe  faithfully  all  the  narrow-minded, 
pettifogging,  unimaginative  behests  of  your  tem- 
porary lawgiver,  who  doesn't  know  you  or  your 
mentality  from  Adam,  and  who  is  in  league  with 
your  landlord,  for  early  closing  and  plain  living  and 
high  paying,  your  cure  at  once  becomes  a  mere 
purgatory  of  small  agitating  engagements,  far  more 
enervating  and  exacerbating  even  than  the  London 
or  Paris  or  Berlin  season  you  have  come  away  to 
recover  from.  Here  is  Doctor  Bittelmann's  sort  of 
regulation.  I  may  mention  that  Doctor  Bittelmann 
of  Nauheim  is  charming,  and  a  thorough  man  of  the 
world,  and  doesn't  in  the  least  hope  or  expect  you 
to  carry  it  out. 

Your  bath  at  ten,  say ;  then  lie  down  after  it  for  an 
hour.  Good  !  You  do  bathe ;  the  expensive  bath 
is  something  positive  that  you  pay  for.  But,  good 
heavens  !  you  don't  have  time  to  lie  down.  You  can 
lie  down  for  nothing,  and  at  home.  You  eat  by 
command,  at  some  earthly  hour — one  o'clock,  most 
probably — and  you  are  to  eat  the  very  things  you 
don't  like ;  you  are  to  have  your  salad  mixed  with 
lemon-juice  instead  of  oil  and  vinegar,  and  you  are 
to  drink  Fachingen !     But  how  can  you  talk  or  be 


94  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  vii 

amusing  on  Fachingen  ?  How  can  you  digest  what 
you  don't  like  ?  Well,  you  settle  it.  You  do  eat 
later  ;  it  was  so  difficult  to  get  away  from  that  fasci- 
nating seance  at — what  do  you  call  him — Zucker- 
bakker  Muhle? — and  the  little  cakes  spoilt  your 
appetite.  You  eat  the  things  you  like  at  lunch — that 
is  to  say,  the  things  you  can  eat — and  you  don't  lie 
down  again  after,  as  desired,  because  lying  down 
always  makes  your  head  ache  so.  And  for  all  these 
extra  arrangements  there  simply  isn't  time,  that  is 
the  trouble,  not  want  of  bonne  volonte  on  your  part. 
If  you  followed  out  all  the  absurd  directions  you 
are  given,  and  that  your  physician  feels  in  duty 
bound  to  order  you,  you  might  as  well  have  stayed 
away  altogether,  for  you  would  be  useless  for  all 
the  social  purposes  that  really  brought  you  to 
Nauheim,  or  Schwalbach,  or  Schlangen  Bad.  And 
there  is  the  truth  of  it. 

For,  good  heavens  !  there  is  here,  say  at  Nauheim, 
a  bathing  establishment,  a  spring,  and  what  not,  just 
to  give  the  place  its  name,  but  there  is  a  great  deal 
more.  The  bathing  establishment  and  the  spring 
are  only  the  bait,  the  inducement,  something  that 
corresponds  to  the  "  little  music "  you  arrange  for  a 
party  at  home,  to  make  people  talk — the  band  at  a 
garden-party,  the  lady  who  sings  Indian  lullabies, 
the  child  who  recites  so  marvellously,  and  whose 
name  you  are  sure  you  forget.  It  is  the  brilliant 
magic  Kur-Haus  that  you  have  come  for,  where  all 
is  silent  and  nearly  deserted  in  the  mornings,  and 
waiters  and  other  ministers  of  our  joys  hold  them- 
selves in  reserve  till  midday,  when  all  breaks  into 
life  and  song.     You  may  see  performances,  you  may 


CH.  VII]     PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS   95 

go  to  concerts,  and  you  may  play  bridge  all  the 
afternoon  under  the  open  sky  or  the  tented  veranda. 
The  soft  sunlight  permeates  all  your  gaiety,  soften- 
ing the  glare  of  the  red  geraniums  in  the  parterre 
and  the  blue  caps  of  the  bandsmen,  and  the  scream- 
ing toilettes  of  the  professional  beauties.  You  can 
play  lying  in  a  bath-chair,  if  you  prefer  it,  with  a 
rug  over  your  knees  to  get  the  spirit  of  the  place, 
the  soft,  pleasing,  egoistic  spirit  of  wealthy  in- 
validism. And  the  afternoon  wears  on  to  the  sound 
of  the  chastened  band,  the  delicate  crunch  on  gravel 
of  high-heeled  shoes,  and  the  trail  of  ethereal  Paris- 
made  garments.  You  eat  succulent  cakes  and  drink 
mixtures  through  straws  brought  to  one  by  well- 
drilled  waiters  who  never  tread  on  your  toes  or  tear 
your  flounces.  You  win,  you  lose,  the  sunlight 
soaks  into  you,  and  you  go  home  to  change.  What 
for  ?  To  don  the  most  expensive  form  of  dress 
known,  the  half-high,  the  smart  non  -  decollete. 
Modistes  know  how  incompatible  the  two  are ; 
inferior  craftswomen  rely  on  the  wearer's  trimming 
the  dress  with  her  own  charms,  as  it  were.  Thus 
expensively,  ruinously  robed,  you  eat  good  dinners 
under  fierce  electric  light,  and  as  the  one  concession 
to  the  spirit  of  the  place — it  is  the  only  concession 
some  patients  make,  and  then  it  is  only  because  they 
are  constrained  by  the  management — home  to  bed 
early.  At  the  hotel,  arriving  quite  early,  a  re- 
proachful house-porter  lets  you  into  a  twilight  hall ; 
it  feels  like  three  in  the  morning  in  England.  If 
you  happen  to  be  a  little  late,  say  after  ten,  there  is 
even  a  vague  atmosphere  of  reprobation  about  this 
functionary,  erst  gold-laced,  but  in  mufti  after  teni 


96  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  vii 

I  felt  again  as  a  girl  feels,  when  she  comes  home  in 
the  small  hours,  to  be  let  in  by  a  sleepy,  reproachful 
maid,  whose  duty  it  has  been  to  sit  up  and  welcome 
the  piece  of  perishable  goods  that  has  been  out  in 
the  great  wild  world. 

The  Kur-Haus  of  Nauheim  is  on  the  slope  of  the 
hill,  a  little  above  the  town.  It  is  pretty  and  gay, 
like  most  Kur-houses  everywhere.  Its  clients  are, 
of  course,  thoroughly  cosmopolitan,  comprising 
complacent  financiers,  hungry  adventurers,  beauties 
"  on  the  make,"  of  every  type  and  nationality — at 
least,  so  I  am  led  to  suppose,  and  I  fancy  that  is  the 
attraction  of  these  foreign  baths  to  the  English 
nation.  Thackeray  skilfully  cast  around  these 
clients  of  German  thermal  springs  that  vague  aroma 
of  devergondage,  that  intimate  flavour  of  impropriety, 
of  possible  scabrous  adventure,  which  appeals  so 
deeply  and  intimately  to  the  middle-class  for  which 
he  catered.  Needless  to  sa}'^,  Baden-Baden  or  Nau- 
heim "met  tout  ses  biens  dans  la  devanture."  The 
shady  people  are  the  decor^  the  attraction  provided 
for  Mrs.  Brown  of  Brixton,  who  is  there,  with 
Mrs.  Jones  of  Ealing,  in  force  enough  to  make  these 
places  pay.  Mrs.  Brown  of  Brixton  thinks  it  a 
holiday  privilege  to  be  allowed  at  Rome  to  do  as 
Rome  does,  to  put  down  her  gold  piece  at  the  same 
table  as  Madame  Medee  or  Countess  Calypso  (I 
borrow  Thackeray's  effective  nomenclature).  She 
expects,  as  I  did,  the  first  time  I  went  to  Baden- 
Baden  and  Homburg,  to  see  sinister-looking,  per- 
nicious gentlemen  engrossed  in  playing  petits 
chevaux,  or  baccarat — Thackeray  had  named  them 
for    me,    Count     Punter,    Marquis    lago.    Captain 


CH.  VII]    PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS    97 

Blackball — and  it  was  only  after  I  had  been  about 
that  I  realized  that  the  most  sinister-looking  of 
them  all  were  respectable  English  stockbrokers, 
husbands^  of  the  Mrs.  Browns  who  boldly  touched 
hems  with  the  skirts  of,  it  was  fondly  hoped,  un- 
mentionable ladies.  Only  in  the  holidays.  The 
sight  of  weeping  Dover  cliffs  on  the  return  home 
purges  away  all  the  foreign  devilry  that  Mrs.  Brown 
may  have  picked  up  on  her  travels.  I  know 
Mrs.  Brown  now ;  once  I  might  have  taken  her 
for  Madame  de  la  Cruchecassee,  or  Madame  de 
Schlangenbad,  ogling  and  scandalmongering  on 
her  cane  chair.  And  the  wicked  Lady  Kew  person, 
that  comes  hobbling  on  her  crutches  round  the 
corner,  is  much  more  likely  to  be  someone's  maiden 
aunt,  come  away  from  her  provincial  lair  for  a 
"  thorough  change  !"  And  Mogador — la  Princesse 
de  Mogador  I  ("  Tu  fumes,  Mogador  ?"  Here 
Thackeray  was  really  funny)  sat  in  every  railway 
train.  Well,  she  sits  there  now.  Mogadors  we 
have  always  with  us.  She  trails  past  my  modeet 
chair  even  now  with  her  cortege  of  Grand  Dukes 
and  "favourite  officers  of  the  Emperor,"  in  which 
the  place  abounds. 

But  just  as  all  the  champagne  grown  could  not 
back  up  the  marks  on  the  bottles  that  stand  on 
restaurant  tables,  so  with  the  Kaiser's  favour, 
though  this  label  is  given  impartially  to  every  smart 
officer.  These  fine  fellows  have  all  hearts;  the 
ugly,  material,  lop-sided  one  within  them  they  have 
generally  injured  by  excessive  attention  to  and 
prowess  at  polo.  That  is  the  chic  cause  of  their 
presence  at  Nauheim.     The  Kaiser  does  not  care  to 

7 


98  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  vii 

lose  them.  The  other,  more  elusive,  article  they 
swear  by  and  are  fond  of  putting  their  hand  to,  is 
at  the  service  of  every  pretty  girl  who  comes  to 
Nauheim  without  a  heart  at  all !  Poorwasp-waisted 
creatures  !  As  fast  as  they  cure  the  one  organ,  the 
other  spiritual  one  suffers  by  reason  of  its  extreme 
susceptibility.  I  was  able  to  oblige  one  young 
officer  with  an  unpronounceable  name  (I  may  meet 
him  again).  The  Kaiser  loves  him,  of  course,  and 
he  has  some  English.  He  admired  a  young  Enghsh 
lady  who  was  staying,  not  in  my  hotel,  but  in  the 
hotel  of  a  friend  of  mine  who  just  knew  her  by 

sight.     Affected  by  Lieutenant  L 's  persuasions, 

I    got    my    friend    to     scrape    acquaintance    with 

Miss  D ,  and  eventually  asked  her  to  tea  in  her 

room.      I   brought    Lieutenant   L ,   so    full    of 

pleasurable  anticipation  and  excitement  that  he 
could  eat  no  cakes  at  tea. 

But  the  affair  came  to  nothing.  I  discovered  that 
the  Dream,  to  the  spiritual  young  favourite  of  the 
Kaiser,  was  more  than  the  Business.  He  had  now 
formally  made  the  acquaintance  of  his  goddess,  and, 
consequently,  he  no  longer  found  pleasure  in  de- 
corously dogging  her  footsteps  in  the  Kur  Garten, 
and  under  the  tall  trees  of  the  Allee  as  she  fared 
home.  She  had  a  pale  clear-cut  face  and  a  neat 
ankle,  and  wore  high-heeled  shoes  with  a  big  bow 
on  the  instep  that  looked  as  if  it  never  could  come 
untied. 

Grand  Dukes  —  real  Grand  Dukes  —  are  fairly 
plentiful  at  Cures.  You  can  be  taken  in,  though, 
and  some  Americans  I  once  met  at  Langen  Schwal- 
bach  felt  this  little  form  of  humiliation  very  much. 


CH.  vii]    PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS    99 

There  was  a  stout,  beefy  gentleman  with  a  toady  in 
attendance,  who  wrote  on  his  card  "  Due  de  Sirio," 
and  stuck  it  on  the  green  baize  notice-board  in  the 
hotel  among  the  cards  of  the  other  visitors.  (I  have 
never  seen  this  remarkable  custom  anywhere  else.) 
But  that  gentleman's  card-case  must  have  been  soon 
exhausted,  for  some  real  gentlemen  bearing  good 
old  English  names,  staying  at  the  hotel,  tore  it  down 
every  day,  declaring  that  this  was  no  Duke,  but  a 
grocer  from  Amsterdam,  with  his  handy-man  who 
sliced  up  the  hams.  We  all  danced  with  the  Duke 
at  the  Kur  Saal ;  he  danced  beautifully.  The 
American  contingent  had  gone  nap  on  him,  and 
refused  to  believe  that  he  was  an  imposter.  But  the 
absurdly  meek  manner  in  which  he,  or  his  toady  for 
him,  conscientiously  replaced  his  card  every  day, 
instead  of  calling  out  one  of  the  hooligan  gentlemen 
who  were  endeavouring  to  destroy  his  prestige  with 
the  ladies,  ended  by  convincing  these  fair  ones  that 
the  claim  so  weakly  supported  could  not  be  genuine. 
They  abandoned  him  with  painful  self-loathing.  I, 
for  some  mysterious  reason,  fancied  he  was  what 
he  said ;  there  was  a  depth  of  assurance  about  him, 
a  sturdy,  stout,  devil-may-careishness  that  was  sooth- 
ing. To  be  truly  soothing  is  a  quality  of  the  true 
aristocracy — in  Germany,  at  all  events. 

There  was,  however,  an  unmistakable,  publicly 
ratified  Grand  Duke  at  Nauheim  while  I  was  there ; 
I  believe  he  was  related  to  the  Kaiser.  So  popular 
was  he  that  he  only  dined  once  at  his  own  expense 
during  the  whole  six  weeks  that  his  cure  lasted, 
and  that  once  was  when  he,  as  in  duty  bound,  re- 
turned all  this  hospitality  in  the  lump.     For  every 


lOO  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  vii 

pretty  woman  in  the  place  felt  it  her  pleasant  duty 
to  dine  him  at  least  once  and  invite  any  lady  he 
admired  as  well  as  herself.  He  preferred  Americans, 
with  an  occasional  incursion  into  Dutch  territory — 
Americans,  probably,  because  they  are  still  capable 
of  being  frankly  dazzled  by  the  old  order,  which  is 
by  no  means  passing  away  in  Germany. 

He  was  a  dear,  good,  rubicund  soul,  with  no  harm 
in  him,  and  exquisite  manners,  and  looking  at  him 
through  the  glass  window  that  divided  the  indoors 
restaurant  from  the  little  tables  outside  where  one 
drinks  one's  coffee,  one  found  some  difficulty  in 
realizing  that  he  was  a  King. 

He  sat  there,  towards  the  end  of  a  good  dinner — 
tres  en  Edouard,  as  someone  said,  and  indeed  the 
likeness  to  our  own  Edward  VII.  was  striking — 
with  Jungfrau  Van  Der  Hulkne  on  one  side,  and 
Mr.  Douglas  P.  Fridey  on  the  other,  both  savantment 
decolletees,  both  yielding,  caressing,  jolly  and  easy- 
going as  far  as  their  own  strong  sense  of  propriety 
and  the  rules  of  the  place  permitted.     One  felt  that, 
veiled   by  the  social  hypocrisies  of  the  twentieth 
century,  the  usual  royal  programme  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  was  being  rehearsed.  They  had 
all  dined  too  well ;  the  ladies  were  all  impressed  to 
slavishness  by  the  gracious  favour  of  the  potentate, 
and  perfectly  prepared  for  any  due  old-fashioned 
exercise  of  the   royal   prerogative.     Yet   they  sat 
there  and  digested,  and  sipped  liqueurs,  and  said 
nothing.     They  were  all  flushed,  but  with  the  effort 
of  eating ;  they  were  all  bored,  and  that  was  with 
the  Grand  Duke.    But  they  were  dining  with  a  King, 
even  if  they  did  not  realize  it,  as  I  did. 


CH.  vn]    PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS  loi 

These  stout,  healthy  scions  of  old  reigning  families 
are  spread  all  over  Germany,  rulers  of  Federated 
States  allied  to  Prussia,  not  loving  Prussia — defying 
Prussia,  some  of  them.  But  the  submissive  ones  do 
really  carefully  and  seriously  rule  over  the  small 
States  that  are  theirs  by  inheritance.  They  have 
their  own  courts  of  justice,  their  own  little  armies — 
degenerated  in  most  cases  into  a  mere  bodyguard, 
and  in  some  others  into  a  household  of  servants  who 
could  fight  if  need  be.  One  reads  in  English  social 
annals  of  German  Serenities,  German  Princes, 
German  Hochwohlgeborenen,  all  alluded  to  in  the 
slightly  contemptuous  style,  introduced  by  a  man 
who  had  both  what  is  called  a  "  down  "  on  Germany, 
and  a  sneaking  fondness  for  her  —  Thackeray. 
Nothing  but  his  love  for  the  Protestant  succession 
kept  his  tongue  from  covering  the  four  Georges  with 
an  overwhelming  load  of  journalese  mud,  and  Dapper 
George  got  off  lightly  with  the  clinging  sobriquet. 
But  on  Grand  Dukes  and  Serenities  his  pen  has 
always  wagged  rather  indecorously,  and  English 
people  seem  to  have  adopted  his  characterization, 
and  regard  these  politically  earnest  and  serious 
people  as  mere  social  symbolical  furniture  to  liven  a 
bazaar  or  gild  a  society  column. 

And,  indeed,  their  unobtrusive  presence  at  the 
villes  d'eaux  lends  a  colour  to  their  desultory 
view  of  the  importance  of  their  functions.  They 
should  be  seen  at  home,  in  the  due  exercise  of  them. 
It  is  when  you  are  in  some  obscure  provincial  town, 
and  pay  your  way  in  coin  struck  in  their  effigy,  and 
hear  them  and  their  princely  doings,  the  literary, 
moral,  artistic  opinions  of  their  wives  spoken  of  with 


102  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  vii 

respect,  that  one  realizes  for  the  nonce,  and  with 
regard  to  the  particular  piece  of  ground  that  you 
stand  on,  the  despised  Grand  Duke  is  your  King, 
and  that  there  is  no  parliament  to  stand  between 
you  and  him.  Any  impulsive  decree  he  may  choose 
to  put  forth — at  the  dictates  of  his  so  respectable  or 
capricious  wife,  perhaps,  and  motived  by  some 
entirely  personal  feeling — is  law.  The  wife  of  the 
Grand  Duke  of  H.  has  chosen  to  close  down  the  State 
Theatre  in  H.  because  of  the  private  life,  reported  to 
her,  of  some  of  the  members  of  the  famous  company 
engaged  to  play  in  it !  You  see,  the  King's  powers, 
though  not  extensive,  are  absolute.  He  is  your 
Commissioner  of  Woods  and  Forests,  your  Board  of 
Trade,  your  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  your  head 
of  police,  all  in  one — your  overlord,  in  fact.  His 
place — one  of  his  places — fills  up  the  centre  of  the 
town.  He  may  live  in  it,  and  lend  it  as  a  park  when 
he  is  not  there,  or  when  he  is  there  and  amiably  dis- 
posed ;  he  may  live  somewhere  else,  and  loan  it  as  a 
barrack.  He  has  plenty  of  houses.  Outside  the 
town  lie  his  Schlosses  and  pleasure  seats,  where  so 
many  beds  are  always  made  up,  ready  for  himself 
and  suite,  or  any  guests  he  may  send,  and  where  he 
takes  your  mark  for  a  sight  of  his  old  armour,  and 
family  pictures  and  beds. 

His  powers  are  apt — to  your  limited  topographical 
intelligence — to  cease  quite  abruptly;  a  thin  line, 
as  imperceptible  as  the  solemn,  old,  mysterious, 
equatorial  division  of  our  childhood,  separates  the 
particular  sods  of  earth  under  his  direction  from 
those  that  own  the  sway  of  the  next  Prince.  Yes,  a 
man  in  Hessen-Darmstadt  may  lead  a  horse  to  water, 


CH.  VII]  PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS    103 

and  twenty  can  make  him  drink  in  Hessen-Nassau. 
The  rules  of  life  and  conduct  are  perfectly  different, 
full  of  character,  full  of  annoyance,  too,  sometimes. 
Mental  friction  is  thereby  daily  produced.  In  Hessen- 
Nassau,  say,  you  knock  up  against  some  teasing, 
trifling  ordinance  or  bye-law !  You  exclaim  indig- 
nantly, *'  But  I've  always  done  that !"  and  when  you 
are  in  a  fair  way  to  be  arrested  you  recover  your- 
self, and  realize  that  that  was  when  you  were,  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  ago,  in  Hessen-Darmstadt. 

And  in  the  eyes  of  the  instructed  in  such  matters, 
local  costume  may  even  mark  the  change,  and  not  too 
insidiously  either.  Sitting  in  the  train,  looking  out 
idly  on  the  weather-beaten  human  furniture  of  the 
fields,  you  can  tell  to  a  nicety  in  whose  kingdom  you 
are.  The  noble  female  creatures,  with  their  stately 
portj  who  cover  the  ground  in  Hessen,  marking  the 
furrows  with  their  broad  swinging  strides,  wear  vast 
woollen  petticoats,  "  kept  out,"  as  we  women  would 
say,  by  bolsters  at  the  hips,  of  a  strong  stained-glass- 
window  colour,  suggesting  the  pictures  of  Ford 
Madox  Brown — red,  green,  and  blue,  all  of  them  at 
once.  It  is  harmonious  enough  in  the  clear,  strong 
light  that  seems  to  shine  nearly  always  in  Germany. 
On  their  heads  they  wear  little  knobby  caps,  in  shape 
like  an  ensign's,  embroidered  with  seed  pearls  and 
broad  black  ribbon  strings  falling  on  either  side  of 
the  face,  like  one  of  Andrea  del  Sarto's  Madonnas. 

You  are  in  Hessen-Darmstadt.  Farther  on,  as 
you  look  out,  the  petticoats  are  made  of  coarse,  stiff, 
black  calico,  shining  coppery  and  iridescent  in  the 
sun.  The  beggar-maid's  clothes  in  "  King  Cophetua " 
have  just  such  a  metallic  sheen.     On  their  legs  they 


104  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  vii 

wear  thick,  white,  openwork  stockings,  with  coloured 
ribbon  garters  ostentatiously  displayed,  and  on  their 
feet  heavy  shoes  with  buckles.  You  may  know  that 
you  are  in  Hesse  when  you  see,  as  the  train  leaves 
the  station,  a  couple  of  these  women  looking  like 
beetles  burnished  in  the  sun,  with  their  hay-forks 
lightly  poised  on  their  shoulders,  walking  in  skirts 
that  Genee  would  think  far  too  short  to  dance  in, 
down  the  asphalte  road,  talking  and  gesticulating  like 
fury,  under  the  hot  exhausting  glare.  They  are  fairly 
cool ;  their  skirts  are  of  calico,  not  woollen,  and  they 
have  no  bolsters. 

And  after  the  train  has  stopped  three  weary  times 
more,  long,  draggled,  abject-looking  skirts,  such  as 
one  sees  anywhere  in  England,  are  the  fashion. 
Another  district — and  these  represent  the  really  free 
peoples  of  Germany.  At  least,  though  they  are  the 
property  of  a  Grand  Duke,  who  owes  in  his  turn 
allegiance  to  Prussia,  they  have  not  taken  Prussia's 
prizes  for  costume.  Prussia  cunningly  encourages 
the  survival  of  costume,  because  it  enhances  in  its 
wearers  the  feeling  of  their  German  nationality. 
For  many  centuries,  indeed,  these  Hessian  lands 
felt  a  great  spiritual  kinship  for  France,  and  even 
to-day  in  many  of  the  lonely  farms  of  the  older 
peasants  you  will  find  portraits  of  the  great  Napo- 
leon. 

Sometimes,  indeed,  this  opposition  to  the  immense 
and  savage  dominion  of  one  State  over  all  the  others 
assumes  heroic  proportions. 

It  is  a  curious  sensation  to  walk  about  in  Hanover 
— stately  and  magnificent  Hanover — and  be  told  that 
a  Regent  holds  sway  there,  and  that  the  real  potentate 


CH.  VII]  PRINCES  AND  PRESCRIPTIONS  105 

lives,  an  exile,  in  Munich.''*"  He  is  in  contravention 
of  the  Kaiserliche  Decree,  he  refuses  to  swear  alle- 
giance to  the  Emperor,  and  until  he  does  so  he  may 
not  walk  under  his  ancestral  limes,  or  sleep  in  one 
of  the  hundred  beds  that  are  constantly  kept  "made" 
in  his  country  seat  of  Wilhelmsberg.  He  is  old,  he 
does  not  care.  He  is  one  of  the  truly  romantic 
figures  of  the  twentieth  century.  But  who  should 
meet  him  in  London  society  would  probably  regard 
him  as  a  mere  figure-head  for  Bazaars  and  Opening 
Festivals.  I  should  like  to  meet  him,  for  I  know 
better. 

*  Written  in  1910.— J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN 

I  KNOW  a  child  who,  when  she  was  asked  where  she 
would  like  to  be  taken  for  a  summer's  holiday, 
chose  to  forego  the  spades  and  pails  of  Ramsgate  and 
Cromer  in  favour  of  the  Isle  of  Athelney,  if  island 
there  be,  because  she  wanted  to  find  the  hut  where 
Alfred  the  Great  burned  the  cakes.  I  wanted  to  see 
Marburg,  because  I  had  read  Kingsley's  poem,  and 
was  interested  in  the  pious  lady  whose  husband 
would  not  let  her  be  charitable.  Meeting  her  with 
an  apron  full  of  loaves  for  the  poor,  he  asked  her 
what  she  was  carrying,  and  God  so  willed  it,  that 
when  she  obediently  opened  the  folds  of  her  apron, 
flowers  fell  out  of  it,  and  justified  her  pi^y.  And 
one  evening  in  autumn,  as  our  train  glided  softly 
and  sweetly — as  trains  do  glide  in  Germany — out 
of  one  valley  into  another,  till  we  came  into  the 
valley  of  the  Lahn,  which  is  the  river  on  which 
Marburg  is  built,  I  was  thinking  in  a  desultory 
manner  of  my  childhood's  desire,  and  the  saintly 
figure  of  St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary. 

Presently  the  train  just  slid  into  Marburg,  and 
we  got  out  and  passed  out  of  the  station,  through 
a  flower-besprent  waiting-room,  and  into  a  bus,  and 

io6 


CH.  VIII]    BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN     107 

jogged  along  to  our  abiding  place  under  the  impos- 
ing shadow  of  the  Elizabethen  Kirche,  and  all  the 
while  I  was  thinking  of  Conrad  of  Marburg. 

I  wanted  to  say  that  now,  to  my  grown-up  lights, 
the  builder  of  the  Elizabethen  Kirche  seemed  an 
uncommonly  silly  woman,  but  I  am  always  afraid  of 
offending  Joseph  Leopold's  Catholic  susceptibilities, 
so  I  switched  off  from  medieval  sentiment  to  the 
heroine  of  a  modern  extravaganza,  which  1  suppose 
every  English  person  has  read.  I  was  now  domi- 
ciled in  the  German  University  town  that  corre- 
sponds more  closely  to  Oxford  than,  say,  Bonn, 
which  to  me  suggests  Cambridge.  We  all  remember 
how  Miss  Zuleika  Dobson,  after  having  drowned  the 
flower  of  Oxford  in  the  Thames,  calls  for  a  Bradshaw, 
and  looks  out  a  train  for  Cambridge,  intending  to  do 
the  same  by  the  students  of  that  University.  But 
I  do  not  think,  with  all  respect  to  Max's  heroine, 
that  this  would  have  come  so  easy.  For  though  it 
might  be  urged  by  some  Oxford  fanatics  that  youth, 
subjected  for  a  term  or  two  to  its  romantic  and 
unique  charm,  is  still  capable  of  drowning  itself 
en  masse  for  the  love  of  a  lady,  I  don't  think  anyone 
would  put  up  the  same  plea  for  Cambridge.  The 
Backs  are  too  Tennysonian,  not  savage  or  Byronic 
enough.  Cambridge  would  think  twice  about  it. 
But  of  one  thing  I  am  positive — that  such  an  out- 
rageous sex-campaign  as  that  waged  by  this  young 
lady  at  the  English  University  would  have  been 
absolutely  impossible  at  either  Bonn  or  Marburg — 
certainly  not  at  Marburg.  Bonn  is  less  savage,  less 
rococo,  more  accessible  to  feminine  wiles.  The  boys 
of  Bonn,  even  with  the  national  precedent  of  Werther 


108  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  viii 

before  their  eyes,  would  think,  not  twice,  but  a 
hundred  times,  before  making  fools  of  themselves 
over  a  mere  female.  Marburg  would  not  entertain 
the  idea  for  a  single  moment. 

Yet  Marburg  is  surely  a  more  romantic  place  than 
Oxford.  It  is  living.  It  has  kept  up  its  continuity 
with  the  past.  There  are  not  so  many  "  dreaming 
spires,"  but  there  are  three  very  wide-awake 
churches.  The  castle  at  Oxford  is  an  inconsider-  , 
able  ruin ;  it  is  down  there  by  the  slums,  a  mere  \ 
appanage  or  lean-to  of  the  railway-station ;  while 
the  Schloss  at  Marburg  is  i,ooo  feet  above  the  town, 
and  in  the  very  centre  of  things,  dominating  all  the 
modern  life  of  the  place.  The  River  Lahn  is  not 
so  wide  as  the  Thames,  and  there  is  no  boating  in 
particular  to  be  had  on  it ;  but  the  boar  comes 
down  from  his  lair  in  the  hills  to  drink  of  it,  and 
the  wild  cat  laughs  in  the  woods  that  clothe  its 
banks.  Oh  yes,  it  is  far  more  romantic.  For  mere 
unconsidered  peasant  females  there  wear  costume, 
though  professors'  daughters,  so  haughty  and  ad- 
vanced in  ideas,  are  kept  plain,  much  as  they  are 
anywhere.  It  is,  I  beheve,  or  used  to  be,  a  standing 
grievance  with  Eton  masters,  ever  since  a  young 
peer  of  seventeen  ran  away  from  thence  with  a 
mature  English  Countess,  that  they  are  ethically 
debarred  from  keeping  a  pretty  daughter  at  home. 
She  is  sent  away  on  visits  as  much  as  possible,  if 
she  is  of  the  type  that  is  likely  to  be  upsetting. 

It  is  quite  immaterial  to  Max  or  Fritz  at  this 
period  of  their  growth  whether  the  daughters  of 
their  tutor  are  pretty  or  plain.  These  young  ladies 
may,  as  far  as  he  is  concerned,  continue  to  reside  in 


CH.  viii]    BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN    109 

their  father's  house,  and  tread  the  sharp  cobbles  of 
Marburg  with  no  fear  of  being  followed,  and  sleep 
sound  of  nights  without  any  danger  of  being 
serenaded.  Plain  or  coloured,  Max  or  Fritz  heeds 
her  not  to  either  her  or  his  detriments. 

But  Max  and  Fritz  are  not  "  quiet " ;  not  at  all  I 
They  have  plenty  of  fun,  but  it  is  concerned  with 
quite  another  goddess  than  Venus.  They  go  in 
hordes  to  dine  at  some  place  in  the  woods,  smoke 
and  drink,  and  finally  are  photographed  with  their 
arms  round  a  goddess  of  sorts.  She  is  covered  and 
wreathed  with  flowers — but  she  is  a  beer-barrel. 
This  is  probably  a  safe  derivative  for  such  emotions 
as  the  student  can  spare  from  his  studies.  He  does 
not  insist  on  a  yearly  carnival  of  sex,  such  as  May 
week  or  Commem.  And  it  is  not  in  the  least  neces- 
sary that  his  bedmaker  should  be  old  or  ugly.  No 
woman  bom — at  least,  no  woman  born  on  German 
soil — could  take  him  by  storm  ;  and  even  if  Zuleika 
Dobson,  that  lovely  exotic,  with  her  pink  pearl  and 
her  black  pearl,  her  costumes  and  her  engaging 
ways,  were  to  descend  at  the  best  hotel  or  come  to 
stay  with  a  professional  uncle  in  the  college,  she 
would  not,  it  is  my  belief,  be  able  to  extract  a  glance 
from  the  splendid  students  with  the  cropped  heads 
and  the  scarred  cheeks,  who  sit  day  by  day  at  their 
especial  Stammtisch  in  the  Ritter  or  the  Krone. 
Much  less  could  she  persuade  them  to  throw  them- 
selves into  the  slow  and  sluggish  Lahn  for  her  sake. 
At  least,  I  think  not.  I  am  bitter.  For  I  have 
never  in  all  my  life  met  anything  more  impervious 
to  feminine  wiles  than  the  German  student.  I  could 
not  get  so  much  as  a  look  of  intelligence  out  of  any 


no  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  viii 

one  of  them,  of  bored  or  annoyed  intelligence  even, 
although  on  the  first  night  of  my  arrival  I  did  a 
thing  calculated  to  stir  such  a  one  to  the  depths — a 
thing  that  made  the  waiters  blench  with  awe  and 
hastily  interpose  to  forbid  the  sacrilege.  I  made  as  if 
to  sit  down  at  the  special  table  with  the  little  bronze 
knight  in  armour  standing  in  the  middle  of  it,  bearing 
a  banner  inscribed  with  the  magic  words  "  Stamm- 
tisch."  Head-waiter  Ernst  warned  me  off  just  in 
time.  Joseph  Leopold  was  too  slow  ;  and  a  moment 
later — only  a  moment  later — a  stern,  handsome  man, 
with  a  large  head  and  a  shaven  crown,  advanced  with 
a  fine  deliberation.  He  had  hung  up  his  hat  on  a 
deer's  antler  in  the  little  passage  which  led  into  the 
street,  and  sternly  bidden  the  Great  Dane  who 
followed  him  in  to  lie  down.  Great  Danes  often 
lie  down  near  me,  but  I  had  long  realized  it  was  as 
much  as  my  place  was  worth  to  pat  a  student's  dog. 

"It  is  reservirt!"  Ernst  informed  me  in  a  breath- 
less whisper.  He  meant  the  Stammtisch,  placed  in 
the  best  and  warmest  corner  of  the  Speisesaal,  the 
least  draughty  and  at  the  same  time  not  too  far  from 
the  window.  It  was  the  table  that  a  newcomer  would 
naturally  turn  to.  A  low  seat  runs  round  the 
corner,  and  overhead  there  is  a  locker  built  into  the 
wall,  with  the  arms  of  the  corps  whose  students  are 
pleased  to  dine  here  engraved  on  it.  The  door  of 
the  locker  clicks  as  one  student  after  another  opens 
it  with  his  key,  and  abstracts  papers  from  it,  or 
deposits  the  cap  he  is  wearing,  anything  of  which 
he  wants  to  be  rid  for  a  few  minutes. 

The  student  can  do  as  he  likes.  He  is  everything 
at  Marburg.     There  is  a  tremendous  suggestion  of 


CH.  viii]    BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN     in 

insolence  about  these  German  hobbledehoys,  these 
Teutonic  gawks,  if  indeed  anything  foreign  can  be 
gawky.  (I  begin  to  think  the  term  was  invented 
only  for  the  young  of  the  English.)  At  any  rate,  of 
their  contemporaries  at  Oxford  a  hostess  has  been 
known  to  say,  when  the  question  of  her  capabilities 
of  entertaining  them  in  the  lump  arose :  "  Oh,  one 
just  asks  them  all,  and  knocks  their  heads  together* 
and  sees  what  comes  of  it !"     Imagine  these  classic, 

•  The  fact  is  that  there  is  much  less  difference  between  German 
University  Hfe  and  EngUsh  University  Hfe,  as  far  as  the  personnel 
is  concerned,  than  between,  let  us  say,  Greenwich  time  and 
Central  European  time.  I  have  myself,  extra-professorially, 
entertained  the  German  undergraduates  ;  and  I  have  been  the 
confidant  of  the  woes  of  the  German  Don's  wife,  at  being  called 
upon  to  entertain,  towards  the  end  of  term-time,  large  numbers 
of  her  husband's  students.  It  is  possible  that  the  German 
student  is  a  thought  less  snobbish  than  the  English  undergraduate, 
but  it  is  hardly  more  than  a  thought.  The  German,  hke  the 
Englishman,  is  very  much  given  to  little  personal  cliques  or  to 
little  personal  studies  that  will  monopolize  the  whole  of  his 
attention  ;  and  for  a  senior  in  any  way  to  arouse  his  interest  in 
other  or  more  general  topics,  is  to  knock  at  very  closed  doors.  I 
have,  for  instance,  at  a  sort  of  commemoration  dinner  given  by  a 
German  professor  of  history,  tried  to  arouse  some  sort  of  interest 
in  the  "  spotty  boy"  sitting  next  to  me,  as  to  the  elective  theory, 
let  us  say,  of  the  British  Crown,  a  subject,  one  would  say,  suffi- 
ciently interesting  to  anyone  professing  history  as  the  occupation 
of  a  life-time.  But  this  youth  was  interested  solely  in  the  hand- 
writing of  Charlemagne,  and  in  the  linguistic  attainments  of  that 
great  man.  He  was,  that  is  to  say,  professionally  interested  in 
these  subjects.  But  what  immediately  occupied  his  attention 
was  :  How  much  of  the  furniture  of  a  student,  called  affectionately 
the  "  dicke  Hans,"  he  would  be  able  to  afford  to  purchase  next  term. 
Fat  Hans  having  obtained  his  Doctorate  with  a  thesis  on  the  laws 
of  Charlemagne,  and  being  about  to  vacate  the  desirable  rooms 
that  he  had  hitherto  occupied  over  a  pork-butcher's  shop  in  the 
Frankforter  Strasse.— J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


113  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  viii 

shaven  heads  of  Germany,  that  I  will  endeavour 
to  describe  presently,  being  knocked  together  or 
treated  with  anything  approaching  to  the  disrespect 
and  contempt  which  I  have  seen  poured  on  the 
heads  of  the  flower  of  English  youth  at  Oxford  or 
Cambridge.  I  have  watched  them,  caught  at  such 
an  entertainment,  massed  in  a  doorway,  too  shy 
either  to  get  in  or  out  or  leave  the  asylum  of  the 
herd.  The  German  students  are  men  of  the  world  : 
they  all  look  like  men ;  at  any  rate,  the  percentage 
of  spotty  boys  which  make  up  the  hordes  of  an 
English  University  is  far  less,  and  the  spots  and 
boils  of  German  youths  are  produced  by  quite 
another  cause. 

I  am  being  mysterious,  but  indeed  I  was  myself 
mystified  at  first.  I  had  heard  that  "youth's  hope 
and  manhood's  aim "  in  German  Universities  was 
very  different  from  that  embodied  in  "  wines  "  and 
bump  suppers  and  silver  football  cups,  and  larks 
altogether,  not  omitting  a  slight,  very  slight,  leaning 
towards  the  successful  acquirement  of  scholarships. 
Yes,  the  insolence  of  these  boys  was  not  as  the 
insolence  of  Prussian  officers — proud,  unlettered, 
and  empty-headed  ;  it  was  the  influence  of  the 
savage  intellectual — the  ferocious  educated.  A 
bookworm  in  a  German  University  can  be  a  swash- 
buckler too  ;*  a  mugger-up  of  scientific  facts  can 
collect  honourable  scars  as  well. 

*  I  suppose  this  is  physically  possible,  but  actually  it  is  much 
rarer  than  that  an  English  Lord  Chief  Justice  should  possess  an 
oar  with  a  blade  painted  blue.  The  fact  is  that  German  University 
life  is  going  through  a  period  of  change.  Regarded  as  an  appari- 
tion in  an  institution  devoted  to  study,  the  Corps  Student  is  a 
phenomenon  of  the  most  singularly  undesirable,  and  all  the  efforts 


CH.  viii]    BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN     113 

Entranced,  I  used  to  watch  these  tall,  fine  fellows 
entering  in  with  their  obedient  dogs,  their  hand- 
some sticks,  and  their  noble  thirsts,  which  they 
extinguished  in  such  manly,  mighty  Schoppen.  One 
by  one  they  dropped  in,  with  a  nod  or  a  **  Tag ! "  to 
whoever  had  dropped  in  before  them,  flung  an 
order  to  Ernst,  and  then  buried  their  noses  in  their 
mugs  and  in  the  profoundest  college  gossip — for 
so  I  suppose  it  was.  I  used  to  refer  my  curiosity 
to  Joseph  Leopold,  who  has  been  a  student  himself, 

of  German  professors  of  to-day  are  directed  towards  diminishing 
their  number  in  favour  of  increasing  that  of  the  "  unattached." 
It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  the  whole  machinery  of  German 
education  is  extraordinarily  wrong-headed,  and  must  prove  fatal 
in  the  end  to  the  German  race  if  some  such  change  as  that  which 
the  German  Professoriat  is  trying  to  bring  about  be  not  very 
speedily  effected.  These  poor  boys—  I  give  these  views  as  being 
purely  personal — are  treated  at  school  with  an  educational  brutality 
that  is  almost  incredible  in  the  civilized  world.  They  are  hideously 
overworked  ;  they  are  unnaturally  stimulated  by  their  parents  ; 
they  are  treated  to  the  most  brutal  sarcasm  by  their  oppressed 
schoolmasters  if,  in  any  particular,  they  fail  of  absolute  efficiency. 
The  suicide  tale  of  school  children  in  Germany  is,  without  any 
exception  whatever,  the  most  hideous  feature  of  modern  life.  I 
think  no  one  will  deny  this  who  considers  how  worthy  of  tears  a 
thing  it  is  that  a  young  child  should  commit  suicide  because  it 
has  failed  to  pass  an  examination  ;  yet  this  suicide  rate  is  extra- 
ordinarily high  in  Germany.  But  once  they  have  matriculated 
into  their  University,  these  boys  are  turned  absolutely  loose  upon 
towns  singularly  full  of  what  are  called  temptations.  They  have 
no  supervision  of  any  kind  ;  there  is  no  "  gating  " ;  there  are  no 
chapels.  The  normal  career  of  the  German  student — of  the 
German  student  who,  by  the  grace  of  God,  gets  through — is  that 
he  should  spend  two  years  upon  the  Bummel,  in  the  sort  of 
pursuits  so  vividly  described  by  our  author  :  drinking  beer, 
fighting  duels,  upsetting  sentries  in  their  boxes,  and  making  night 
hideous  by  howling  at  the  doors  of  women  of  the  town.    In  the 

8 


114  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  viii 

but  now  wears  enough  hair  to  cover — what  in  these 
boys  used  to  attract  my  eyes  and  distract  me  from 
my  dinner.  In  my  humble  place  in  the  outer  hall 
I  used  to  sit  and  watch  those  wonderful  grey-green 
craniums,  like  a  piece  of  polished  jade  or  pale  lapis 
lazuli,  with  a  network  of  vague  lines  crawling  right 
and  left  and  across.  .  .  . 

I  once  possessed  a  Japanese  doll.  I  remember  its 
mild  broad  head,  so  like  a  baby's,  so  much  out  of 
proportion  to  the  rest  of  its  body,  and  on  which  the 
first  faint  adumbrations  of  the  down  that  would  soon 
be  hair  were  traced  by  the  hand  of  a  skilled  Japanese 

meantime  they  contract  huge  debts  which  their  miserable  fathers, 
who  are  mostly  small  officials  or  Lutheran  pastors,  have  to 
bankrupt  themselves  in  order  to  pay.  If  these  proud  creatures 
be  not  too  far  sunk  in  debauchery,  their  third  years  they  will 
spend  in  a  scramble  for  items  of  knowledge  that  is  almost  more 
ignoble  than  their  former  pursuits.  For  it  has  struck  me  very 
strongly,  when  lecturing  at  German  Universities,  or  attending 
lectures  given  by  other  professors,  that  what  takes  place  is  not  a 
pursuit  of  learning  for  the  love  of  a  mellow  and  lovable  thing ;  it 
is  a  frantic  and  bitter  chase  after  items  of  knowledge,  each  item 
of  such  knowledge  being  worth,  let  us  say,  fifty  pfennigs  a  year 
more  to  the  student  acquiring  it  when  he  shall  have  reached  the 
age  of  fifty.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  the  whole  system  is 
exceedingly  pernicious — certainly  to  the  body  and  decidedly 
undecorative  and  ungracious  for  the  mind.  But,  of  course,  other 
people  will  have  observed  other  things,  and  to  the  debit  balance 
one  may  set  the  fact  that  one  or  two  "  spotty  boys  "  at  Berlin  or 
at  Jena  will  certainly  be  interested — really  and  unashamedly 
interested — in  the  handwriting  of  Charlemagne,  or  the  Rastadter 
Congress.  They  will  not  be  ashamed  of  these  interests,  and  they 
will  not  conceal  them  out  of  the  idea  that  it  is  more  high-spirited 
to  be  exclusively  interested  in  the  topic  of  who  will  be  head  of 
the  river  ;  and  eventually  they  will  be  given  posts  as  under-tax 
collectors  or  second-class  post-office  clerks  in  the  State  to  which 
their  University  belongs. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  viii]    BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN    115 

artist  in  faint  patches  of  an  electric  blue  colour. 
And  the  head  of  this  doll  was  exactly  like  the  head 
of  any  German  student  who  is  fulfilling  the  duties 
incidental  to  his  position,  and  means  you  to  know 
it,  by  these  presents.  .  .  . 

He  is  not  an  escaped  convict — not  even  a  convict 
would  stand  being  shaved  and  pared  down  to  the 
very  quick  like  this.  Nothing  but  fanaticism,  of  a 
sort,  could  accomplish  the  state  of  mind  which 
endures  willingly,  nay,  proudly,  such  an  appalling 
act  of  disfigurement.  No,  this  student  that  I  see 
before  me  has  simply  proved  his  courage  and  is 
continuing  daily  to  prove  a  state  of  courage  that  no 
man  could  impugn.  He  has  gained  a  position  that 
is  eminently  worth  while  in  this  troublesome  world 
of  pugnacious  fellow-students  with  their  sharp,  flat 
duelling  swords,  so  dreadfully  handy.  For  he  is  a 
duellist,  and  these  are  honourable  scars,  gained  in 
single  combat.  He  has  shown  the  stuff  he  is  made 
of,  and  proved  his  manhood  in  half  a  dozen  or  so 
fights.  Why  should  he  allow  the  marks  of  his 
courage  to  fade  away  on  cheek  and  jaw,  when  they 
are  a  sign  for  all  adversaries  to  stand  off  and  not 
provoke  him.  It  is  glory — glory  that  might  fade, 
but  is  not  allowed  to  do  so.  To  that  end  salt  and 
other  disturbers  of  natural  healing  are  rubbed  into 
the  raw  wound.  I  repeat,  it  is  worth  while.  What 
matter  that  your  sweetheart  can  hardly  look  at  you 
without  laughing,  or  your  wife  luxuriate  in  your 
fond  connubial  gaze  without  dreading  a  mishap? 
You  infallibly  suggest  to  outsiders,  "  L'homme  qui 
rit,"  and  though  Victor  Hugo  implies  that  the  love 
of  Duchess  Josiane  stood  the  shock,  we  are  not  told 


ii6  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  viii 

whether  the  grin  of  the  romantic  mountebank  was 
not  perpetuated  in  some  English  nursery. 

Josiane  was  an  English  lady  of  the  Court  of 
Queen  Anne ;  the  standard  of  looks  in  Germany  is 
not,  and  perhaps  never  was,  so  high.  The  German 
Frau,  too,  is  reported  submissive,  and  knowing  the 
provenance  of  these  scars,  does  not  jest  at  them, 
but  respects  and  cherishes  her  doughty  knight  of 
the  Rueful  Countenance. 

The  institution  is  as  old  as  the  hills.  Though 
these  combats  are  nominally  forbidden,  it  is  not 
easy  to  carry  out  the  law  and  fly  in  the  face  of  a 
national  custom.  Duels  used  to  be  fought  in  the 
open — not  necessarily  under  the  sky,  but  in  some 
large  semi-public  hall  or  room  in  the  house  of  the 
corps  on  whose  behalf  the  fight  is  undertaken. 
However,  the  forces  of  sweetness  and  light  have 
objected  and  the  authorities  are  formally  charged  to 
prevent  it.  The  belligerents  and  their  ring  of  friends 
go  out  to  some  rather  distant  clearing  in  the  woods, 
driving  there  with  some  slight  pretence  of  secrecy. 
They  take  a  competent  surgeon  along  with  them,  for 
he  is  quite  sure  to  have  some  work  to  do.  Certain 
self-preserving  preparations  are  gone  through  before 
the  two  combatants  face  each  other.  They  put  up 
masks  to  shield  the  eyes  and  gorgerets  to  protect  the 
throat,  but  the  top  of  the  head,  the  cheeks,  the  nose, 
and  mouth,  are  left  vulnerable.  The  favourite  stroke 
of  the  flat  swords  used  in  this  ferocious  game  seems 
to  be  directed  at  the  top  of  the  head ;  the  result  of 
the  dexterous  cut  at  once  provides  a  cunning  piece 
of  work  for  the  surgeon. 

Supposing  you  slice,  with  the  thin  sharp  knife 


CH.  viii]    BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN    117 

used  by  the  professional  dispenser  of  ham  in  a 
pork-shop,  the  top  of  a  very  thin-skinned  orange 
that  has  not  been  boiled  to  make  it  look  big  and 
swelled  I  You  do  not  slice  it  quite  off,  but  up  to 
the  last  tenuous  piece  of  connecting  fibre.  Then 
suppose  someone  else  forthwith  lays  it  neatly 
on  again,  pressing  the  edges  closely  together,  and 
with  dexterous  needle  and  thread  makes  the  work 
sure.  The  thin-skinned  orange  is  a  good  parallel 
to  the  thinly-covered  scalp  of  the  student  from 
which  his  brother  duellist,  with  the  flat  of  his  sword, 
neatly  takes  off  a  layer  of  skin  and  gristle.  The 
delicate  operation  of  joining  it  again  is  the  surgeon's 
job.  The  appearance  of  the  head  when  healed 
would  be  that  of  nearly  all  student's  heads.  The 
scars  lie  in  circles  all  round  the  top  of  the  skull 
instead  of  criss-cross.  You  can  sit  at  concert  or 
cinematograph,  and  contemplate  at  your  leisure 
something  like  a  blank  school-map  demonstrating 
facts  of  physical  geography.  The  watersheds 
and  rivers  would  be  indicated  in  faint  blue  Hues 
meandering  over  a  pallid,  dimly-shaded  surface ;  and 
that  is  what  your  eyes  rest  on  for  the  whole  of  the 
evening,  and  you  are  glad  to  be  spared  such  a 
prolonged  vision  of  the  cuts  over  the  cheek  or  the 
jaw.  I  cannot — no,  I  cannot — be  brought  by  Joseph 
Leopold's  arguments  to  see  the  justification  for  such 
voluntary  imposition  of  physical  ugliness.  "You 
mouth,  you  ape,  you  make  yourself  faces !"  says 
Hamlet.    And  such  faces ! 

The  swollen,  puffy  cheek,  bloated  like  the  con- 
tents of  a  pan  of  red-coloured  jam  that  bubbles  as  it 
comes  to  the  boil,  or  seared  or  drawn  inwards  as  if 


ii8  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  viii 

all  the  teeth  had  been  pulled  out  through  the  livid 
cheek — there  is  no  excuse  for  a  man  making  such  a 
beast  of  himself  to  see.  For  the  head — passe  encore  ! 
The  proud  protagonist  may  condescend  to  grow 
hair  over  it  when  the  time  for  his  youthful  follies 
is  past ;  at  any  rate,  he  is  obliged  to  wear  a  hat — 
every  man  and  every  woman,  too,  must  in  Germany  ; 
it  is  a  terrible  solecism  to  omit  the  head  covering— 
but  this  grotesque  rictus  which  meets  you  suddenly 
round  a  street  corner  before  you  have  time  to  avert 
your  gaze  makes  you  long  to  degrade  courage  from 
the  rank  of  the  virtues. 

These  cuts,  as  soon  as  they  are  perpetrated,  have 
to  be  attended  to  on  the  spot,  as  I  have  said,  and 
this  is  where  the  crux  —  the  last  fine  shade  of 
stoicism — comes  in.  It  is  not  enough  to  endure  the 
evil ;  the  warrior  must  endure  the  cure  as  well, 
without  flinching.  Sitting  stiffly  in  a  wooden  chair, 
it  may  be  in  the  heart  of  the  spring  woods  with 
brooks  rippling  and  birds  calling,  with  his  victori- 
ous enemy  and  all  the  members  of  his  corps  stand- 
ing attentive  round  him,  the  gory  victim  of  a 
superior  sense  of  honour  must  suffer  in  cold  blood 
the  exceedingly  painful  business  of  being  sewn  up, 
without  flinching  in  the  very  slightest  degree.  The 
practised  needle  goes  in  and  out,  the  birds  sing  on, 
and  the  brook  ripples,  and  a  dozen  or  so  of  eager 
eyes  are  fixed  on  him.  He  must  not  show  by  moan 
or  movement  that  he  is  a  man  of  feeling.  To  wince, 
to  flinch,  the  flicker  of  an  eyelid,  is  to  be  shamed, 
disgraced,  and  cast  out  from  the  corps  whose  honour 
he  has  fought  for.  Unto  this  end  he  must  fight,  or 
all  is  in  vain.      And  it  is  fact  that  the  duellist 


CH.  viii]    BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN     119 

generally  stands  the  ultimate  test  of  courage  success- 
fully, and  is  not  afraid  to  fight  again  another  day  as 
soon  as  his  reputation  grows  a  little  stale  and  needs 
renewing  in  the  eyes  of  his  compeers. 

This  is  the  sort  of  man  who  possesses  Marburg 
in  and  out  of  term  time.  Even  in  the  vacation  the 
Stammtischen  are  fairly  crowded.  The  streets  in 
vacation  are  rather  empty,  because  the  students 
take  the  opportunity  of  long  walks  in  the  country, 
when  not  recalled  hour  by  hour  for  classes  and 
lectures.  And  the  country  round  Marburg  is  not 
tainted  with  suburbanity  like  the  environs  of  Oxford, 
where  you  have  to  wade  through  miles  of  mean 
streets  before  you  come  to  even  the  Port  Meadow  ; 
or  Cambridge,  where  you  may  walk  for  miles  and 
miles  and  find  nothing  more  rural  than  Trumpington 
or  Chelsford. 

But  you  can  walk  out  of  the  main  street  of  Mar- 
burg, past  the  railway-station  to  Wehrda,  or  go  by 
the  woods  over  the  Augustenberg  or  by  steamer 
down  the  Lahn ;  an  affair  of  twenty  minutes,  and 
then  you  are  in  the  country  at  once.  The  steamer 
is  a  little  motor-boat  engineered  by  a  boy  and  a 
half-witted  mate.  The  Lahn  is  like  a  backwater  of 
the  Thames  or  the  Warwickshire  Avon  at  Stratford. 
And  when  I  was  ill,  I  found  this  little  silly  steamer 
ride  very  soothing.  It  took  us  slowly,  stiffly,  puff- 
ingly  to  a  village  of  no  particular  beauty  or  import- 
ance, with  a  cafe  in  a  dull,  stony  garden,  below  which 
the  steamer  stopped.  There  were  a  few  tables,  with 
checked  table-covers  on  them.  You  could  sit  there 
of  an  afternoon  and  watch  the  dull  folk  landing,  and 
see  the  train  for  Kassel  disappear  under  the  tunnel 


I20  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  viii 

on  the  other  side  of  the  bank,  and  watch  the  little 
moorhens  ducking  about  and  the  water-rats  setting 
out  to  cross  the  river,  till  a  stone  thrown  by  some 
idle  tea-drinker  headed  them  back.  It  used  to  move 
me  to  a  weak  frenzy  when  I  saw  a  solid,  lazy  German 
stand  up  and  try  to  defeat  the  poor  beasts'  nice  little 
energetic  scheme.  .  .  .  Then  the  coffee  and  milk  in 
thick  jugs  would  come,  and  Pflaum  Kuchen,  a  horrid 
contrivance  of  cold  pie-crust  with  stewed  plums 
strewn  on  it,  which  I  could  not  have  been  persuaded 
to  eat  in  England.  And  steamboat  loads  of  dull, 
heavy,  tame  people  would  come  up,  and  I  could 
have  touched  their  hats  with  my  hand  as  they  passed 
up  the  landing-stage  under  the  balcony  of  the  tea- 
garden,  but  I  was  too  weak.  And  soon  the  daylight 
faded — it  was  late  September,  and  the  railway-arch 
leading  to  the  tunnel  grew  dark  and  portentous,  like 
a  troll's  cave,  and  swathes  of  oily  mist  began  to  hang 
over  the  river.  Then  we  descended  the  water-stairs 
and  puffed  along  in  the  low  boat  until  the  towers  of 
the  Elizabethen  Kirche  loomed  big  and  near. 

Sometimes  we  walked  to  Raubach  over  the  quiet, 
ordinary,  English-looking  fields.  One  could  picture 
Faust  and  Wagner,  students  both,  taking  their 
memorable  walk  across  these  cultivated  hills,  and 
discoursing  of  forbidden,  pernicious  things,  while 
the  dreadful  black  poodle,  who  turned  up  from 
no  one  knows  where  and  accompanies  them, 
circles  ever  nearer  and  nearer  through  the  corn- 
stalks, Heinrich  Faust  and  Wagner  are  both  men 
of  the  world,  well  versed  in  all  the  current  magic 
of  society  devil-lore.  They  know,  both  of  them, 
quite  well,  that  "  the  Pudel "  is  the  devil.    They  are 


CH.  viii]    BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN    121 

not  afraid,  but  Faust's  friend  Wagner  does  not  quite 
like  it ;  he  says  something,  not  much,  about  the 
poodle's  inconvenient  shadowing,  and  those  few 
calm  remarks,  their  slightness,  give  a  very  complete 
feeling  of  artistic  discomfort  and  diablerie. 

But  when  I  was  recovering,  I  used  to  get  up  as 
far  and  as  high  as  the  Wilhelmsthurm  perched  on 
the  end  of  the  great  moor,  and  then  I  found  myself 
in  a  region  as  wild  as  the  Lake  District  in  England. 
I  had  to  go  round  the  easier  way,  which  is  the 
longest,  but  at  every  turn  of  the  zig-zag  we  met 
perspiring  Fraus  being  positively  "  boosted  "  up  the 
steepest  slopes  by  their  husbands  and  sweethearts. 
They  did  prodigies  of  endurance,  these  women,  and 
their  men  were  strong  and  kind.  I  no  longer  need 
to  wonder  how  the  great  trilithons  of  Stonehenge 
were  brought  to  Amesbury.  Husbandly  devotion 
and  the  joy  of  a  holiday  can  work  miracles.  And 
there  was  a  Kermesse  going  on  on  top.  The  great 
barrels  of  beer  which  these  brave  souls  were  to 
drink  had  been  got  up  there  too,  and  in  much  the 
same  way,  no  doubt. 

If  you  go  west,  towards  Cappel,  and  up  to  the 
Frauenberg,  you  find  yourself  en  plein  pays  de  geste. 
But  it  is  a  long  way  to  the  queer-shaped  volcanic 
hill  crowned  with  ruins  of  different  periods — ghost- 
haunted,  full  of  buried  treasure.  Here  there  is  a 
lonely  forester's  lodge,  where  a  family  has  lived  for 
generations.  You  drink  tea  there — I  mean  coffee — 
and  the  old  grandmother  in  her  decent  black  gown, 
her  peaked  face  looking  like  the  shadow  of  her 
personable  daughter-in-law  in  the  prime  of  life,  and 
holding  a  little  sticky  grandchild  by  the  hand,  comes 


122  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [cu.  viii 

and  asks  you  how  you  like  the  Sand  Kuchen,  and 
wishes  you  God-speed  on  your  walk  home. 

And  the  walk  home,  rather  late,  with  the  sun 
making  haste  to  be  down — and  you  hope  it  won't 
before  you  get  home,  but  you  know  it  will — how 
queer  it  is !  You  walk  along  timidly  on  soft  leaf- 
bestrewn  ways,  under  the  shade  of  tall  pine-trees, 
so  high  that  between  the  lower  part  of  their  thick 
boles  the  tricksy  sun,  that  has  nearly  set,  plays 
hide-and-seek.  It  seems  at  one  time  utterly  gone 
out  and  departed  this  side  of  the  earth ;  at  another, 
gleaming  sudden  and  angry  between  the  dark  bars 
like  a  woodcutter's  fire.  You  hear  the  crunch  of 
your  own  tread,  pit-a-pat ;  the  forest  is  so  big  and 
you  are  so  little,  and  every  now  and  then  you  stop 
and  think  that  you  hear  the  rustle  of  a  deer  or  a 
wild  boar.  ...  "  Es  kann  wohl  sein "  (It  might 
easily  be),  says  Joseph  Leopold.  .  .  . 

Yes,  even  Faust  and  Wagner,  with  their  conver- 
sation so  skilfully  woven  of  philosophic  doubts, 
would  seem  modern  here  1  Mailed  knights  should 
be  riding  to  the  succour  of  distressed  maidens.  I 
should  see  the  shiver  of  grey  steel  flickering  across 
the  vistas,  to  be  lost  again  in  the  woodland  shades. 

And  it  is  not  only  strangers,  or  quasi-strangers 
like  myself,  who  feel  the  uneasy  charm  that  hangs 
over  these  birdless  thickets.  Once  we  had  been 
to  a  Kermesse  up  at  the  Frauenberg,  a  scene  of 
gaiety,  light  costumes,  dancing,  merry-go-rounds, 
and  happy  people  drinking  beer  over  wooden  tables, 
up  there  on  the  hill  among  the  ruins.  But  still, 
when  the  sun  began  to  go  down,  there  was  the 
fearful  return  journey  back  to  Marburg  to  be  faced. 


CH.  viii]    BLUE  PATES  AND  SCHOPPEN    123 

People  started  in  company,  and,  like  Grimm's  Little 
Tailors,  they  all  sang  to  scare  terror  away.  Joseph 
Leopold  always  chants  in  a  loud  voice  the  Lieder 
of  his  country,  and  his  compatriots  seem  to  like  it. 
There  is  an  Austrian  Jodel  song :  "  D'runten  auf 
dem  griinen  Au  .  .  .  Steht  ein  Birnbaum  so  blau  I" 
And  if  one  meets,  as  we  did  that  day,  three  of  the 
belles  of  the  Kermesse  returning  home  to  recount 
their  little  triumphs  to  the  Mutterchen  in  Marburg, 
be  sure  that  they  will  be  wreathed  together  arm-in- 
arm, walking  in  step  and  singing  in  unison  some 
such  song  as  Joseph  Leopold's. 

They  are  Catholics,  so  he  tells  me,  for  they  are 
not  in  costume.  Catholics  repudiate  the  Kaiser's 
encouragement  of  Protestant  survivals.  We  lose 
sight  of  them  ;  they  walk  faster  than  we  do,  and  I 
am  oppressed  by  the  sense  of  the  hour,  and  full  of 
an  unreasoning  terror  lest  we  miss  the  way.  For 
the  sun  has  really  gone  down,  and  the  light  has  for- 
saken the  green  leaves,  and  the  colour  of  them  is 
heavy  and  vapid,  and  the  chills  of  night  begin  to 
creep  in.  It  is  always  thus,  and  I  am  always  afraid. 
It  is  getting  too  dark  to  study  the  blue  and  red  and 
yellow  marks  on  the  tree-trunks  that  tell  us  the  way 
to  go.  We  are  embarked  on  a  yellow  trail,  and  it 
behoves  us  to  examine  nearly  every  tree — at  least, 
I  think  so,  though  Joseph  Leopold  doesn't.  I  am 
afraid  I  shall  hear  a  wild  cat  scream.  .  .  .  The  last 
journey-man  disappears  ;  there  is  a  sudden  declivity 
in  the  path,  and  the  sound  of  the  pretty  girls'  carol- 
ling fades  out  of  hearing.  All  my  days  in  this  land 
are  rounded  off  by  a  silence — the  silence  of  a  German 
forest. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CHESTS  AND  COSTUMES 

In  Marburg,  which  is  in  Hessen-Cassel,  consequently 
in  Prussia,  I  looked  out  of  my  bedroom  window  one 
morning  and  saw  something  like  a  kingfisher  pick- 
ing its  way,  in  little  sharp  erratic  dashes  and  capri- 
cious loiterings  here  and  there,  on  the  cobblestones 
in  front  of  the  Elizabethen  Kirche.  The  day  was 
young,  and  it  was  the  festival  of  Sedan.  The  king- 
fisher was  a  very  young  peasant,  one  of  the  early 
birds  that  find  their  way  into  town  first  on  a  feast- 
day.  It  was  so  early  that  she  obviously  did  not 
know  what  to  do  with  herself.  Presently  she  was 
joined  by  another  flashing  iridescent  creature, 
arrayed  likewise  in  all  the  primitive  colours. 
Together  the  two  passed  under  the  window,  and 
stood  about  under  the  trees  of  the  Marbacher 
Weg,  and  gossiped.  I  watched  them  lazily,  as  an 
invalid  does.  Their  lower  circumference  was  very 
wide.  Their  heads  formed  the  apex  of  a  cone, 
crowned  with  the  red  cap  like  the  ''little  round 
button  at  top"  of  the  mandarin  in  the  rhyme. 
Their  bodices  were  of  velvet  and  their  neckerchiefs 
of  white  silk.  Their  scarves,  carefully,  negligently 
tied,  hung  back  over  their  shoulders.    Their  buckled 

124 


CH.  IX]       CHESTS  AND  COSTUMES  125 

shoes  clicked  on  the  stones.  They  seemed  as  quiet 
and  decorous  as  it  was  possible  to  be,  while  their 
outside  was  like  a  leaping  coloured  flame.  Under 
the  trees  of  the  Allee  they  passed  and  repassed, 
flaring  like  a  couple  of  humming-birds  or  parro- 
quets,  in  gait  as  demure  as  doves,  and  as  gentle. 

And  by-and-by,  as  the  day  wore  on,  the  streets 
of  Marburg  were  full  of  these  gem-like  figures,  all 
come  in  from  the  surrounding  villages,  moving  as 
boldly,  as  easily,  as  theatrical  stars  on  the  front 
boards  of  a  theatre.  Marburg  as  a  decor  is  rather 
sophisticated — an  old  town  full  of  bits,  but  mainly 
modernized.  There  is  a  large  plate-glass  windowed 
shop,  whose  recesses  display  the  finest  confections 
of  the  best  milliners  in  Frankfurt — Frankfurt  where, 
as  everybody  who  dresses  knows,  you  can  buy  as 
good  clothes  as  you  can  at  Monte  Carlo  or  Paris. 
In  a  back  street  is  the  shop  where  the  peasants 
come  and  buy  the  materials  for  these  dresses,  costing 
very  often  not  less  than  ten  or  sixteen  pounds. 
Over  the  door  of  the  shop  is  inscribed  "  Landes- 
tragen."  In  another  shop  are  dolls  dressed  out  in 
costume. 

We  all  think  the  costume  very  old,  but,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  came  in  with  the  Reformation,*  and  it  would 

*  I  do  not  know  what  may  be  our  author's  authority  for  making 
this  statement,  nor  do  I  fancy  that  she  knows  herself.  The  fact 
is  that  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  date  any  given  costume — and 
many  varieties  of  costumes  are  to  be  seen  together  in  the  city  of 
Marburg.  The  one  which  our  author  has  more  particularly 
described  is  that  worn  near  the  villages  of  Amoneburg  and  Kir- 
chain.  It  dates,  in  all  probability,  from  the  sixteenth  century,  or 
possibly  from  the  eighteenth,  since  the  men  who  wear  costume 
on  holidays  carry  under  their  arms  cocked  hats  and  wear  knee- 


126  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  ix 

be  dead  ere  now  only  that  Prussia  encourages  it. 
Costume  used  as  a  political  weapon  is  beyond  me, 
and  Joseph  Leopold  must  correct  me  if  I  do  not 
read  him  aright. 

Meantime,  I  found  costume  worn  naturally  by 
persons  to  the  manner  born  very  good  to  look  on — 
I  who  up  to  now  had  only  seen  examples  of  the 

breeches,  silk  stockings,  and  short  round  jackets.  The  women 
of  the  hamlet  upon  the  Frauenberg,  on  the  other  hand,  about  six 
miles  away,  wear  costumes  very  much  resembling  those  of  the 
Boulogne  fishwives  of  to-day  ;  and  since  they  are  descendants  of 
Huguenot  emigrants  into  Hessen-Cassel,  it  is  obvious  that  their 
costume  dates  from  at  least  before  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes.  The  broad  plain  of  Hessen-Cassel  is  everywhere 
diversified  by  pinnacles  of  basalt,  upon  each  of  which  is  planted 
a  little  town,  varying  in  religion,  in  costume,  and  in  habits. 
Roughly  speaking,  the  Protestant  villages,  encouraged  by  the 
Prussian  Government,  wear  costumes  varying  from  the  highly- 
coloured  one  of  Amoneburg  to  the  sombre  black  petticoat,  black 
bodice  and  white  stomacher,  white  stockings,  black  pumps  with 
silver  buckles,  garters  of  green  with  long  ends,  and  a  particularly 
odd  black  head-dress  in  form  exactly  resembUng  a  Phrygian  cap 
which,  when  working  in  the  fields,  they  replace  by  an  immense 
straw  hat,  in  shape  like  the  chapeau  de  paille  of  Rubens.  This 
latter  costume  is  mostly  found  in  the  north  of  the  Province,  and 
assimilates  fairly  closely  to  that  of  the  Buckerburgerinnen  of  the 
Grand  Duchy  of  Lippe.  This  Grand  Duke,  Uke  the  Government 
of  Prussia,  encourages  his  subjects  by  every  reasonable  induce- 
ment, ranging  to  very  substantial  money  prizes,  to  wear  the 
national  costume.  Prussia  has  done  the  same  thing  in  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  the  idea  being  everywhere  identical — namely,  by  means 
of  the  costume  to  encourage  German  national  feeling.  Roughly 
speaking,  on  the  other  hand,  the  villages  whose  population  is 
Roman  Catholic  or  considerably  Jewish  do  not  wear  the  costume, 
because  these  varieties  of  humanity  have  no  particular  reason  to 
love  Prussia.  And  for  the  same  reason,  there  is  comparatively 
little  costume  to  be  seen  in  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Hessen-Darmstadt 
and  Bei  Rhein.— J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  IX]       CHESTS  AND  COSTUMES  127 

German  peasant  at  fancy-dress  balls  in  London, 
set  amid  policemen  and  pillar-boxes  and  cooks  and 
gitdnos.  Every  plain,  broad-featured  girl  of  my 
acquaintance  used  to  be  advised  by  candid  friends 
and  relations  to  plait  her  hair  or  wear  a  switch,  and 
go  as  Gretchen  or  a  German  peasant — "So  cheap 
and  so  easy,  my  dear  I" 

Here  in  Marburg  I  was  told  that  if  I  wished  to 
see  costume  at  its  best,  and  plenty  of  it,  I  must  go 
to  the  market  on  Saturday.  The  market  was  held, 
I  understood,  on  the  top  of  the  hill ;  I  lived  at  the 
bottom.  So  one  morning  we  mounted  the  high- 
flagged  walk  under  a  low  wall,  shaded  by  a  row  of 
trees,  which  is  the  main  street  of  Marburg.  It  is  a 
sort  of  three-decker  of  a  street,  with  a  cobbled 
causeway  on  one  side  and  an  unpaved  way  on  the 
other.  I  felt  as  if  I  were  walking  on  a  stone  battle- 
ment, raised  in  the  midst  of  a  tumbled  watercourse. 
This  raised  footpath  is  comparatively  new.  How 
did  passengers  manage  when  the  only  way  was  a 
broad,  unadjusted  track  leading  up  through  the 
town  to  the  Schloss  and  Palace  on  the  top  ?  Even 
in  the  memory  of  Joseph  Leopold  the  road  up  from 
the  Elizabethen  Kirche  was  once  like  a  stony  river- 
bed, not  unlike  the  course  of  the  Ilyssus  at  Athens 
after  a  drought. 

Somewhere  about  half-way  up  the  hill  the  famous 
potters  of  Marburg  used  to  sit  and  thump  their  wet 
clay.  That  was  eighteen  years  ago,  and  now  they 
have  all  taken  their  lathes  elsewhere  into  side 
streets,  where  they  have  opened  small  shops.  In 
the  Marbacher  Weg  one  can  still  see  the  wet  discs 
that  will  be  turned  into  bowls  and  dishes,  and  the 


128  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  ix 

queer  featureless  knobs  of  clay  that  are  really  jugs 
drying  on  slats  laid  outside  the  shop-door.  Inside, 
the  potter  is  to  be  seen  hard  at  work,  sitting  at  his 
wheel,  moulding  on  the  sides  of  them  the  conven- 
tional figures  of  birds,  flowers,  and  beasts  he  has 
roughly  designed.  If  you  are  passing  a  day  or  two 
later,  you  can  see  the  same  pieces  carried  a  stage 
further,  with  the  brown  glazes  run  on  to  them,  and 
you  can  buy  them. 

The  designs  on  the  clay  are  mostly  the  same  as 
those  that  have  been  laid  upon  Marburg  pottery 
for  centuries,  by  this  potter's  ancestors  probably. 
You  can  judge  by  the  samples  lying  on  the  shelves 
of  the  Museum  now.  The  pattern  is  there  on  the 
modern  ones,  but,  curiously  enough,  the  spirit  seems 
to  have  departed.  The  design  has  survived,  but  it 
has  thickened  in  the  working,  grown  clumsier  in  the 
handling  :  it  has  lost  dignity  in  the  attempt  at 
realism.  The  workman  has  grown  meritoriously 
regardful  of  Nature,  but  I  think  that  the  stiffness  of 
the  conventional  forget-me-nots  was  more  adapted 
to  the  surface  of  a  bowl,  and  a  primrose  by  the 
cup's  brink  should  not  look  as  if  a  child  had  carried 
it  in  a  hot  hand  all  day.  Perhaps  far  away  in  Eng- 
land, Ruskin  and  his  disciples,  brooding  over  slides 
of  botanical  specimens  in  the  Tayleurian,  were 
responsible  for  these  sad  acts  of  initiative  on  the 
part  of  a  Marburg  potter  ? 

Beasts — even  modern  beasts — are  more  satisfac- 
tory. A  large  white  stag  before  the  setting  sun 
standing  bold  in  the  centre  of  a  yellow  plate  never 
can  look  wrong. 

I  bought  some  ancient  examples  as  curiosities; 


CH.  IX]       CHESTS  AND  COSTUMES  129 

some  modern  ones  of  Herr  Amendhausen  for  use 
and  ornament.  I  then  recklessly  confided  my  pur- 
chase, numbering  about  thirty  pieces,  to  the  Marburg 
railway  people.  It  was  arranged  that  all  of  it  was 
to  be  securely  packed  in  a  wooden  case.  Between 
Herr  Amendhausen,  who  made  the  pottery  and 
packed  it,  and  the  Speditor,  who  expedited  it,  most 
of  it  arrived  in  England  broken.  I  have  now  two 
very  large  bones  to  pick  with  the  Speditor,  which 
I  shall  never  pick,  as  he  is  safely  sheltered  by  a 
railway  company  which  takes  no  risks.  The  other 
bone  is  also  a  picking  bone,  but  I  am  not  at  all  sure 
the  Speditor  is  to  blame  in  the  second  case,  since 
Joseph  Leopold  did  actually  get  the  compensation 
out  of  the  vendor.  I  am  reminded  of  both  of  these 
bones  as  I  go  up  the  main  street  of  Marburg,  past 
the  Apotheke,  where  I  buy  my  so  expensive  and  so 
really  good  drugs — past  the  cheap  draper's  shop 
with  the  Jewish  name,  whose  windows  are  full  of 
seemingly  soft  and  woollen,  but  internally  rotten 
and  jerry-built,  underclothing.  Joseph  Leopold  is 
cold  here  and  chilled  to  the  liver,  but  he  bears  it. 
He'won't  buy  the  Jew's  goods,  for  he  says  you  can't 
get  worse  in  England.  Then  we  go  past  the  barber's 
and  the  Damen  Frisiren  place,  where  they  once 
washed  my  hair  and  dried  it — so  my  sick  fancy, 
bemused  with  hot  and  cold  douches,  pictures  the 
scene — by  a  process  of  winnowing.  They  seemed 
to  be  using  flails,  so  violent  were  their  measures. 
As  I  sat  there,  towelled,  helpless,  and  ridiculous, 
I  observed,  under  cover  of  my  hair,  that  the 
barber's  whole  family  came  in  and  assisted  at  his 
labours.     They  waved  palm-leaf  fans  at  me,  until, 

9 


130  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  ix 

like  Job,  my  hair  lifted  off  my  forehead,  and  I  was 
dry — but  afeard. 

We  go  past  the  two  new  houses  they  are  building 
on  a  sort  of  frame  of  wooden  cross-beams,  quite 
irregular  in  shape,  so  that  when  the  plaster  is  filled 
in  the  new  may  look  as  like  the  old  house  it  replaces 
as  possible.  But  I  do  not  think  that  Germans  are 
affected  enough  to  care  to  build  new  rococo  houses 
simply  "for  pretty,"  as  they  do  in  England,  and  in 
order  to  be  in  the  forefront  of  the  movement  which 
likes  to  reproduce  old  features  for  the  sake  of  chic. 
Certainly,  if  we  saw  such  houses  as  these  two  of 
which  I  am  speaking  in  process  of  building  in  the 
main  street  of  a  busy  English  market  town  among 
a  good  many  modern  ones,  we  should  say,  "This 
builder  is  a  crank  who  wants  to  show  how  clever 
he  is  and  how  much  he  knows."  I  think  Germans 
do  it  because  they  are  opportunists  always,  and 
conservative  when  it  suits  them,  and  the  old  way  of 
building  in  this  case  agrees  with  their  domestic 
arrangements  and  their  love  of  sleeping  warm. 
Sleeping  warm  means  ingle  nooks  and  small  low 
windows  and  the  rest  of  it.  Besides,  roofs  must 
be  high-pitched  for  the  storks  that,  like  well-bred 
children,  are  heard  but  not  seen,  in  Germany.  I 
never  saw  any  but  those  two  in  Wieseck. 

Then  we  came  to — and  did  not  pass  by  for  a  long 
time — the  shop  with  "  Landestragen  "  on  the  facia. 
For,  piled  up  in  the  window^  you  can  see  all  the 
materials  needed  to  complete  the  dress  of  a  peasant 
— the  man's  Kittel,  the  woman's  petticoats,  cap,  and 
bodice.  The  cap  is  made  and  ready  to  wear  except 
for  the  strings  ;  and  here  are  the  handsome  square- 


cii.  IX]      CHESTS  AND  COSTUMES  131 

fringed  neck-scarf,  the  rolls  of  patterned  ribbon 
ready  to  be  feather-stitched  on  to  the  hems,  the 
bales  of  red,  green,  and  blue,  woollen  stuff  for  the 
skirts,  and  the  stamped  velvet  for  the  bodices. 

Who  that  has  only  seen  the  usually  ridiculous 
ballroom  figure,  with  pigtail  plaited  a  la  Marguerite, 
and  draggled  skirt  not  half  short  enough,  that  does 
not  stick  out,  but  clings  to  the  silk-stockinged  legs, 
can  form  any  idea  of  the  working  reality  ?  For 
here  it  is.  This  shop  is  a  miniature  Whiteley,  and 
there  are  shops  like  this  in  most  towns  where  the 
thrifty  German  peasant,  who  feels  herself  in  need 
of  a  new  dress,  can  buy  all  her  materials  at  once 
and  hie  her  home  to  her  distant  farmstead  and  make 
it  at  her  leisure.  The  materials  are  costly,  but  then 
she  will  not  have  any  such  new  costumes  in  the 
course  of  her  life,  or  she  may  have  inherited  one 
or  two,  as  often  happens.  The  caps,  especially  the 
very  handsome  seed-pearl  embroidered  ones,  are 
frequently  passed  on  as  heirlooms.  I  have  three 
now  that  were  bought  in  that  very  shop  and  which, 
though  good  and  solid,  look  as  if  they  had  been 
going  for  several  hundred  years. 

The  petticoat  is  where  the  amateur  goes  wrong. 

The  proper  amount  of  skirts  would  be  impossible 
to  dance  in ;  and  that  is  why  the  German  peasant 
woman  working  in  the  fields  discards  all  her  petti- 
coats but  the  upper  one  on  a  hot  day.  I  have  seen  a 
girl's  defroque  lying  on  the  ground  beside  her  reap- 
ing-hook and  the  pot  of  beer  she  has  carried  out 
to  her  husband.  Or,  if  she  is  not  actually  affluent 
enough  to  possess  more  than  one  skirt,  or  perhaps 
two,  she  ekes  it  out  with  a  sort  of  bolster  worn 


132  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  ix 

round  the  hips,  which  sets  out  the  garment  as 
properly  as  if  it  were  one  of  many,  and  procures 
her  the  indispensable  freedom  of  movement  neces- 
sary for  working — or  dancing.  No  clinging  woollen 
clogging  their  movement  for  them  ! 

And  perhaps  it  is  this  clever  theory  of  toilette 
put  into  practice  which  permits  of  the  fine,  large, 
swinging  gait  with"which  the  German  Bauern-Frau 
treads  the  furrows.  It  is  this  long  stride  which  is 
absolutely  characteristic  of  the  walk  of  the  working 
woman  in  Germany,  and  is  so  pronounced  that  it 
is  patent  to  any  casual  observer  from  the  window 
of  a  railway  train. 

And  talking  of  the  rationale  of  costume,  it  strikes 
me  that  the  make  of  the  Hessian  peasant's  bodice — 
and  that  of  the  present  Swiss  female  costume  and  of 
the  English,  once — embodies  the  very  sound,  if  un- 
conscious, theory  that  the  stiffer  and  solider  parts 
of  the  clothing — i.e.,  those  intended  to  procure  sup- 
port and  warmth — should  be  worn  on  the  outside. 
The  good  old  English  word  for  corset  suggests  it, 
and  the  sense  is  exemplified  in  the  use  of  that  word 
for  the  wooden  splats  and  laths  which  hold  a  vessel 
in  process  of  construction  together  till  it  leaves  its 
birthplace  in  the  shipyard.  Several  nations  seem 
to  agree  sartorially  that  this  stay  or  support  should 
be  worn  outside  the  shirt  or  shift.  The  French  "  to 
corser" — i.e.,  stiffen,  hold  up — from  which  they  get 
the  noun  corset,  holds  the  same  notion. 

A  curious  reversion  to  this  theory  of  toilette  is 
sometimes  carried  out  in  the  water  at  Dieppe.  I 
observed  one  lady,  whom  everybody  else  observed, 
not  on  account  of  her  costume,  which  was  normal, 


CH.  IX]      CHESTS  AND  COSTUMES  133 

but  on  account  of  her  beauty,  which  was  abnormal — 
she  was  the  late  Miss  Kitty  Savile  Clarke — wearing, 
day  after  day,  for  her  morning  dip,  a  black  satin 
stiffly-boned  corset  over  her  red  maillot,  and  looking 
like  a  well-designed  poster  as  she  sat  hanging  her 
legs  over  the  sides  of  the  boat  to  which  she  had 
swum. 

I  believe  that  it  was  practically  only  in  the  last 
century  that  the  old  process  was  reversed  and  what 
I  will  call  woman's  immense  and  vaunted  "  staying 
power  "  hidden  underneath  her  softer  exterior.  She 
used  to  be  a  pomegranate,  now  she  is  a  peach.  To 
me  the  present  fashion  mendaciously  suggests  that 
natural  resilience  alone  bears  up  this  fraud  that  is 
woman.  She  is  seeking  thus  to  maintain  an  appear- 
ance of  firm  flesh  underneath  the  soft  bodice  of  silk 
or  skilfully  folded  material.  But  he  who  has  danced 
with  the  seemingly  yielding  fair  is  aware  of  the  local 
stiffness  that  informs  the  shape  he  pilots  by  the  flat 
of  his  palm  round  the  ballroom.  In  fact,  my  partners 
have  in  confidence  informed  me  that  they  would 
not  have  it  otherwise,  and  that  they  find  it  easier  to 
negotiate  the  varied  contours  of  window-jamb  and 
cornice  and  evade  the  thundering  masses  of  human 
conglomerate  that  may  bear  down  on  the  navigator, 
with  "  something  solid  to  get  hold  of." 

But  the  modern  Swiss  bodice  which  still  obtains, 
and  the  German  one  too,  worn  honestly  outside,  is 
a  piece  de  resistance  in  more  senses  than  one,  for  it  is 
made  to  lace  and  not  to  fit.  A  girl  may  wear  the 
bodice,  which,  slight  and  young,  she  could  scarcely 
fill — and  a  German  Madchen,  if  you  take  her  young 
enough,  is  sometimes  as  slender  as  any  gazelle — 


134  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  ix 

until  such  time  as  she  is  a  full-grown  woman  and 
can  only  adjust  her  corsage  and  exigencies  with  the 
aid  of  pins.  And  for  a  worker,  the  outside  corselet 
has  obvious  advantages,  such  as  have  been  acquired 
over  here  by  the  wearers  of  the  kimono  sleeve — 
now  come  down  to  the  slums.  There  is  a  style 
of  dress  in  Germany  adopted  by  the  middle  class 
which  borrows  from  the  peasant  dress  one  principle, 
that  of  the  independant  sleeve.  Inexperienced 
dressmakers  must  love  the  Reform  Kleid,  since  it 
evades  a  ticklish  bit  of  fitting  known  as  "the  under- 
arm seam."  And  although  evolution  has  added  a 
pair  of  sleeves  to  the  corselet  in  Germany,  the  free- 
dom and  play  of  the  chest  is  still  permitted,  and  I 
observe  that  the  more  slovenly  type  of  German 
Madchen  avails  herself  fully  of  the  relief  of  missing 
hook  and  bursting  buttonhole. 

The  skirt  is  always  made  of  woollen  material, 
and  nearly  always  the  handy  peasant  woman 
weaves  it  herself,  choosing  her  colours  carefully. 
The  upper  skirt  is  generally  of  a  very  bright  colour, 
the  under-petticoats  of  a  duller  hue,  unless,  indeed, 
they  happen  to  have  been  degraded  from  the  rank 
of  upper  skirt  to  a  more  humble  position.  "  Friend, 
go  lower !"  And  if  young  women  are  partial  to  a 
strong,  vivid  green,  I  have  noticed  that  the  older 
ones  prefer  a  soberish  grey.  But  always  there  is 
the  broad,  bright  border,  composed  of  several  rows 
of  figured  ribbon.  These  rows  bring  the  trimming 
of  such  skirt  fully  two  feet  up  from  the  bottom.  The 
other  day,  turning  out  a  drawer  full  of  old  things,  I 
came  upon  several  lengths  of  old  silk  English  ribbon 
patterned  very  much  as  these  German  ribbons  are. 


CH.  IX]      CHESTS  AND  COSTUMES  135 

and  so  "  good  "  as  almost  to  be  able  to  stand  alone, 
like  the  satin  dress  of  the  elder  Miss  Browning  of 
Cranford. 

The  old-fashioned  caps  are  set  with  coloured 
stones  and  embroidered  with  seed-pearls.  Those 
new-fashioned  that  are  for  sale  in  the  Marburg  shop 
are  less  elaborate  and  a  trifle  tawdry.  They  are  all 
small,  not  much  larger  than  half  an  orange,  and  they 
are  worn  set  carefully  on  the  top  of  the  knob  of  hair 
scraped  up  from  the  whole  head,  with  wide  strings 
of  black  ribbon  with  a  picot  border  depending  from 
them  and  flung  back. 

The  knob  of  hair  I  Sad  to  relate,  that  is  generally 
all  there  is  of  it,  at  all  events  when  the  German  peasant 
wife  has  reached  the  age  of  thirty.  The  Marguerite 
plait,  if  it  ever  existed,  has  been  frightened  away 
by  the  good  soul's  habit  of  intensive  hair  cultivation. 
From  earliest  youth  she  has  strained  it  back*  a  la 
Pegotty,  into  the  little  tight  knob  I  have  been 
speaking  of,  so  that  it  all  goes  quite  comfortably 
into  the  circumference  of  a  quarter  pot.  And  pity 
'tis,  'tis  true !  .  .  .  An  English  old  maid  of  a 
hundred  odd  years  in  a  cathedral  town,  "scrappy  and 
hairless,"  according  to  the  chivalrous  saying,  could 
boast  of  her  scant  locks  as  against  the  "having"  of  a 
happy  and  careless  German  peasant  matron  of  thirty. 

The  bodice  of  black  or  maroon  or  dark  blue  velvet 

♦  The  costume  of  the  ArUsienne,  which  dates  quite  definitely 
from  the  year  1840,  mcludes  a  similar  odd  little  cap  perched  on 
the  top  of  the  head,  but  such  head-dresses  these  very  beautiful 
women  only  wear  upon  Sundays  and  feast  days,  alleging  that 
to  wear  them  more  often  would  ruin  their  hair.  Thus  once 
more  do  they  seem  to  manage  these  things  better  in  France. — 
J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


136  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  ix 

stamped  with  a  flowery  pattern,  and  worn  on 
holidays,  or  the  other  humbler  one  for  work-days, 
made  of  printed  cotton  or  linen,  has  a  little  berthe 
of  quilling  of  self  material  all  round  the  decolletage, 
which  is,  of  course,  never  a  decolletage  at  all.  It  is 
always  filled  in  with  the  very  clumsiest  arrange- 
ment imaginable,  a  neckerchief  of  coloured  silk  or 
white  linen,  folded  with  some  skill  afresh  every  day. 

Round  the  column  of  the  neck  itself  the  fringed 
worsted  or  silk  scarf  of  vivid  hue  is  carelessly 
knotted,  and  the  ends  arranged  to  hang  down  the 
back.  It  is  a  curious  arrangement  for  which  one 
can  discover  no  apparent  artistic  or  hygienic  reason. 

Coloured  worsted  stockings  and  shoes  of  felt  with 
embroidered  toes  complete  this  costume,  which  I 
have  observed  chiefly  at  Marburg.  Marburg  is  a 
Protestant  place ;  Catholics  don't  wear  costume. 
And  at  Marburg  sashes  are  worn,  but  I  have  not 
seen  them  in  the  shops  for  sale.  I  suppose  they 
represent  an  individual  fancy  of  the  wearer.  At 
the  Kirchweih  fetes  and  the  Kermesses  I  have 
sometimes  hovered  round  examples  of  these  sashes, 
attracted  by  the  extraordinary  garish,  clotted  effect 
of  the  colours  introduced  into  them.  I  have  gone 
quite  close  to  find  out  exactly  the  material  used — 
Berlin  wools.  I  have  never  seen  anything  in  the 
nature  of  decoration  so  vivid,  so  savage,  so  poison- 
ous-looking as  these  innocent  toilette  accessories 
worn  by  very  young  girls,  and  evidently  made  by 
hand,  just  as  their  English  cousins  made  chair- 
covers  and  mats  and  tea-cosies  out  of  the  same  stuff 
in  the  'sixties ! 

In    Germany,   I    suppose,   fashions    die  harder. 


CH.  IX]      CHESTS  AND  COSTUMES  137 

England  took  Berlin  wool-work  from  Germany 
in  the  first  instance.  Ann  Matilda  and  Georgina 
Maria  slavishly  adopted  this  mode  along  with  their 
new  Hanoverian  rulers  in  1714,  and  it  died  with 
Gladys  and  Phyllis  and  Muriel,  who  took  on  crewel 
work.  That  is  dead  again.  Lotte  and  Gretchen, 
with  whom  Berlin  wool-work  originated,  still  wear 
their  wool  flowers  gaily  and  on  regions  the  other 
ladies  never  knew,  for  in  England,  I  fancy,  it  was 
never  used  as  a  personal  decoration.  I  am  aware 
that  the  present  fashion  in  Paris  is  for  hats  trimmed 
with  wreaths  composed  of  the  Early  Victorian 
symbol,  and  that  breast  knots  of  a  single  wool-work 
double  dahlia  with  leaves  to  match  are  the  rage,  or 
have  been. 

We  bought  some  old  hand-sewn  embroidered  linen 
tablecloths  in  the  Landestragen  shop  to  make  bed- 
curtains  with  for  an  old  English  bed,  and  mounted 
farther  into  the  heart  of  Marburg.  There,  among 
the  little  alleys,  like  dirty  filaments,  that  wind  in  and 
out  and  up  the  steep  monticules  on  which  the  town 
of  Marburg  is  built,  lives  the  great,  the  wicked  Herr 

.     He  lives  in  a  little  court — a  court  where 

Gretchen  might  have  lived,  and  which  Hawes  Craven 
might  have  copied  for  Henry  Irving.  I  wished  to 
feast  my  eyes  on  the  three  good  Truhen  *  which  he 

*  Truhen  are,  as  a  rule,  the  bride  chests  which  accompany  the 
Hessian  bride  from  her  father's  house  to  her  husband's  upon  the 
day  of  the  wedding.  Upon  such  an  occasion  these  Truhen  con- 
tain all  the  Hnen  that  will  be  used  and  all  the  costumes  that  will 
be  worn  by  that  bride  during  the  remainder  of  her  life.  There 
should  be  costumes  for  the  wedding,  for  church-goings,  for 
mournings,  for  widowhood,  and  the  shroud  of  burial.  And  the 
strictly  orthodox  bride  should  have  spun  or  woven,  at  least  with 


I|8  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  ix 

possessed  and  was  offering  us  for  sale.  We  intended 
to  show  no  eagerness,  but  to  purchase  them  the  day 
before  departure.  We  meant  to  make  him  send  them 
to  us  in  England,  where  they  would  do  us  credit. 
In  Germany  only  art  nouveau  goes  down,  and  for  our 
German  house  we  had  to  furnish  accordingly. 

It  was  with  regard  to  this  purchase  that  we  again 
encountered  the  Speditor.  But  it  was  not  the  Speditor 
who  cheated  us  this  time.  It  was  a  clever  old  Jew 
who  took  an  extra  pound  for  packing  the  Truhen, 
and  sent  them  all  the  way  to  Campden  Hill  with  a 
bit  of  sacking  lightly  laid  round  their  contours,  as  a 
woman  drapes  a  handsome  opera-cloak  over  her 
shoulders — not  so  much  to  keep  herself  warm  as  to 
show  off  the  beautiful  lining  of  the  cloak,  and  the 
beautiful  bust  it  covers  so  ill.  However,  an  equally 
clever  German  Rechtsanwalt,  who  was  not  a  Jew,  got 
us  out  of  it.     He  took  the  matter  into  court,  and 

forced   Herr  to  disgorge  the  money  we  had 

given  him  for  packing,  and  with  it  we  paid  for  repair 
and  dilapidations.  The  Rechtsanwalt's  fee  was  only 
ten  shillings.  There  are  some  advantages  of  being 
a  German  subject. 

And  they  were  beautiful  pieces  of  work,  these 
Truhen.  One  of  them  came  from  the  convent  of 
Kloster  Arnsburg,  where  the  nuns  had  used  it  to 
keep  their  vestments.  It  has  the  Three  Kings  cut 
in  low-relief  on  its  sides,  and  thick  pilasters  to  the 

the  assistance  of  her  mother,  every  single  piece  that  the  chest 
contains.  Similarly,  the  chest  of  a  nun  was  to  be  considered  as 
her  bridal  chest,  and  to  contain  all  the  garments  she  will  ever 
wear  from  the  beginning  of  her  novitiate  to  her  burial. — 
J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  IX]      CHESTS  AND  COSTUMES  139 

doors.  Another,  carved  and  inlaid  (I  may  mention 
that  it  was  this  chest  that  suffered  the  worst  from 
the  evil  effects  of  careless  packing,  for  it  arrived  with 
all  its  inlays  starting  out  of  its  head,  and  its  painted 
figures  blurred  and  damaged),  is  of  a  pale  light  wood, 
and  has  been  painted  at  a  later  date.  The  third,  the 
smallest  and  most  mysterious  of  all,  puzzled,  and 
continued  to  puzzle,  the  greatest  connoisseur  in 
furniture  in  the  world — a  man  whose  boast  is  that, 
show  him  only  a  square  inch  of  any  piece  whatever, 
and  he  will  engage  to  tell  you  its  nature,  make,  and 
provenance.  In  this  chest,  decorated  with  stags  and 
horses  and  plants  of  a  curious  convention  resembling 
the  hieratic  lotus  flower,  Joseph  Leopold  keeps  his 
suits,  with  great  inconvenience  but  immense  artistic 
satisfaction. 

We  passed  on,  and  found  the  market-place  at  last. 
It  is  situated  on  a  level  plateau,  and  closed  in  from 
the  view  of  the  valley  of  the  Lahn  on  three  sides  by 
houses,  and  on  the  fourth  by  an  old  town-hall. 
Flowers  in  window-boxes  are  on  the  sill  of  every 
window  of  this  otherwise  austere-looking  building, 
and  the  houses  are  all  painted. 

I  have  never  been  in  Italy,  but  I  fancy  that  the 
painted  houses,  the  costumed  women,  and  the  natural 
hues  of  fruit  and  flowers,  altogether  made  up  such  a 
blaze  of  colour  as  Italy  could  not  exceed,  though  she 
might  equal.  At  any  rate,  I  am  not  aware  that  houses 
in  Italy  are  notched,  faceted,  and  blazoned  in  stripes 
and  dots  in  all  the  strongest  primary  colours.  And 
imagine  what  it  is  to  have  flashed  on  you  all  at 
once  a  bed  of  hydrangeas,  calceolarias,  nemophilas, 
nasturtiums,  and  gladioli,  peonies,  dahlias,  fuchsias, 


I40  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  ix 

begonias  and  pelargoniums  —  heated,  irritable, 
passionate  flowers  with  these  sort  of  Latin  termina- 
tions rush  to  one's  mind  at  once — and  you  may  have 
an  idea  of  this  German  market-place  on  that  sunny 
day  in  mid-September.  Of  all  the  flowers  named  in 
my  list,  none,  I  think,  were  actually  present  except 
the  gladioli,  and  there  were  a  great  many  of  these. 
And  then  there  were  the  costumes  and  the  women's 
cheeks,  and  green,  very  green,  cabbages,  and  the 
most  golden  pumpkins,  and  extremely  purple  plums, 
and  deeply-tinged  apples.  There  were  also  the 
clear,  translucent  shades  of  yellow  cheeses,  and  tubs 
of  milky  curds,  and  kegs  of  butter — good  German 
butter,  very  white,  like  Castile  soap.  That  is  as  it 
should  be.  It  takes  you  some  months  of  en  menage 
to  realize  that  it  isn't  your  husband's  shaving-soap 
which  has  got  on  to  the  breakfast-table  by  mistake. 
The  awnings  of  the  stalls,  too,  were  gaily  striped, 
and  laughing,  higgling  men  and  women  passed  to 
and  fro  under  them.  Everybody  was  selling  «nd 
everybody  buying  at  the  same  time,  which  seems 
an  eminently  satisfactory  arrangement.  Nobody 
stayed  in  one  place  long  except  perhaps  a  few  old, 
very  old,  women,  immovably  fixed  behind  a  tub 
of  butter  or  curds,  and  with  a  round  umbrella 
stretched  over  them.  Sometimes  one  of  them,  when 
she  had  done  good  business — sold  a  whole  kegful, 
perhaps — rose  and  pattered  away  slowly  into  the 
church  hard  by  to  mutter  a  grateful  orison,  and  so 
back  again  to  the  silent  session  among  all  the  noise. 


CHAPTER  X 

WAITERS  AND  POLICEMEN 

I  HAVE  known  many  waiters,  German,  and  not 
otherwise,  but  I  have  never  known  a  waiter  like 
Le  bel  Ernst.  "  Mais  c'est  de  la  folie  !"  Joseph 
Leopold  used  to  exclaim  when  he  heard  me  expatia- 
ting, in  season  and  out  of  season,  on  the  monumental 
virtues  of  this  young  man.  I  will  try  to  describe  him. 
Of  the  images  conjured  up  by  the  word  "  waiter," 
Ernst  possesses  only  one  attribute ;  he  is  German. 
A  waiter  who  is  not  German  is  superhuman  unless 
he  is  Swiss,  and  all  waiters  are  slavish,  seedy, 
sycophantish,  anaemic,  impertinent,  and  indifferent. 
Ernst  cannot  be  thus  described.  Firm -fleshed, 
stout,  but  not  fat,  he  is  positively  handsome  in  a 
blonde,  Napoleonic  way,  with  a  chest  and  a  stomach 
like  a  soldier's — that  is  to  say,  decently  and  becom- 
ingly bombe— under  his  white  apron  of  service,  not 
servitude.  This  is  the  best  physical  description  I 
can  give  of  the  life  and  soul — and  may  I  add  of  the 

stomach  ?  —  of  the  R Hotel  in   Marburg.     Of 

course,  his  erect  carriage  might  be  attributed  to  the 
fact  that  he  has  served ;  but  then,  German  waiters 
in  England  who  cringe  and  fawn  and  poke  have 
presumably  also  served  their  country  for  a  span. 

141 


142  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  x 

And  the  anaemia  of  the  English  variety  is  supposed 
to  be  the  result  of  the  conditions,  so  unfavourable 
to  digestion,  of  life  in  the  restaurant — the  hurried 
meals,  the  close  atmosphere.  But  who  that  had  seen 
Ernst  snatch  a  hasty  mouthful  halfway  through  his 
labours  of  the  evening  meal  would  doubt  if  he  him- 
self took  these  conditions  into  consideration  at  all  ? 
We  used  to  see  him,  when  he  thought  there  was 
time,  or  might  possibly  be  time  —  a  poor  three 
minutes  or  so — settle  himself  at  one  of  the  tables, 
fetch  a  plateful  from  the  buttery  hatch  and  begin  to 
stoke,  with  one  eye  on  the  favoured  customer  and 
the  other  on  the  Saal  in  general.  After  three 
mouthfuls  or  so  the  urgent,  wanton  call  would 
come,  and  Ernst  would  rise  calmly  and  attend  any 
felt  want,  and  as  easily  subside  into  his  place  again, 
eat  some  more,  to  rise  again  at  least  five  times 
before  his  immediate  hunger  could  possibly  be 
satisfied.  I  have  never  seen  anything  in  England 
like  the  machine-Hke  efficiency  of  this  firm  piece  of 
flesh  and  blood.  I  was  never  tired  of  setting  it  in 
motion  and  watching  the  ensuing  steady  roll  across 
the  Speisesaal.  I  admired  the  sweep  of  the  arm, 
the  indicative  flourish  with  which  he  pointed  out 
the  "^table  where  he  and  the  management  would 
prefer  one  to  sit,  and  the  adroitness  with  which  he 
effected  the  removal  of  soiled  napkins  and  out- 
worn dishes ;  his  eye,  bright,  small,  and  universally 
bestowed ;  his  firm  white  hands  that  deposited  the 
dish  one  had  asked  for,  and  none  other,  in  front  of 
one,  on  the  really  clean  white  table-cloth. 

I  remember  the  first  time  I  saw  him.      Weary 
and  dejected,  we  had  both  flung  ourselves  on  to  a 


CH.  x]     WAITERS  AND  POLICEMEN  143 

red  plush-covered  settee  in  front  of  a  table  that 
seemed  to  us  the  most  likely  and  pleasant,  and 
beckoned  condescendingly  to  the  Lohengrin  -  like 
figure  that  hovered — if  anything  so  solid  could 
be  said  to  hover — in  the  dim  penumbra  of  the 
unlighted  part  of  the  Speisesaal  near  the  door, 
where  stag's  antlers,  with  heavy  coats  hung  upon 
them,  rendered  the  wall  one  sheet  of  mysterious 
blackness.  Close  to  the  white  figure  outlined 
thereon  was  the  bar,  where  glancing  brass  levers 
functioned  and  bottles  of  liqueurs,  with  their  varie- 
gated labels  bearing  names  of  awe,  stood  about, 
handled  by  a  forbidding-looking  female  who  bore  no 
sort  of  affinity  to  their  vicious  and  decadent  contents. 
Behind  this  angular  female,  a  more  opulently  con- 
toured variety  of  the  sex  seemed  to  be  continually 
surging  in  from  the  kitchen  behind.  There  were 
steaming,  beetle-browed  women,  bearing  plates  that 
seemed  heavy,  and  which  they  slammed  down  as  if 
they  were  very  hot,  in  front  of  the  austerer  Hebe 
who  manipulated  the  levers  and  poured  out  the 
foaming  Bocks  that  were  to  wash  down  the  viands. 
There  Lohengrin  stood,  while  Elsa  and  Ortrud 
functioned  appropriately  under  his  direction. 
Majestically  he  commanded  and  never  spoke. 

Le  bel  Ernst,  for  this  was  he,  began  his  ministra- 
tions on  our  behalf  by  politely  heading  us  off  the 
Stammtisch,  where  it  would  have  been  death  to  us 
to  presume  to  sit,  and  then,  like  an  ambulant,  hardly 
animated,  penny-in-the-slot  machine,  complaisantly 
but  not  slavishly,  he  took  our  order.  He  was  a 
trifle  austere  at  first,  for  he  did  not  know  us,  but  even 
later  on  I  cannot  say  he  smiled.     He  did  not,  at  any 


144  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  x 

rate,  smile  with  his  Hps — an  American  might  have 
said  that  he  smiled  a  very  little  all  over.  At  any 
rate,  we  were  just  able  to  infer  that  he  liked  us. 

Of  course  there  are  no  waiters  like  Ernst  in 
England,  and  the  reason  is  obvious.  Ernst  had  no 
desire  to  learn  English,  for  he  can  do  very  well 
without  it.  England  only  gets  the  inferior  artist, 
who  thinks  to  raise  his  salary  by  the  acquiring  of 
this  merely  meretricious  advantage.  Ernst,  on  the 
face  of  him,  needs  none  of  these  adventitious  aids 
to  success  ;  he  manages  quite  well  without  talking 
anybody's  language  at  all. 

We  fell  across  quite  another  variety  of  the  German 
waiter  at  home  at  Trier.  The  good,  dear,  nervous 
soul  spoke  all  languages,  but  was  conversant  with 
none.  He  had  been  in  England,  and  he  detected 
the  trace  of  the  alien  in  me  at  once. 

One  evening — we  were  going  to  be  out  late  and 
we  started  early — I  left  the  task  of  ordering  dinner 
to  him.  "Trust  me,  Madame,  you  shall  have  a 
dinner  all  right !"  he  had  wagged  his  head  and  said. 
And  when,  weary  with  our  long  day,  riding  in  a 
train  all  the  way  up  the  Mosel  to  Cochem,  we  came 
in  and  sat  down  lumpishly,  and  called  for  our  mess, 
it  proved  the  worst  dinner  we  had  ever  struck  in  all 
our  days.  Impossible  fish,  swimming  in  water  that 
had  not  been  adequately  drained,  tasteless  chops, 
unredeemed  by  garlic  or  onion,  a  pudding — yes,  a 
pudding  of  rice  and  jam,  and — oh,  I  cannot  tell ! 

"You  don't  eat  ?"  he  remarked,  bitterly  chagrined. 
"And  I  had  ordered  such  a  nice  little  dinner  for 
you,  one  I  thought  you  would  like.  All  English — 
cuisine  a  feau " 


CH.  x]      WAITERS  AND  POLICEMEN  145 

We  explained  very  softly,  for  we  were  not  leaving 
just  yet,  that  we  weren't  English,  didn't  want  to  be 
English,  would  have  hated  English  cookery  even  if 
we  had  been  English.  Poor  dear !  He  was  not 
angry,  but  saddened  and  depressed  for  the  remainder 
of  our  stay.  He  wore  no  nice  white  apron  tied 
round  his  middle  like  Le  bel  Ernst.  Only  the 
wretched  swallow-tailed  bastard  evening  dress  of 
usage.  I  have  never,  I  believe,  seen  Ernst  without 
his  eternal  apron,  with  the  delicate  tape-strings  tied 
carefully  round  his  waist,  as  it  were,  "  pour  dessiner 
un  peu  la  taille."  No,  I  am  forgetting;  I  saw  Ernst 
once  in  mufti,  and  it  was  on  a  Sunday,  Coming 
round  the  corner  from  Marchesi's,  a  sailor  hat  was 
taken  off  to  me,  not  flourished,  and  I  received  a 
smart  bow  and  muttered  salutation  from  a  blue- 
serge-clad  youth  with  a  jaunty  stick  in  his  hand, 
which  warned  me  to  say  my  obligatory  "  Tag  !"  and 
look  at  the  holiday  face  and  get-up  of  the  Light  of 
the  Speisesaal. 

Ernst  knew  what  every  waiter  ought  to  know 
and  never  does,  or  else  he  knows  it  incorrectly, 
and  that  is  the  times  of  trains  and  buses,  and  the 
best  way  to  use  the  modes  of  transit  obtaining  in 
the  district  in  which  one  happens  to  be.  He  was 
able  to  tell  us  where  to  go  for  tea,  or  where  to  walk, 
and  where  to  buy  an  English  newspaper,  and  what 
day  the  cinematograph  treated  its  patrons  to  a 
change  of  programme,  a  matter  of  the  first  impor- 
tance to  Joseph  Leopold.  He  even  took  upon  him- 
self the  duty  of  telling  us  when  to  look  out  of  the 
window. 

We  happened  to  be  at  Marburg  on  Sedan  Day. 

10 


146  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  x 

English  people  have  no  idea  what  an  important  day 
that  is  in  Germany ;  at  least,  English  people  who 
have  not  toiled  up  the  vine-clad  slopes  above  Riide- 
sheim  to  the  Denkmal,  the  immense  memorial 
Germany  raised  to  its  dead  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
War.  On  a  pouring  wet  day  the  whole  Town 
Council  of  Marburg  turned  out  in  tail  coats  and  top 
hats,  and  with  white  scarves  round  their  middles, 
and  went  in  procession  up  the  narrow  main  streets. 
All  the  students'  corps  went  too,  and  many  cos- 
tumed persons  belonging  to  the  old  custom-ridden 
town.  It  was  a  long,  long  business,  and  before  they 
had  all  passed  out  of  sight  our  breakfast  was  quite 
cold. 

The  festivities  lasted  all  day  and  well  into  the 
evening.  The  procession  passed  again  just  after 
dusk,  and  this  time  the  little  boys  were  furnished 
with  coloured  Chinese  lanterns.  Past  our  windows 
they  went  again,  and  up  the  steep  main  street  right 
through  the  town  to  the  Schloss  on  top.  They 
looked  like  an  army  of  great  pink  toadstools,  as 
they  climbed  and  were  lost  to  view.  We  followed, 
and  took  our  after-dinner  coffee  as  usual  at 
Marchesi's,  so  as  to  see  a  little  more  of  them. 

There  are  a  great  many  cafes  in  Marburg,  but 
Marchesi's  is  the  more  popular.  Out  of  the  dim, 
ill-lighted  street  one  passes  into-  a  covered  way 
leading  to  a  bar,  and  then  further  to  a  room,  with 
a  large  stove  in  the  middle,  dotted  with  little  tables 
where  women  and  men  sit  drinking  coffee,  and 
beer,  and  syrups  and  grenadines,  and  eating  large 
slabs  of  indigestible  cake.  For  their  souls'  enter- 
tainment they  read  the  daily  papers,  glance  at  the 


CH.  x]      WAITERS  AND  POLICEMEN         147 

illustrated  ones,  and  play  dominoes  or  knit.  We 
passed  through  that  room  on  to  the  veranda  open 
to  the  night.  This  veranda  is  perched  on  a  dizzy 
height,  and  seems  to  project  far  over  the  back  street 
of  the  town.  One  looks  down  on  to  the  River  Lahn. 
It  reminded  me  of  the  view  from  one  of  the  Canon's 
houses  on  to  the  Banks  at  Durham.  Marburg  often 
does  remind  me  of  my  native  city ;  it  has  just  such 
another  embattled  situation.  We  took  up  our  places 
in  the  balcony,  and  our  legs  and  the  ferules  of  our 
umbrellas  got  wound  up  with  the  spokes  of  the 
railing  balusters.  Then  we  ordered  ices  and  coffee. 
After-dinner  coffee  at  a  restaurant  in  Germany  is 
always  served  with  the  accompaniment  of  a  small 
squat  glass  of  water,  with  a  spoon  laid  formally 
across  it.     "  Why  ?"  I  ask  Joseph  Leopold. 

"  In  order  that  you  may  sanitarily  dip  your  spoon 
into  the  water  before  you  use  it  in  your  coffee,"  he 
replies. 

Then  he  gets  hold  of  "  Simplicissimus  "  as  usual, 
and  reads  me  the  jokes,  translating  when  necessary, 
and  it  is  mostly  necessary.  We  amuse  ourselves 
by  trying  to  see  where  the  joke  comes  in.  We 
hardly  hope  to  be  amused  with  the  joke  itself. 
With  a  good  deal  of  bonne  volonte  we  sometimes  are 
able  to  perceive  a  gleam  of  humour — only  a  gleam. 
But  there  is  always  plenty  of  savage  spite  against 
the  Kaiser,  and  indecencies  a  propos  of  this  great 
personage  far  more  serious  than  those  slanderous 
suggestions  with  regard  to  King  Edward  which, 
exhibited  once  on  a  Paris  Kiosk,  were  so  deeply 
resented  by  England.  His  subjects  relish  this  sort  of 
thing,  and  the  Kaiser  does  not  care  to  spoil  their  fun. 


148  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  x 

So  it  is  tacitly  agreed  that  he  is  to  be  fair  game, 
though  "  high  "  game,  it  seems  to  me,  in  more  senses 
than  one,  for  Joseph  Leopold  does  not  think  of 
translating  some  of  these  poems  to  me.  .  .  . 

Then  we  go  home  again  by  the  low  way — that  is 
to  say,  by  the  road  which  we  had  been  looking 
down  on  from  Marchesi's  balcony.  The  streets  that 
part  from  it  at  right  angles  to  scale  the  hill  are  like 
staircases,  so  steep  are  they.  We  have  to  make  a 
loop  to  go  down.  We  go  past  the  great  fortress- 
like houses,  closed  and  unlit — the  inhabitants  are 
all  out  at  the  civic  merry-making — and  the  spectac- 
ular Great  Dane  usually  waits  at  the  door,  crouched 
under  the  carven  porch  until  his  master  shall  return 
and  take  him  in  to  the  house  with  his  wife  and  his 
children  and  everything  else  that  is  his.  On  the 
doorstep  of  a  house  tenanted  by  folk  of  inferior  social 
standing  who  did  not  run  to  a  guardian  Great  Dane, 
we  noticed  a  little  patient  girl  sitting  with  a  baby 
in  her  arms.  The  small,  unlit  window  of  the  house 
behind  her  seemed  to  be  crammed  with  articles  of  a 
confused  description.  By  day  it  was  probably  an 
unromantic  hovel,  but  by  night  it  was  weird  and 
mysterious,  like  the  house  where  Gretchen  lived  with 
her  mother  until  Faust  came. 

The  child  looked  very  forlorn,  and  we  asked  why 
she  did  not  take  the  baby  into  the  house  and  warm 
it.  She  replied  that  her  mother  had  gone  out  and 
put  the  key  in  her  pocket. 

"What  a  cruel  mother!"  I  said  to  Joseph  Leopold. 

"Not  at  all.  The  whole  family  went  out  on  the 
spree,  and  the  mother  probably  sent  the  child  on 
home  because  it  was  getting  late.    The  contents  of 


CH.  x]       WAITERS  AND  POLICEMEN  149 

the  shop  are  too  valuable  to  be  left  at  the  mercy  of  a 
key  in  the  hands  of  a  child.  And  it  is  a  warm  night. 
Don't  be  so  ready  with  your  sympathy — in  Germany." 

"  But  what  about  the  poHce,  with  their  excellent 
dogs  you  tell  me  about  ?"  I  asked,  pertinaciously. 

The  German  police  are  not  allowed  to  carry  arms 
any  more  than  the  English,*  but  they  are  given 
better  support  than  a  truncheon.  The  trained  dog, 
which  they  are  privileged  to  take  about  with  them, 
is  a  far  more  efficient  weapon  of  defence  and  attack. 
Though  they  cannot  in  the  heat  of  argument  reck- 
lessly "draw"  or  "fire"  it,  the  dog  won't  stand  by 
and  see  his  master  attacked.  He  is  trained  to 
wait  to  "go"  for  the  assailant  until  that  pass  has 
been  reached.  Then,  I  am  told,  there  is  no  need, 
as  there  is  so  often  in  England,  for  some  plucky 
woman  to  rush  into  the  melee  and  blow  the  whistle 
depending  from  the  neck  of  the  helpless  guardian 
of  the  law — the  dog  is  quite  equal  to  his  work.  He 
is  not  exactly  savage,  but  he  is  not  to  be  petted  by 
any  chance  stranger  when  he  is  out  on  business. 
It  took  me — it  takes  me — a  long  time  to  realize  that, 
for  I  always  want  to  talk  to  animals  when  I  meet 

*  This  is  nonsense.  The  German  police  carry  swords,  revolvers, 
carbines,  knuckle-dusters,  bludgeons,  and  any  lethal  weapon  that 
may  occur  to  the  individual  fancy  of  the  Police  Minister  of  that 
particular  State,  and  the  reason  why  that  door  was  so  carefully 
locked  was  that  although  you  could  trust  almost  every  lay  in- 
habitant of  almost  every  German  city  or  village,  you  stand  in 
deadly  fear  of  the  policeman,  who,  if  he  does  not  rob  and  murder 
you,  will  certainly  subject  you  to  blackmail  if  he  gets  a  chance  of 
getting  hold  of  your  papers.  The  police  dogs  are  generally  under 
the  control  of  members  of  a  more  intelligent  and  trustworthy 
"  surety "  force,  who  are  less  armed  and  much  less  disastrous  to 
have  in  the  house. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


150  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  x 

them,  but  these  police  dogs  are  not  inviting,  though 
I  believe  people  do  buy  them  and  take  them  to  their 
hearths  and  homes  in  England. 

And  by  a  succession  of  steep  gradients  we  at  last 
come  to  the  low,  level  road,  and  look  up  and  see  the 
light  shining  through  Marchesi's  balcony,  the  frail 
projection  where  we  had,  only  half  an  hour  ago, 
been  sitting  and  supping  our  coffee. 

I  began  :  "  Why  don't  they " 

That  warm  autumn  night,  when  young  blood  was 
probably  excited  by  the  fete-day,  we  heard  a 
serenade.  It  happened  to  be  sung  under  our 
windows,  but  was  addressed  to  the  young  wife  of 
the  son  of  Philipp  Schor,  the  Kalbfleischer's  over 
the  way,  newly  married  that  very  morning. 

On  the  rough  cobblestones,  under  the  pale  star- 
light, a  little  choir  of  six  sang  carefully,  without 
wildness  or  enthusiasm,  but  with  a  grave  and 
touching  earnestness,  three-part  songs  of  an  epi- 
thalamic  character.  They  must  have  known  the 
parts  by  heart,  for  they  had  no  light  except  a  tiny 
lantern,  slung  on  a  stick,  to  illuminate  the  score  of 
the  conductor.  The  songs  were  so  sweet,  so  serious, 
so  dignified  in  their  dreaming  cadences  that  we  two, 
hanging  stilly  over  our  window-bars,  wished  the 
concert  would  go  on  all  night,  to  the  accompaniment 
of  the  quiet  chime  from  the  tower  of  the  Elizabethen 
Kirche.  But  no ;  the  three  songs  were  duly  sung 
through,  and  there  were  no  encores  permitted.  We 
outsiders  did  not  dare  to  offer  our  thanks,  and  none 
came  from  the  windows,  gratefully  flung  open,  of 
the  bridal  chamber.  Soon,  in  silence  and  soft 
unison,  as    they  had    chanted,   the    six  songsters 


CH.  x]      WAITERS  AND  POLICEMEN  151 

departed,  and  the  pit-a-pat  of  their  felt-shod  feet 
sounded  faintly,  and  then  not  at  all,  on  the  cobble- 
stones. The  window  opposite  was  gently  closed — 
trust  a  German  to  dread  the  night  air,  even  on  his 
wedding  night ! 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  LANDGRAFIN  AND  HER  CONFESSOR 

We  solemnly  "did"  Marburg.  The  English  mother 
of  Joseph  Leopold  wished  it.  I  always  defer 
"  doing  "  on  principle ;  I  prefer  to  let  the  spirit  of 
a  place  sink  well  in  before  inspecting  the  monu- 
ments. One  should  happen  on  monuments,  one 
should  have  an  opportunity  to  stare  long  at  their 
outsides  before  entering.  And  even  on  the  footing 
of  a  mere  tourist,  is  there  any  holier  joy  than  to 
walk  forth  with  faith  and  without  a  guide-book  ? 
Picking  one's  way  among  the  garbage,  the  horrible 
every-day  detritus  of  no  particular  street  of  the  city 
you  are  living  in,  one  comes  suddenly  upon  some 
lovely  flower  of  the  Middle  Ages,  some  gem  of 
architecture,  in  a  vile  setting  of  hovels  and  flaunting 
shop  signs  !  One  realizes  that  it  is  a  relic  of  value ; 
one  has  the  pleasant  sensation  of  having  been 
slightly  beforehand  with  the  guide-book  which  one 
consults  as  soon  as  one  gets  home.  Guide-books 
are  strangely  fallacious. 

But  the  first  monument  you  see  on  issuing  from 
the  railway-station  at  Marburg — itself  a  thing  of 
beauty — is  the  Elizabethen  Kirche,  with  its  two  tall 
towers.     If  I  had  not  known  that  it  was  the  Eliza- 

152 


CH.  XI]  LANDGRAFIN  AND  CONFESSOR   153 

bethen  Kirche,  I  might  have  neglected  this  famous 
church  that  St.  Elizabeth  built  and  gave  to  Catholics, 
and  that  Protestants  stole,  ...  I  may  mention 
that  I  am  never  allowed  to  see  a  church  purely  as 
an  archaeologist,  or  even  as  a  student  of  architecture, 
which  I  am  not.  It  is  one  of  the  circumstances  of 
my  case  that  the  Church  Militant  view  faces  my  own 
patient  lack  of  interest  on  any  other  ground  than 
artistic  and  historical  ones.  That  great  tourney  of 
extermination  of  vested  interests  which  was  the 
Reformation  is  Joseph  Leopold's  sore  point,  and 
also  his  strong  one  as  far  as  argument  goes.  It 
does  add  a  distinct  piment  to  travelling  to  go  round 
churches  with  a  person  who  chooses  to  regard  them 
all  as  hostages,  grabbed  from  one  side  by  another 
side,  returned  under  treaty  by  that  side,  destroyed, 
rebuilt,  and  returned  again,  according  as  dynasties 
flourished  or  fell  all  over  the  world.  And,  in  the 
deplorable  main,  the  hostages  have  remained  in  the 
hands  of  the  unbelievers.  "  Yes,  you  took  it  from 
us  1"  is  the  phrase  most  often  on  Joseph  Leopold's 
tongue,  as  my  respectful  so-called  Protestant  feet 
pad  along  after  the  staid,  dour  sacristan,  treading 
on  sacred  flags  that  lead  to  the  despoiled  altar  and 
to  the  arch  over  which  the  figure  on  the  rood  once 
bowed.  And,  indeed,  as  far  as  the  Elizabethen 
Kirche  is  concerned,  it  is  a  shabby  story  for 
"  Prots  "  to  hear. 

Those  two  tall  towers  of  St.  Elizabeth's  don't 
look  a  day  older  to  me  than,  say,  one  of  the  colleges 
that,  on  the  "  Backs  "  at  Cambridge,  brood  over  the 
smug,  sullen  waters  with  such  a  smart  Tennysonian 
air  of  "ancient  peace."    It  is  the  kind  of  stone  used 


154  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  xi 

in  both  German  and  English  buildings  which  gives 
my  ignorance  that  impression,  and  the  fact  that 
this  is  a  living  church,  and,  one  way  or  another, 
has  been  steadily  kept  in  repair.  It  does  not 
look  old  enough  to  have  been  the  scene  (was  it 
not  the  scene  ?)  of  Everybody's  Great  Picture  ? 
pictures,  mostly  by  R.A.'s,  of  which  reproductions 
glare  from  over  the  mantelpiece  of  every  inn  parlour 
in  England.  One  masterpiece  greeted  me  on  my 
return  from  Marburg,  swelling  proudly  on  the  walls 
of  the  Tate  Gallery.  Fresh  from  services  in  the  Eliza- 
bethen  Kirche,  I  stood  and  looked  at  the  decorous 
nude  figure  kneeling  before  the  altar  of  the  chapel, 
while  the  stern  priest,  her  confessor,  stands  behind 
her,  with  the  scourge  in  his  hand.  Daily  he  bruised 
and  flagellated  his  royal  penitent,  and  the  people  of 
Marburg  were  more  scandalized  than  edified. 

Conrad  of  Marburg,  the  Dominican  monk  who 
had  contrived  to  get  possession  of  the  body  and 
soul  of  the  Princess  of  Hungary,  seems  to  me 
a  thoroughly  Irvingesque  figure.  Yet  the  great 
man  never  impersonated  him.  The  story  is  curious 
and  touching,  compounded  as  it  is  of  dim  religious 
superstition  and  poetry. 

As  the  Landgrave  of  Thuringia  sat  in  his  castle 
of  the  Wartburg  among  his  Minnesingers,  there 
came  to  him  a  renowned  poet  and  magician,  Klingsor 
von  Hunderland.  The  magician  announced  to  the 
Landgrave  that  that  very  night  a  child  should  be 
born — the  destined  consort  of  his  son  Louis.  Her 
mother  was  Gertrude  von  Meran,  the  sister  of 
St.  Hedwig,  and  her  father  was  King  Andreas  of 
Hungary.     And  this  child  was  to  be  a  saint,  like 


CH.  XI]  LANDGRAFIN  AND  CONFESSOR    155 

her  aunt.  The  Landgrave  lost  no  time,  but  sent 
messengers  to  demand  the  baby's  hand  in  marriage 
for  his  son.  And  the  daughter  of  the  King  of 
Hungary — it  shows  what  important  and  powerful 
people  the  German  Landgraves  were — was  instantly 
rendered  up,  and  carried  in  a  silver  cradle  to  the 
Wartburg,  where  she  was  brought  up  with  her 
prospective  bridegroom,  and  in  due  course  became 
his  wife. 

She  gave  him,  an  ordinary  unsaintly  man,  a  great 
deal  of  trouble.  The  priest  who  domineered  over 
her  all  her  days,  and  who  procured  her  saintship, 
began  his  teaching  early  ;  he  made  her  a  fanatic  like 
himself.  She  gave  all  she  had  to  the  poor,  and 
when  her  husband  objected  she  managed  to  prose- 
cute her  charities  in  secret,  and  the  supernatural 
powers  connived.  We  all  know  the  story  of  the 
loaves  of  bread  that  she  was  carrying  in  her  apron 
when  surprised  by  her  husband,  and  how  they  were 
transmogrified,  as  he  peered  to  see  and  convict  her 
of  charity,  into  flowers.  But,  as  one  chronicler 
says,  "  she  bestowed  her  alms  without  distinction," 
so  when  the  tide  of  her  fortunes  turned,  and  she 
was  reduced  to  begging  for  bread  for  herself  and 
her  child  at  Eisenach,  she  was  rudely  entreated — 
nay,  thrown  down  in  the  mud — by  one  of  the  very 
beggars  she  had  benefited  in  her  proud  time. 

While  the  power  of  the  Dominican  monk  lasted 
she  was  supreme.  He  was  secretly  supported  by 
the  Pope,  and,  usurping  the  office  of  heretical  judge, 
arraigned  citizens  and  petty  nobility  before  his 
tribunal.  It  was  not  until  he  made  an  attack  on  the 
high  nobility  in  the  person  of  the  Count  von  Solms, 


156  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  xi 

that  that  important  personage  rebelled,  went  to  the 
Diet  at  Mayence,  proved  his  innocence  of  the 
charges  brought  against  him,  and  demanded  repara- 
tion for  his  insulted  honour.  One  of  the  Arch- 
bishops— he  of  Treves — spoke  for  him.  The  King 
granted  him  what  he  asked,  and  gave  over  the  monk 
to  popular  vengeance.  Elizabeth  was  dead,  and 
not  even  her  sanctity  could  save  him. 

But  what  power  had  been  his  through  the  queenly 
woman  he  had  terrorized!  Joseph  Leopold  will 
not  like  me  to  say  this.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  I  do 
not  like  to  think  of  the  midnight  scourgings  and  the 
want  of  taste  shown  by  the  Catholic  victim.  She 
exhibited  the  wounds  she  had  allowed  Conrad  to 
inflict  upon  her  body,  saying  proudly :  "  Behold 
the  caresses  of  my  confessor  !"  Is  not  that  speech, 
in  its  simple,  serious  raillery,  typical  of  the  whole 
social  mind  of  the  Middle  Ages  ? 

But  Joseph  Leopold  doesn't  think  St.  Elizabeth  a 
silly  woman  at  all,  and  he  finds  it  quite  natural  that 
the  benefited  beggarwoman  should  turn  and  throw 
her  benefactress  into  the  mud ;  that,  to  him,  seems 
perfectly  natural.  He  has  no  high  opinion  of  human 
nature,  but  wants  to  do  all  he  can  for  it.  But  to  do 
good  without  respect  of  persons  has  always  seemed 
to  me  a  useless  philanthropy.  Joseph  Leopold  has 
it  against  me  that  in  the  old  days  of  the  "  growler," 
driven  by  the  sour  man  in  many  capes,  I  was  twice 
summoned  in  one  week  for  the  extra  sixpence.  I 
have  always  contended  that  the  second  summons 
was  a  put-up  job,  and  that  two  cabmen  had  laid 
their  heads  together,  for  when  the  distance  was 
measured,  in  the  one  case  I  was  found  to  be  strictly 


CH.  XI]  LANDGRAFIN  AND  CONFESSOR    157 

within  my  rights.  I  paid  both  claims.  One  summons 
was  to  be  attended  on  Boxing  Day,  when  I  was 
away,  and  the  other  in  a  distant  court  at  Camber- 
well.  Rated  by  a  friend  for  my  over-strict  inter- 
pretation of  the  proper  fare — "  Why  not  pay  the 
poor  beggar?  The  extra  sixpence  makes  him 
happy" — I  replied,  with  the  insouciance  of  youth, 
"  It's  all  very  well,  but  I  didn't  come  into  the  world 
to  make  cabmen  happy  !" 

St.  Elizabeth  evidently  did,  as  regards  cabmen 
and  their  like,  and  great  was  her  fame.  There  stand 
the  two  tall  towers  of  her  church  to  bear  testimony 
to  her  scourgings,  her  fortitudes,  her  bitterness,  and 
the  nullity  of  her  rewards  on  this  earth.  But  no  one 
thinks  of  the  Landgrave  and  his  domestic  happiness, 
destroyed  because  his  wife  preferred  the  sanguinary 
caresses  of  her  confessor  to  his  1  No  one  worries 
about  him,  but  her  shrine  is  beautiful  and  was 
gorgeous,  and  her  church  was  worth  the  robbing 
— by  Protestants.  It  is  whitewashed  now  inside, 
and  all  mural  paintings  are  obscured,  but  there  are 
one  or  two  fine  triptychs  representing  her. 

And  finally,  having  drunk  the  Protestant  cup  of 
bitterness  to  the  dregs  at  Joseph  Leopold's  hands, 
we  took  a  landau  and  prepared  to  mount  to  the  top 
to  see  a  famous  piece  of  paper — the  very  piece  of 
parchment  that  set  loose  this  scourge  of  Protestantism 
on  a  Catholic  world — Luther's  Protest. 

We  creaked  up — it  took  us  a  good  hour — from  the 
Elizabethen  Kirche  to  the  platz,  or  castle  garden,  a 
level  platform  next  the  Schloss.  Two  or  three  effete- 
looking  guns  were  planted  in  telling  encoignures,  set 
in  little  stunted  wild-currant  bushes.     This  used  to 


158  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN         [ch.  xi 

be  the  garden  of  the  castle,  where  the  lords  thereof 
could  walk  abroad  as  we  did,  and  stretch  their  legs, 
and  survey  the  River  Lahn  many  feet  below,  wind- 
ing, like  a  silver  ribbon,  alongside  the  railway-line, 
a  jet-black  one  nearly  parallel.      At   least,  that   is 
what  we  saw,  and  for  the  rest  the  view  must  have 
been  much  the   same.     I   was   exhausted,  as  one 
who  has  mounted  a  mountain  by  the  aid  of  a  rack 
and  pinion  railway.     And  the  clumsy,  old-fashioned 
landau  waited  for  us,  and  we  found  a  custodian,  and 
he  rattled  the  customary  keys  and  looked  as  if  he 
disliked  being  disturbed.     He  let  us  into  the  large 
Hitter   Saal   with   the    painted    ceiling,    with    the 
immense  fireplace,  and  the  wide  window-seats  cut 
in  the  thickness  of  the  wall.     The  usual  suits  of 
armour,  made  presumably  for  dwarfs,  were  standing 
about.     We  went  through  this  hall  up  a  flight  of 
stone  stairs,  and  were  ushered   into  a  large  room 
above  fitted  with  glass  cases  containing  sheets  of 
parchment  written  in  crabbed  characters — the  hand- 
writing   used    in    Shakespeare's    three    authentic 
signatures,  which  are  actually  written  in  German 
characters — and  with  great  fat  seals  as  big,  nay,  in 
some    cases    bigger,    than    themselves,   depending 
from  them   by  unpleasant-looking  strings.     These 
Bullae  represent  the  Papal  Bulls  that  used  to  puzzle 
the  child  mind  so  much  in  the  pages  of  Mrs.  Mark- 
ham.     There  they  are,  many  and  many  of  them — 
small  bits  of  discoloured  parchment  that  were  once 
received  by  Kings  and  Princes,  and  meant  ruin  to 
them  and  theirs  often  enough.     It  is  "  Prots,"  at  any 
rate,  who  have  done  away  with  that.     And  there  I 
came  into  collision  with  the  views  of  Joseph  Leopold 


CH.xi]   LANDGRAFIN  AND  CONFESSOR    159 

again,  and  for  the  next  five  minutes  went  modestly 
hither  and  thither,  saying  nothing,  but  peeping  into 
this  case  and  that  case,  and  listening  to  his  instruction. 

I  saw  the  original  of  the  famous  sign-manual  of 
Charlemagne,  the  four-forked  cross  like  the  top  of 
the  hilt  of  a  medieval  sword  that  used  to  hold  my 
childish  eyes,  ever  on  the  lookout  for  the  concrete 
image,  at  the  top  of  one  of  Mrs.  Markham's  vivacious 
chapters.  How  ineffably  childish  my  interest,  com- 
pounded more  of  association  than  knowledge,  must 
have  seemed  to  the  student  who  had  ferreted  out 
his  facts  for  himself  in  many  hours  of  patient  poring 
over  originals ! 

And  then  there  came  suddenly  the  unpretending 
signature  of  Martin  Luther,  and  the  warrant  that 
gave  Protestantism  to  the  world ! 

Even  Joseph  Leopold,  whose  historical  interest 
goes  side  by  side  with  his  religious  fervour,  could 
not  resist  pointing  out  to  me  the  brave  up  and  down 
strokes  of  Luther,  Zwingli,  Martin  Bucer,  and  the 
rest  of  the  men  who  lit  this  candle  by  whose  beams 
we  in  England  walked  at  least  a  little  way. 

When  I  was  a  child  I  was  made  to  read  aloud  in 
the  evenings  out  of  a  tiny  Elzevir  volume,  the  first 
volume  of  Robertson's  "  History  of  Charles  the 
Fifth."  And  in  the  day-time  I  was  also  going  through 
my  first  term  at  a  High  School.  One  morning 
towards  the  end  of  term  time  we  were  set  to 
write  an  original  composition  in  one  hour  from 
starting — a  sufficient  task  for  a  schoolgirl  of  ten  or 
eleven.  Our  subject  was  the  life  of  a  hero — any 
hero.  And  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  and  the 
terrible  clock  hanging  just  over  my  head,  I  chose 


i6o  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [chjxi 

for  my  hero  Martin  Luther.  It  was  because  I  had, 
the  night  before,  read  as  far  as  the  lively  scene  of 
Luther's  interposition  with  regard  to  the  selling  of 
indulgences  by  the  villainous  Friar  Tetzel.  These 
are,  of  course,  Robertson's  characterizations.  This 
was  as  far  as  I  had  gone  in  the  volume.  After 
scribbling  away  with  a  full  pen  for  three-quarters  of 
an  hour  I  had  nothing  more  to  write  about.  I  knew 
no  more  about  Luther.  ...  So  after  I  had  nibbled 
my  pen  frantically  for  twenty  minutes,  the  clock-face 
frightened  me,  and  1  closed  a  very  minute  and  detailed 
account  of  the  Reformer's  earliest  years  up  to  the 
Tetzel  incident,  with  this  sentence,  a  mirth-provoking 
family  heirloom :  "  Luther  was  never  brought  to 
justice,  but  died  on  his  bed.  .  .  ." 

This  schoolgirl  ineptitude  ought  not  to  have 
occurred  to  me  in  this  connection,  nor  surely  ought 
I  to  have  fondly  related  it  to  Joseph  Leopold — or, 
at  any  rate,  not  within  these  walls. 

He  was  walking  about  in  a  state  of  ecstasy 
becoming  rather  to  his  calling  of  historical  novelist 
than  to  his  severe  rehgious  views. 

"  There,"  he  was  saying  to  his  mother — "  there, 
that  is  what  I  have  brought  you  to  see.  The  Protest 
of  Zwingli,  Luther,  and  Bucer.  That  bit  of  paper  is 
Protestantism.  It  all  began  with  the  signing  of  that 
bit  of  paper."  And  turning  to  me  :  "  That  is  what 
you  mean  when  you  say  you  are  a  Protestant  1" 

"  But  I  don't  say  it,"  I  remarked  helplessly,  as  so 
many  times  before.    "  I  even  deny  it." 

Useless  1  A  "  Prot "  I  am,  and  seemingly  must 
remain  so  in  the  eyes  of  this  black  Papist. 


CHAPTER  XII 

LIONS  AND  LACE  CURTAINS 

There  was  an  old  municipal-featured  gentleman  in 
the  train  going  to  Hildesheim,  and  I  asked  him  if 
he  could  tell  us  of  a  good  hotel  there.  For  once 
Joseph  Leopold  and  I  were  not  "  en  pays  de  connais- 
sance."  We  had  got  a  fit  of  visiting  places  strange  to 
us  both.    He  thought  and  thought,  finally  he  warmed 

to  the  subject,  and  recommended  the  E Hof. 

It  was  late.  I  was  tired.  Joseph  Leopold  had  a 
potential  wrangle  about  the  luggage  in  prospect, 
and  so  I  went  out  alone  and  took  rooms.  Across 
the  dreary  modern-looking  station  enclosure  I  saw 
hospitable  lights  quivering,  and  by  night  I  could 
not  tell  that  there  were  horrible  lace  curtains  to  the 
coffee-room  window,  stained  yellow,  like  the  coffee- 
coloured  laces  worn  years  ago  by  the  aesthetes. 
These  curtains  were  looped  into  bands  of  old  gold, 
dating  back  to  the  same  artistic  period.  And  yellow 
lace  curtains  now  and  henceforth  spell  for  me  the 
abomination  of  desolation  in  the  way  of  hotels,  and 
if  ever  I  see  this  insignia  of  horror  I  give  the  place 
of  entertainment  that  is  foolish  enough  to  advertise 
it  a  very  wide  berth.    I  have  come  to  know  since 

that  E Hofs  all  over  Germany  flaunt  it ;   E 

z6x  II 


i62  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xii 

Hofs  seems  to  be  the  generic  name  for  hotels  of  this 
stamp.  That  old  gentleman  in  the  train  going  to 
Hildesheim  must  have  been  animated  by  some 
strong  esprit  de  corps  ;  perhaps  he  was  the  chairman 
of  the  committee  of  The   Gordon  —  I   mean   the 

E Hofs  Ltd.  ?    I  know  not,  but  I  have  never 

forgiven  him. 

We  dined  abominably  in  a  varnished  deal-match- 
boarding  dining-room,  and  after  dinner,  all  in  the 
dark,  we  walked  out  and  took  a  tram  away  from 
the  station  neighbourhood  right  into  the  heart  of 
Hildesheim. 

The  tram  passed  through  a  long  lighted  street, 
set  with  shops  on  either  side — handsome  shops  with 
large  inviting  facias  that  flashed  invitation  to  us 
across  the  dark  they  illuminated.  And  at  last,  in 
a  ghostly,  ill-lighted  Platz,  we  dismounted,  and  there 
we  were  in  the  Middle  Ages  ! 

Towering  cathedral  spires  seemed  to  loom  over 
us,  painted  eaves  and  cornices  to  tickle  our  ears 
as  we  wandered  along,  entranced,  from  ghostly 
Platz  to  ghostly  Platz,  accompanied  by  the  sound 
of  bells  from  the  many  church  steeples  whose  but- 
tresses varied  the  uneven  house-line.  It  seemed  as 
if,  once  past  that  tram-bestridden  and  glass-faced 
main  street,  every  house  in  Hildesheim  was  painted 
and  gargoyled  and  initialled  with  its  owner's  family 
name  and  the  date  of  its  building,  far  back  in 
the  sixteenth  century.  And,  still  in  the  dark,  we 
came  to  a  low,  shiny,  oaken  doorway,  humble,  unob- 
trusive, suggestive  of  good  entertainment,  of  brown- 
ing for  gravies  and  of  glazed  hams,  and  the  smoke 
of  many  flambeaux  held  under  the  archway  of  its 


CH.  XII]     LIONS  AND  LACE  CURTAINS      163 

entrance — the  porch  of  the  Wiener  Hof.  Over  the 
doorway,  all  across  the  fagade,  interrupted  only  by 
the  principal  windows  of  the  principal  rooms,  the 
legend  of  Europa  and  the  Bull  was  carved  and 
painted  and  blazoned.  Peering  under  the  blinds  of 
the  Speisesaal  we  could  see  the  officers  sitting  at 
their  meat,  the  points  of  their  swords  clumsily 
resting  on  the  ground  beside  their  chairs.  We 
could  see  that  the  room  where  they  were  was  dimly 
lighted,  but  enough  that  there  were  carved  stalls 
and  stags'  antlers  on  the  walls,  to  be  used  as  prongs 
to  hang  the  hats  and  coats  on.  And  Joseph  Leopold 
swore  that  what  these  connoisseurs  were  eating  was 
little  crabs  stewed  in  wine.  He  ordered  me  to  go 
in,  use  my  newly-acquired  German,  and  engage 
rooms  at  once  for  to-morrow. 

I  did.  I  entered  a  hall,  not  very  large,  with  an 
uneven — very  uneven — floor,  and  no  gilding.  An 
old  family-looking  butler  came  forward  to  meet  me, 
and  showed  me  two  rooms  at  six  marks  each,  in- 
cluding breakfast. 

Breakfast  was  in  the  breakfast-room  downstairs, 
as  the  Wiener  Hof  understands  breakfast.  It  was 
the  right  kind  of  breakfast — several  sorts  of  rolls, 
good  butter,  and  good  jams,  and  best  of  all,  though 
not  for  everyone,  goose-grease  to  spread  on  those 
rolls.  A  great  many  Germans  take  Ganse-fett  for 
breakfast ;  it  is  the  best  thing  for  your  health  in  the 
world.     But,  as  I  said  before,  not  for  everyone. 

Then  we  had  Mittag  Essen,  the  German  midday 
meal,  and  the  important  one  of  the  day.  That  is 
one  of  the  difficulties  for  aliens  when  in  Germany — 
aliens  whose  habits  are  corrupted  by  English  and 


i64  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xii 

French  late  dining.  The  only  thing  to  do  is  to  steal 
a  plat  or  so  from  the  lunch  and  put  it  in  the  dinner 
or  Abend-essen.  This  rule  is  useful,  of  course,  in 
eating-places  where  there  is  a  set  menu  and  you 
take  it.  If  you  dine  a  la  carte — and  at  the  Wiener 
Hof  they  preferred  you  to  dine  a  la  carte — it  is 
different ;  you  get  what  and  as  much  as  you  like. 

Do  English  people  know  what  a  really  good 
Aufschnitt  is?  There  is  everything  in  the  world 
in  it.  You  do  not  have  to  dig  for  discoveries ; 
everything  is  fairly  set  out  on  a  large  flat  dish ;  the 
trouble  is  that  it  takes  you  quite  a  long  time  to 
overlook  it  all.  There  are  sure  to  be  some  slices  of 
ham  and  some  slices  of  veal.  I  am  never  surprised 
if  I  meet  beef  or  tongue.  In  the  middle  there  is 
certainly  a  piece  de  resistance^  a  cockle-shell  full  of 
the  gem  of  all,  HSring  Salat.  Round  the  rim  are 
slices  of  all  sorts  of  sausage — Leber  Wurst — of 
cheese ;  little  heaps  of  caviare  and  chopped  beetroot, 
gherkins  and  capers.  And  all  this  diversion,  this 
plethora  of  interest,  for  one  mark  fifty!  I  have 
tasted  a  maimed  Aufschnitt — a  faint  reminder  of 
this  gorgeous  dish — at  a  place  in  London ;  but  how 
far  away  it  is  from  the  stability,  the  certainty,  of  the 
German  inn's  catering ! 

Enough  of  this.  I  shall  be  called  greedy.  And  I 
think  I  am.  I  have  taken  to  German  cookery  as  no 
alien  could  ever  have  hoped  to  do.  I  care  nothing 
for  what  my  grandfather  probably  called  French 
"kickshaws" — all  grandfathers  did.  I  detest  the 
eternal  omelette  of  France,  the  eternal  pommes /rites, 
the  same  good  sauce — I  don't  say  it  isn't  good — dis- 
posed over  everything. 


CH.  XII]     LIONS  AND  LACE  CURTAINS     165 

Dinner  that  night,  though  not  perhaps  a  dream, 
was  at  any  rate  a  charming  reality. 

And  next  morning,  before  we  were  properly 
awake,  a  deep  bell  tolled,  and  we  were  told  by  the 
solemn  butler  that  one  of  the  canons  of  Hildesheim 
had  died  and  that  his  funeral  sermon  was  to  be 
preached  that  day  by  his  fellow  Canon  and  confrere 
in  the  famous  abbey  church  of  Hildesheim.  I  knew 
I  was  going  to  be  harrowed,  for  Church  ceremonies 
always  do  harrow  me,  and  this  one  would  surely 
be  performed  with  much  unction,  for  the  Canon  who 
lay  under  the  eleven-yard-wide  black  pall  was  deeply 
beloved.  I  dressed  myself  as  soberly  as  a  traveller 
could  compass,  and  Joseph  Leopold  and  I  went  in 
and  took  our  places  in  the  solemn,  black-draped 
church  under  the  circular  candelabra  set  with 
jewelled  emblems  and  enamelled  discs  which  Bishop 
Hezilo  gave  to  Hildesheim. 

In  front  of  the  altar  stood  the  quite  plain  and 
prehistoric  porphyry  pillar  that  people  come  miles 
to  see.  It  was  not  always  placed  inside  the  church, 
and  some  say  that  such  a  pagan  emblem  has  no 
business  there.  Kneeling  black  crowds  bent  all 
round  us,  and  together  we  all  wallowed  in  woe  and 
wept  for  an  old  gentleman  whom  I  had  never  seen. 
Like  a  thunderstorm,  with  terrible  lueurs  and  sullen 
boomings,  the  Dies  Irce  resounded  through  the 
aisles.  I  can  never  stand  the  Dies  Irce — I  mean 
without  crying.  And,  moreover,  there  were  impres- 
sive circumstances  about  this  funeral.  The  defunct 
priest  was  adored  by  his  colleagues ;  a  personal  friend 
pronounced  the  eulogy,  and  broke  down  midway  in 


i66  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN  [ch.  xii 

sobs  and  tears,  so  that  the  rest  of  his  discourse  could 
hardly  be  heard. 

Afterwards  we  were  shown  the  treasury  of  Hilde- 
sheim.  I  grew  bewildered  with  the  luxuriance  of 
jewelled  croziers  and  mitres,  faint  with  desire  for 
flagons  and  chalices  set  with  gems  that  winked  and 
coruscated,  safe  from  me  in  their  velvet  cases. 
Alas!  all  that  coruscated  was  not  a  gem  of  the 
purest  ray ;  glass  had  taken  the  place  of  the  rubies 
and  emeralds  which  had  made  the  treasury  of 
Hildesheim  the  centre  of  the  desires  of  greedy  con- 
tending potentates.  Then  we  went  into  the  sacristy, 
where  treasure  of  another  sort  is  gathered.  I  am  a 
little  jarred  by  the  sight  of  bones  with  their  ugly, 
suggestive  articulated  ends  swathed  in  blue  velvet 
and  tinsel,  and  of  microscopic  Kreuz  Artikel  in 
pretentious  jewelled  and  velvet  cases,  looking  like 
ravaged  birds'  nests,  and  tiny  skulls  of  martyrs, 
whose  size  does  credit  to  the  heart  of  the  owners 
rather  than  to  their  intellects. 

But  after  all,  believers  must  have  something  to 
take  hold  of,  and,  indeed,  these  fibulas  of  St.  Tiburga, 
these  thigh-bones  of  St.  Remigius,  have  seen  much 
service  and  submitted  to  much  handling.  Every 
Catholic  church  in  Germany  possesses  a  due  amount 
of  them,  and  at  least  one  chasse  studded  with  holes 
where  the  jewels  used  to  be.  The  sight  saddens 
me.  Yet  I  once  trafficked  in  a  relic,  and  sent  attested 
portions  away  to  my  Catholic  friends.  They  were 
unclassifiable  portions  of  the  rotten  wood  which  had 
formed  part  of  the  coffin  of  St.  Cuthbert  of  Durham, 
sweepings  of  the  floor — unconsidered  morsels,  from 
the  point  of  view  of   the  antiquaries  who  were 


CH.XII]    LIONS  AND  LACE  CURTAINS      167 

collating  them.  Still  they  seemed  very  considerable 
to  Father  Michael  in  Paris,  to  whom  I  sent  a  little 
piece  as  big  as  would  lie  on  a  sixpence  and  which 
he  accepted,  with  the  attestation  of  a  Canon  of 
Durham,  for  his  church.  Why  not  ?  It  had  been 
part  of  the  coflfin  of  an  English  saint  who  died  and 
was  buried  in  Lindisfarne  in  Northumberland  in 
the  first  century,  was  carried  by  devout  monks 
to  Durham,  where  his  shrine  formed  one  of  the 
wonders  of  the  British  Isles.  And  many  of  the 
queer  little  oddments  enshrined  in  glass  cases  in 
this  sacristy  at  Hildesheim,  and  others  at  Limburg 
and  Marburg,  are  no  more  important  or  bulky,  and 
less  authentic,  though  they  have  had  gorgeous 
caskets  made  for  them  and  have  been  treasured  for 
centuries. 

My  patient,  slightly  aloof,  humble,  yet  uncon- 
sciously sceptical  attitude  in  the  face  of  such  valuable 
trifles  always  annoys  Joseph  Leopold,  and  we  never 
make  a  very  long  stay  in  these  emporia  of  holy 
material.  We  got  outside  and  walked  about  in  the 
garden  which  has  grown  up  in  the  ruins  of  the 
cloisters,  and  looked  at  the  Holy  Rose  of  Hildesheim, 
which  is  one  thousand  years  old,  was  planted  by 
Charlemagne,  and  still  grows  and  blows.  The  bush 
we  see  is  a  sucker  of  the  original  tree,  and  it  is 
tended  most  scrupulously  by  a  service  of  four 
gardeners. 

And  in  the  evening  we  went  to  the  circus.  It 
was  like  the  country  circus  one  reads  of  in  old 
English  novels,  with  lions  and  ladies  and  tigers 
and  tamers.  In  a  Platz,  behind  the  Wiener 
Hof,  an  enormous  tent  had  been  erected — a  tent 


i68  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xii 

whose  ceiling  sagged  and  drooped  and  was  very  ill 
lit,  thus  producing  all  sorts  of  beautiful  Rembrandt 
effects.  And  under  this  stained  grey  canopy,  like  a 
murky,  rain-clouded  heaven,  the  lights  danced  and 
flickered  on  the  sandy  arena,  and  lovely  females 
ambled  round  on  barebacked  handsomely-capari- 
soned steeds,  and  cavaliers  in  dusky  raiment  fought 
for  the  lady  rider  of  their  choice,  and  finally  carried 
her  off,  slung  across  their  saddle-bow,  while  shots 
were  fired  and  noise  enough  was  made  to  drag  down 
the  weather  that  lurked  in  the  swelling  thunder- 
clouds of  the  roof.  Then  the  scene  changed,  and 
the  fire-eater  came  on  and  ate  fire  and  hot  coals,  and 
tied  up  a  lad  in  a  basket  and  ran  a  sword  through  it 
in  the  approved  fashion. 

But  the  real  joy  of  the  evening  was  the  lions. 
After  a  long  interval  the  arena  was  cleared,  and  a 
dozen  or  so  large  sections  of  iron  grating,  very  like 
our  old  nursery  fender  and  curved  in  much  the 
same  way,  were  brought  in.  These  were  the  com- 
ponent parts  of  the  large  circular  cage  in  whose  safe- 
keeping the  "deadly  fere"  were  to  pursue  their 
evolutions,  and  which  was  to  be  conscientiously 
built  up  before  our  very  eyes.  Slowly,  methodi- 
cally, the  work  was  proceeded  with.  These  tall  slats 
were  set  up  and  bolted  together  one  by  one,  four 
bolts  to  each  section,  and  see  you  don't  forget  it  I 
The  public  will  not  let  you  off  a  single  bolt  1  All 
eyes  were  fixed  on  the  tremendous  safeguard,  and 
the  least  pretermission  of  a  bolt  would  have  been 
seized  upon  and  corrected.  In  what  seemed  an 
incredibly  long  time  each  bolt  was  tapped  into  its 
ward  by  the  painstaking  official,  and  an  iron  enclo- 


CH.  XII]     LIONS  AND  LACE  CURTAINS     169 

sure  twelve  feet  high  rose  complete  before  us. 
Then  the  gates  opened,  and  the  great,  grave,  big- 
headed  lions  trooped  in  lazily,  to  the  number  of 
twelve,  and  took  up  their  positions  on  plaster  plinths 
placed  there  for  them.  They  looked  sleepy,  well- 
fed,  and  hopelessly  decadent.  A  lion  in  a  cage  has 
no  status;  it  is  an  anomaly.  The  ages  looking 
down  deride,  and  the  beasts  feel  their  position. 
These  show  lions  must  have  lost  caste  in  any  feline 
paradise,  for  man  has  known  how  to  make  them  look 
ridiculous.  I  hate  to  see  them.  I  do  not  know  why, 
unless  it  is  the  enormous  head  and  the  encolure  of 
that  locks  make  its  form  all  out  of  focus,  but  a  lion 
always  reminds  me  of  a  musical  virtuoso — all  head 
and  no  body.  .  .  . 

Then  the  employer  of  all  this  wasted  strength, 
the  dictator  of  these  masses  of  useless  muscle  and 
taut  sinew,  the  tamer,  appeared.  He  was  limp, 
unscrupulous,  anxious-looking,  and  he  continuously 
lashed  the  whip  that  is  his  safety.  One  knows, 
somehow,  that  every  random  flip  counts,  that  the 
continuance  of  that  trivial  sound  in  the  air  is  im- 
perative, like  drum-taps  keeping  up  the  martial 
fervour  which  makes  men  die  by  rote,  or  the  music 
that  is  the  derivative  of  the  tight-rope  dancer.  A 
nervous  dread  lest  the  air  should  cease  to  be  stirred 
by  that  tenuous  tang,  should  settle  into  quiescence 
and  give  all  the  forces  of  death  leave  to  rush  in, 
permeates  my  whole  being  while  the  ceremony  goes 
on ;  I  can  hardly  bear  it.  And  the  lion-tamer  is  not 
so  hardened  to  his  dreadful  trade  but  that  his  eyes, 
fixed  on  the  dangerous  couple  of  brutes  or  so  who 
are  the  ring-leaders   of  a  possible  rebellion,  are 


I70  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xii 

altogether  void  of  fear,  while  his  lips,  pressed  tight 
in  the  effort  of  an  habitual  hold  of  himself,  are  an 
incitement  to  nervous  terrors.  I  soon  ascertained 
the  identity  of  the  more  villainous  beasts  he  had  to 
reckon  with ;  I  noticed  he  was  careful  of  the  third 
lion  from  where  I  was  sitting,  and  of  the  next  but 
one  to  him.  On  these  two  lions  he  did  not  play  the 
worst  tricks,  but  left  them  alone  as  much  as  possible. 
He  seemed  to  have  confidence  in  a  rather  solid 
clumsy  one,  and  poked  him  up  frequently,  and 
even  used  him  for  that  fearful  example  of  the  art 
of  taming — that  is,  he  put  his  head  in  between 
his  open  jaws  for  an  appreciable  second.  Perhaps 
that  lion's  teeth  were  drawn  or  filed  away ;  I 
hope  so. 

Which  of  us  was  the  more  relieved  when  the  show 
was  over,  and,  after  a  gruesome  twenty  minutes,  the 
poor  fellow  made  his  bow,  accepted  the  plaudits 
that  were  the  award  of  his  skill,  and  faded  away  out 
of  the  arena — he  or  I  ?  I  pictured  him  over  his  glass 
at  the  Anker,  perhaps  saying  to  himself:  "Another 
day  in  safety !  Another  peril  overpast !"  But  I 
daresay  he  said  nothing  of  the  sort.  I  daresay 
he  went  home  sober,  and  kissed  his  children  and 
thought  no  more  about  it. 

A  small,  sprightly  lady  came  on  next  and 
manoeuvred  about  with  tigers,  but  I  felt  somehow 
that  her  beasts  had  been  drugged  out  of  all  natural 
impulses  of  violence.  She  was  obviously  nervous ; 
she  was  excitable,  flighty ;  she  minced  and  strutted 
in  the  jaws  of  death  as  if  she  didn't  believe  in  it  at 
all.  But  she,  too,  went  bravely  through  her  allotted 
span  of  eventful  minutes  in  that  glare,  and  then  out 


CH.  XII]     LIONS  AND  LACE  CURTAINS     171 

of  it — to  a  lover's  arms,  perhaps  ?  One  invents  these 
stories. 

And  now  I  must  take  the  bitter  taste  out  of  my 
mouth  with  a  pretty  story.  It  is  connected  with 
that  fine  character,  Henry  the  Lion.  It  is  connected 
with  England,  too.  Those  ill-nurtured  Plantagenets, 
Geoffrey  and  Richard  of  England,  distrusted  their 
father's  intimacy  with  his  German  relative,  Prince 
Henry,  considering  that  the  latter  fomented  their 
own  disputes  with  their  parent.  They  resolved 
to  do  their  best  to  break  the  intimacy.  They 
chose  an  occasion  when  the  said  gallant  Prince 
was  on  a  visit  to  them  in  England.  They  care- 
fully spread  a  report  that  Henry  the  Lion  was  no 
Prince  of  the  blood,  but  just  a  needy  adventurer. 
To  put  the  matter  beyond  a  doubt  their  foolish 
father  signified  his  wiUingness  that  their  guest 
should  be  put  to  a  very  crucial  test — one  which  the 
Princes  declared  would  satisfy  them.  "  The  Lion," 
said  they,  "  is  the  king  of  the  forest,  and  knows  a 
royal  Prince  by  instinct,  accordingly.  Let  one  of 
our  royal  lions,  therefore,  be  confronted  by  this 
proud  Saxon,  and  it  will  then  be  plainly  shown  that 
he  has  no  right  to  the  rank  which  he  has  assumed." 

The  old  Henry  agreed,  and  directed  that  one  of 
the  most  ferocious  of  the  palace  meinie  should  be  let 
loose  on  his  guest  as  he  walked,  unsuspecting,  in 
the  courtyard  after  meat. 

Henry  the  Lion,  put  to  the  trial,  was  true  to  his 
name.  He  showed  no  fear,  but  approached  the 
savage  beast,  and  called  to  it  in  a  tone  of  royal 
authority,  as  he  was  used.  To  the  surprise  and 
disappointment  of  the  conspirators,  and  possibly  the 


172  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xii 

delight  of  their  father,  the  lion  crouched  back  at  his 
feet,  and  allowed  the  Saxon  Prince  to  lead  it  quietly 
back  to  its  den.  From  that  moment,  naturally,  all 
doubts  as  to  his  princely  descent  were  stilled  and 
his  influence  with  Henry  of  England  was  confirmed. 
And  later  on,  when  his  tempestuous  virtues  had 
made  him  an  exile  from  his  own  patrimony,  he  took 
asylum  in  England,  and  the  royal  palace  at  Win- 
chester was  assigned  to  him,  his  Duchess  and  her 
children,  as  a  residence. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

GRAND  DUKES  AND  GIPSIES 

On  entering  a  little  German  town — the  capital,  may- 
be, of  some  small  German  principality,  a  dukedom, 
or  an  electorate  of  the  past — I  always  find  myself 
thinking  of  some  lines  of  Browning's  : 

"  Ours  is  a  great  wild  country  : 
If  you  climb  to  our  castle's  top, 
I  don't  see  where  your  eye  can  stop  ; 
For  when  you've  passed  the  cornfield  country, 
Where  vineyards  leave  off,  flocks  are  packed, 
And  sheep  range  leads  to  cattle  tract ; 
And  cattle  tract  to  open  chase, 
And  open  chase  to  the  very  base 
Of  the  mountain,  where  at  a  funeral  pace. 
Round  about,  solemn  and  slow, 
One  by  one,  row  after  row, 
Up  and  up  the  pine  trees  go, 
So  like  black  priests  up — and  so 
Down  on  the  other  side  again. 
To  another,  greater,  wilder  country 
That's  one  vast  red,  drear,  burnt-out  plain. 
Branched  through  and  through  with  many  a  vein 
Whence  iron's  dug  and  copper's  dealt. 
Look  right,  look  left,  look  straight  before, — 
Beneath  they  mine,  above  they  smelt 
Copper  ore,  and  iron  ore. 
And  forge  and  furnace,  mould  and  melt. 

173 


174  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xiii 

And  so  on,  more  and  ever  more, 

Till  at  the  last,  for  a  bounding  belt, 

Comes  the  salt  sand  hoar  of  the  great  sea  shore, 

.  .  .  And  the  whole  is  our  Duke's  country  I" 

■  My  people  used  to  read  that  aloud  to  me  as  a  child, 
and  I,  except  for  the  first  and  last  lines  of  the  bit 
I  have  quoted,  understood  nothing.  They  began 
slowly,  worked  up  the  agony  gradually,  and  ended 
with  a  sort  of  triumphant  lilt,  as  if  it  were  a  cock- 
robin  story  with  a  dramatic  culmination,  accompanied 
by  a  final  gesture,  a  hoist  of  the  knee,  a  clapping  of 
the  palms  together,  or  any  poignant  touch  that  may 
aid  the  child-mind  in  a  Kindergartenish  way  to  ap- 
preciate. The  recitation  took  place  in  the  studio  ;  I 
could  rest  my  eyes  on  a  water-colour  drawing  of 
my  father's,  which,  had  I  been  old  enough  to  dis- 
tinguish the  features  of  it  from  the  colours,  would 
have  shown  me  just  such  a  country  as  Browning 
described.  There,  in  the  foreground,  stands  Schloss 
Eltz,  the  famous  spot  in  the  valley  of  the  Mosel,  a 
feudal  fortress  with  moat,  barbican,  portcullis,  and 
all  the  rest  of  it.  The  vineyards  that  the  poet 
speaks  of  wind  up  to  the  summit  and  clothe  the 
rampart  with  their  verdure,  but  the  brownish  stone 
defences  of  the  castle  are  plainly  visible.  Over  the 
brow  of  the  moor,  breaking  the  skyline  in  the 
picture,  are  the  first  faint  signs — the  picture  was 
painted  in  i860 — of  the  industrial  and  engineering 
development  of  Germany.  On  the  escarpment  of 
the  stone  quarry  of  the  neighbouring  hill  the  grey 
smoke  faintly  stains  the  pellucid  sky  and  adumbrates 
the  fires  of  Essen.  For  there,  in  i860,  was  already 
established  the  little  colliery,  the  forerunner  of  the 


CH.  xm]    GRAND  DUKES  AND  GIPSIES     175 

"  drear,  red,  burnt-up  plain,"  that  industry  has  made 
out  of  a  garden.  "  Beneath  they  mine,  above  they 
smelt.  .  .  ." 

And  our  Duke  is  there  to-day,  just  as  much  a 
King  or  Prince  as  ever,  except  that  the  Kaiser  has 
opened  his  fist  and  taken  away  the  sinews  of  war 

and  •'  sneaked  "  the  executive  from  him.    At  S 

the  Herzog's  retainers*  are  byway  of  being  handy- 
men about  the  place ;  they  garden  and  empty 
buckets  and  wait  at  table,  dividing  the  work  between 
them,  or  sometimes  going  over  in  a  body  to  one 
particular  employment,  as  the  exigencies  of  much 
state  and  few  pence  to  keep  it  up  with  may  dictate. 
And  in  the  embrasures  of  the  castle  rampart,  on  the 

*  I  regret  to  observe  that  our  author  here  drops  into  the 
insular  nonsense  that  distinguishes  the  English  attitude  towards 
German  Princes.  A  German  reigning  Prince,  King,  or  Grand 
Duke,  has  an  establishment,  regulated  by  protocol,  which  he 
is  just  as  much  bound  to  keep  up  as  any  other  Sovereign,  and 
which  is  provided  for  in  the  usual  way  by  a  civil  list.  The 
mediatized  Princes,  on  the  other  hand,  are  private  gentlemen, 
many  of  them  extremely  wealthy,  some  poor,  but  all  of  them 
living  as  they  please.  They  are  distinguished  from  ordinary 
mortals  by  the  fact  that  they  are  Thron-fahig — that  is  to  say, 
capable  of  marrying  reigning  Sovereigns  without  the  union  being 
morganatic.  Such  a  family  is  that  of  Teck,  Many  of  these 
mediatized  Princes  have  the  right  to  support  a  small  number  of 
armed  men  in  uniform  for  the  protection  of  their  residences  from 
burglars.  And  I  suppose  it  was  the  sight  of  such  a  Seneschal 
(a  pensioned-off  butler  armed  with  a  muzzle-loading  gun  at  the 

gate  of  the  castle  of  S )  that  moved  our  author  to  her  singular 

views  as  to  the  employment  of  the  servants  of  German  noblemen. 
The  old  gentleman  with  the  muzzle-loading  gun  would  never  do 
anything  more  active  for  the  remainder  of  his  life  than  take  a  tip> 
for  all  the  world  like  a  similar  functionary  at  the  Duke  of  North- 
umberland's castle  of  Alnwick,  for  showing  visitors  the  exceedingly 
horrible  picture  gallery. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


176  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xiii 

tiny  Platz  that  maintains  a  grey-beard  in  a  sentry- 
box,  or  a  master  of  the  horse  in  regimentals,  stand 

the  poor  little  cannon  that  the  Lord  of  P may 

not  fire  off,  except  to  frighten  the  crows  from  his 
vines.  At  Braubach  on  the  Rhine,  in  some  respects 
the  most  perfect  reminder  of  those  days,  after  you 
have  mastered  a  hill  that  tries  the  tendons  of  your 
knees  to  desperation,  you  top  up  the  fatigues  of  the 
ascent  by  crossing  the  drawbridge  and  toiling  up 
the  steep  flight  of  steps  which,  for  the  sake  of 
modern  convenience,  have  replaced  the  almost 
perpendicular  way  into  the  courtyard.  The  Lord 
of  Braubach  and  his  knights,  returning  aweary  and 
foredone  from  the  raid  or  the  foray,  used  to  have  to 
ascend  this  passage,  riding  still  on  their  horses, 
before  they  could  enter  into  their  impregnability. 
There  is  the  castle  well,  the  only  source  of  water  in 
a  siege,  and  the  great  bakehouse,  where  the  stores 
of  flour,  probably  laid  in  before  the  casus  belli  arose, 
were  made  into  bread  for  the  garrison.  Bread  and 
water !  German  Ritters,  fighters  in  a  small  way, 
had  often  to  be  content  with  such  fare  for  many  a 
long  month.  And  in  "  the  chamber  next  an  ante- 
room "  is  the  Ritter  Saal  we  see  now,  lived  in  as  a 
rule,  full  of  what  Browning  used  to  tell  me  he 
cordially  admired — "  grandiose  "  furniture.  The 
suits  of  family  armour  of  all  periods,  and  not  all 
fake,  stand  idly  round — it  is  the  room  in  which  the 
Dukes  have  died,  "  breathing  the  breath  of  page  or 
groom  "  since  all  time,  like  the  father  of  Browning's 

corrupt  hero — 

" .  .  .  in  a  velvet  suit, 
With  a  gilt  glove  on  his  hand,  and  his  foot 
In  a  silken  shoe  for  a  leather  boot, 
Petticoated  like  a  herald.  .  .  ." 


CH.  XIII]    GRAND  DUKES  AND  GIPSIES     177 

He  probably  had  gout,  which  is  not  ^t  all  a 
modern  disease.  And  his  descendant,  the  faineant 
hero  of  the  poem,  though  "  corrupted  with  foreign 
travel,"  Paris  and  so  on,  harks  back  and  yearns 
towards  the  customs  of  his  ancestors.  So  he  starts 
in  to  "revive  all  usages  though  worn  out,"  and 
hunts  up  old  books  to  find  out  the  way  among  other 
customs  of  a  hunting  party  as  practised  in  the 
Middle  Ages.     He 

"...  gathers  up  Woodcraft's  authentic  traditions. 
To  encourage  your  dog,  now,  the  properest  chirrup. 
Or  best  prayer  to  St.  Hubert  on  mounting  your  stirrup." 

The  Duke's  tailor  "has  a  hot  time  on't,"  and 
finally  the  haughty  little  Duchess,  "  no  bigger  than 
a  white  crane,"  has  her  proper  function  discovered 
for  her. 

"  When  horns  wind  a  mort,  and  the  deer  is  at  siege, 
Let  the  dame  of  the  Castle  prick  forth  on  her  jennet, 
And  with  water  to  wash  the  hands  of  her  liege 
In  a  clean  ewer  with  a  fair  towelling. 
Let  her  preside  at  the  disembowelUng." 

The  Duchess  refuses,  and  the  Duke  turns  the 
recalcitrant  wife  over  to  his  august  and  terrible 
mother.  Riding  out  of  the  courtyard,  on  his  way 
to  conduct  the  ceremony  alone,  he  meets  the  usual 
band  of  gipsies,  who  wish  him  luck.  With  low 
cunning  he  sends  the  Gipsy  Queen  into  the  house 
to  teach  his  bride  her  duty.  The  result  is  contrary 
to  his  expectation. 

It  gives  Browning  a  fine  opportunity  for  a  tirade, 
the  opportunity  of  using  some  queer  recondite 
knowledge  he  seems  to  have  possessed  about  this 
mysterious  race,  and  to  disclose  a  genuine  sympathy 

12 


178  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xiii 

and  understanding  of  their  genius.      He   uses  it 
again  in  the  story  of  the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin. 

"  Now,"  says  the  old  German  body-servant,  who 
is  supposed  to  be  Browning's  informant  of  these 
doings — 

"...  in  your  land  Gipsies  reach  you,  only 
After  reaching  all  lands  beside. 
North  they  go,  South  they  go,  trooping  or  lonely, 
And  still  as  they  travel  far  and  wide, 
Catch  they  and  keep  they  a  trace  here,  a  trace  there, 
That  puts  you  in  mind  of  a  place  here,  a  place  there. 
But  with  us,  I  believe,  they  rise  out  of  the  ground." 

With  US — that  is,  in  Germany.  And,  according 
to  Browning,  just  in  the  same  sudden  way  did  the 
wonderful  piper  irrupt  into  the  Rathhaus  at  Hamelin, 
where  the  fat,  self-sufficient  burgomasters  sat  and 
sat,  and  deliberated  over  their  deadly  need.  At  the 
door  comes  the  **  gentle  tap,"  and  in  he  wanders,  the 
legendary  figure,  the  model  of  all  wandering  sages 
and  nomadic  geniuses  —  Gringoire,  Peer  Gynt, 
Shelley,  the  Scholar  Gipsy.  .  .  . 

"  His  queer  long  coat  from  heel  to  head 
Was  half  of  yellow,  half  of  red. 
And  he  himself  was  tall  and  thin. 
With  sharp  blue  eyes  each  like  a  pin, 
And  light  loose  hair,  yet  swarthy  skin, 
No  tuft  on  cheek  nor  beard  on  chin, 
But  lips  where  smiles  went  out  and  in, 
There  was  no  guessing  his  kith  and  kin.  .  .  ." 

The  Pied  Piper  was  only  another  Gipsy,  as  the 
gipsy  crone  who  bewitched  the  Duchess — irrespon- 
sible, kind,  capricious,  and  revengeful,  and  endowed 
with  those  mysterious  powers  of  the  single-minded 
and  single-hearted  of  all  nations — powers  which  the 


CH.  xiii]    GRAND  DUKES  AND  GIPSIES     179 

enforced  Franciscan  virtues  of  the  beggar,  the  rover, 
the  proscribed,  serve  to  develop.  In  the  old  days, 
I  imagine,  romance  stalked  the  lonely  roads  and 
dangerous  highways,  incorporated  in  figures  like 
these — derelicts  of  man's  injustice,  or  intellects 
before  their  time,  wandering  into  smug  German 
Dorfs  and  English  villages  by  way  of  Tartary  and 
Asia;  men  of  roving,  unconquerable  dispositions, 
fortified  and  embittered  perhaps  by  some  deep  sense 
of  injustice,  and  carrying  in  their  breasts  a  secret 
bond  made  with  themselves  to  work  out  a  revenge 
on  the  society  that  has  misused  them. 

The  gipsy  crone  slavishly  promises  to  give  the 
lady  a  thorough  good  frightening,  but  once  her 
sympathies  are  engaged  she  betrays  the  injurious 
taskmaster,  and  goes  off"  on  her  own  tack.  In  the 
lady's  presence  "  her  ignoble  mien  was  wholly 
altered";  she  "shot  up  a  full  head  in  stature  ...  as 
if  Age  had  forgone  its  usurpature."     She  declaims  : 

"  And  so  at  last  we  find  my  tribe, 
And  so  I  set  thee  in  the  midst. 

*  *  *  *  ♦ 

I  trace  them  the  vein  and  the  other  vein 
That  meet  on  thy  brow  and  part  again, 
Making  our  rapid  mystic  mark. 
And  then,  as  mid  the  dark,  a  gleam 
Of  yet  another  morning  breaks, 
And  like  the  hand  which  ends  the  dream, 
Death,  like  the  might  of  his  sunbeam. 
Touches  the  flesh  and  the  soul  awakes. 
Then  ..." 

Ay,  then  !  The  gipsy  has  bewitched  the  Duchess, 
and  away  they  go  together.  And  that  other  gipsy, 
the  Pied  Piper,  defrauded  of  his  just  wages  for  the 


i8o  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xiii 

extermination  of  the  plague  of  rats  by  the  par- 
simonious Town  Council,  what  is  his  wild,  cruel, 
and  irresponsible  revenge — the  revenge  of  a  wild, 
untutored,  unchastened  being,  half  animal,  half 
human  ? 

"  Once  more  he  stept  into  the  street, 
And  to  his  lips  again, 

Laid  his  long  pipe  of  smooth  straight  cane  ; 
And  ere  he  blew  three  notes  (such  sweet 
Soft  notes  as  yet  musician's  cunning 
Never  gave  the  enraptured  air).  .  .  ." 

And,  followed  by  all  their  sons  and  daughters,  he 
turned  not,  as  in  the  case  of  the  rats,  to  where 
"  the  Weser  rolled  its  waters,"  but  to  the  Koppel- 
berg  Hill,  which  opened  and  swallowed  all  the 
youth  of  Hamelin,  but  one»  I  suppose  he  relented, 
being  after  all  an  artist,  and  half-human,  as  these 
persons  who  leaven  our  dull,  sensible  mediocrity 
generally  are.  Let  the  world  thank  God  for  them, 
for  these  moral  lynch-lawyers,  who  take  upon  them- 
selves to  execute  poetic  justice,  and  teach  us,  in  the 
crabbed  words  of  the  artist  who  invented  the  hero 
of  the  Hamelin  legend,  to — 

"...  be  wipers 
Of  scores  out  with  all  men — especially  pipers  !" 

the  word  "  pipers  "  standing  for  precisely  the  kind 
of  irresponsible  being  whom,  if  he  is  a  musician, 
we  invite  into  our  houses  to  make  music  for  us, 
and  decline  to  pay,  or  the  man  who  writes  the 
books  we  read  with  avidity,  while  allowing  the 
author  who  "  cannot  choose  but  write  "  to  starve  in 
a  garret. 

Browning  had   German   blood    in    him    on    his 


CH.  xiii]    GRAND  DUKES  AND  GIPSIES     i8i 

mother's  side,  and  spent  a  good  deal  of  his  youth 
in  Germany.  Of  course,  he  visited  Hamelin  in  the 
'thirties.  Was  the  legend  of  the  Pied  Piper  already 
a  full-blown  commercial  asset,  or  did  he  give  it  its 
value  on  that  side  ?  When  he  walked  along,  as  we 
did,  from  the  railway-station  to  "  Hamelin  town 
by  famous  Hanover  city,"  did  he  look  into  shop 
windows  all  the  way  he  went,  full  of  every  con- 
ceivable form  of  exploitation  of  the  legend  ?  Rat 
penwipers,  gingerbread  rats  with  beady  currant 
eyes,  picture  postcards  representing  the  scene,  with 
a  Pied  Piper  singularly  like  Mr.  F.  R.  Benson, 
followed  either  by  his  rabble  of  rats  or  troop  of 
beautiful  eager  children.  And  did  he  come  to  the 
very  Rathhaus  where  the  ignoble  civic  body  of 
Hamelin  deliberated,  and  on  to  where  the  Weser 
rolls,  spanned  now  by  a  modern  bridge,  studded 
with  craft  and  with  great  coaling  barges  moored 
under  its  banks  ?  Surely  somewhere  in  the  distance 
is  the  Koppelberg  Hill,  in  whose  sides  the  mys- 
terious portal  opened  to  rake  in  its  living  tribute  ? 
Alas,  alas,  for  Hamelin  1 


CHAPTER  XIV 

GREAT  DANES,  GEESE,  MICE,  AND  SCHOOLMASTERS 

Germany  is  the  land  of  Great  Danes.  I  wanted  a 
dog.  I  had  lost  two — a  bull-dog  and  a  bull-terrier 
— and  I  settled  that  the  third  should  be  a  Great 
Dane.  Every  student  in  Marburg,  so  Joseph 
Leopold  says,  likes  to  swagger  into  a  restaurant, 
swinging  his  great  stick  and  followed  by  his  Great 
Dane,  who  lies  down  at  his  feet  and  takes  notice  of 
nobody  else.  It  is  just  swagger,  not  cynophilism, 
for  as  soon  as  the  bald-headed  one  does  what  in 
England  would  be  called  "  going  down,"  he  trades 
off  the  companion  of  his  rambles  and  orgies  to 
another  student  who  has  just  "come  up."  But 
there  is  a  certain  regular  demand  for  Great  Danes 
in  Marburg  and  Jena  and  Bonn,  so  Great  Danes 
are  being  raised  to  meet  this  demand  all  over  the 
circumambient  country. 

We  picked  out  a  village  from  which  to  select  a 
dog,  looking  over  the  rampart  of  the  castle  of 
Marburg.  We  chose  a  little  spot  of  red  with  in- 
determinate edges,  that  dotted  the  soft  green  plain 
lying  spread  out  flat  at  our  feet.  It  happened  to 
be  the  village  of  Cappel,  and  Joseph  Leopold  con- 
fidently informed  me  that  we  should   find   a  dog 

182 


CH.  XIV]     GREAT  DANES  AND  MICE  183 

there  for  sale  at  something  like  four  pounds,  or 
perhaps  even  three. 

Although  you  have  cleverly  singled  out  a  place 
from  the  bird's-eye  view  of  it,  it  is  not  so  easy  to 
go  straight  there  when  once  you  have  descended 
to  the  same  level  —  though  it  is  a  fact  that  in 
Germany  you  never  have  any  excuse  for  not 
knowing  your  duty  or  your  place.  If  France  is 
Le  pays  du  Tendre,  Germany  is  the  country  of  the 
Precise  Direction.  Every  sign-post  bears  the  names, 
writ  large  and  clear,  of  numberless  villages,  and  we 
struck  the  road  to  Cappel  at  once. 

We  were  walking  along  in  the  broad  valley  of 
the  Lahn.  The  hills,  clothed  in  green,  rose  languidly 
around  us  at  a  little  distance.  It  was  all  arranged, 
like  some  form  of  expensive  landscape  gardening, 
on  a  large,  calm  scale. 

The  absence  of  hedges  gives  this  quiet,  pre- 
meditated effect.  You  get  stretches  of  soft  rich 
meadowland  and  the  feet  of  the  hills  drowned  in 
sedges,  rising  from  beds  of  yellow  colza  or  red 
sainfoin  and  purple  clover.  In  front  of  us  was  the 
Frauenberg,  that  hill  of  mystic  rites.  It  is  crowned 
by  an  old  prehistoric  earthwork  and  the  ruins  of  a 
more  modern  castle.  Behind  us  was  the  Wilhelms- 
hOhe,  facing  Marburg  with  the  modern  imitation 
Gothic  tower  on  it  that  positively  overlooks  the 
towers  of  the  Elizabethen  Kirche.  And  one  saw 
to  right  and  left  and  in  front  the  roads  parting  the 
forest  masses,  laid  wide  and  ready  for  the  Kaiser- 
liche  Post  carts  that  scour  His  Imperial  Highness's 
dominions,  spreading  the  light  of  intelligence 
through   the  woodland    silences,   without    abating 


184  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xiv 

one  jot  of  these  people's  highly-educated  simplicity. 
The  vessel  of  the  spirit  is  generally,  as  to  pattern, 
an  old — very  old  —  berline,  very  like  the  one  in 
which  the  unfortunate  Bourbon  family  went  to 
Varennes.  Its  small  windows  are  always  kept 
tightly  closed.  The  little  varnished  Kutscher,  like 
a  woodland  sprite,  sits  on  the  box  and  drives 
for  hours  from  one  village,  or  from  one  forester's 
hut,  to  another.  He  suggests  varnish,  because  of 
his  dome-shaped  casquette  that  shines  like  black 
carriage  cloth,  and  has  the  immutable  fixed  aigrette 
in  the  front  of  it  as  an  assertion  of  Kaiserlicher 
authority.  There  is  seldom  room  for  anyone  beside 
him.  But  if  you  are  prepared  to  rough  it  and  sit 
inside,  in  the  berline's  stuffiness,  that  is  the  way  to 
get  about  the  country.  The  Kaiserliche  Post  pene- 
trates everywhere,  where  no  trains  and  hardly 
any  foot-passengers  ever  go,  right  into  the  swart 
heart  of  the  Teutobergerwald  and  that  mysterious 
Eiffel  range  that  hangs  over  the  left  bank  of  the 
Rhine,  and  is  full  of  wonderments,  witches,  and 
warlocks.  Quite  the  most  innocent  persons  you  are 
likely  to  see  in  these  Walder  are  charcoal-burners — 
the  very  poor  charcoal-burners  that  form  the  greater 
number  of  the  characters  of  Grimm's  stories,  with 
their  wonderful  seventh  sons  and  their  little  rush- 
lights burning  in  cottage-windows  as  a  refuge  for 
strayed  travellers.  Sometimes  the  only  posting- 
house  is  a  Forsterei,  and  there  you  can  generally 
put  up  for  the  night  if  you  like  and  sample  the 
roughest  and  the  wholesomest  of  fares.  The 
Forster  is  sometimes  —  nay,  generally  —  a  great 
swell,  and  you  cap  him  and  "  Tag  "   him  politely 


CH.  XIV]     GREAT  DANES  AND  MICE  185 

when  you  meet  him  with  his  dog  and  his  gun, 
walking  briskly  through  lonely  glades  and  clear- 
ings. He  wears  what  always  looks  like  a  com- 
pletely new  suit  of  light  grey,  with  blue  or  green 
facings,  and  a  soft  grey  felt  hat  with  a  cock's  feather 
stuck  in  the  band. 

It  is  his  plain  brown  wife,  I  suppose,  who  enter- 
tains you  for  a  few  pfennigs  under  her  wooden 
veranda,  gives  you  beer  or  coffee,  and  even  a  plate 
of  soup  on  one  of  the  tiny  little  tables  covered  with 
the  red-checked  cloth  dear  to  Germany.  Her  hus- 
band is  good  company  if  you  like,  and  his  stories 
have  the  peculiar  wildness  and  invraisemblance  of 
stories  told  by  one  who  does  not  very  often  have 
an  opportunity  of  exchanging  ideas  and  ventilating 
his  experiences  over  a  glass  with  his  brother-man. 

But  although  the  dense  woods  lined  our  horizon, 
we  were  walking  along  on  the  flat,  dusty  road  with 
the  tamest  of  apple-trees  bordering  it.  As  we 
stepped  out,  a  Dorf  grew  appreciably  nearer. 
Presently  we  began  to  meet  the  troops  of  geese 
and  the  attendant  goose-girl  that  furnishes  the 
feminine  element  in  Grimm,  paddling  along  the 
muddy  road.  And  as  we  got  still  nearer  to  the 
village  we  saw  that  the  geese  were  at  home. 
They  were  not  walking,  but  standing  about  in  front 
of  their  cottage-doors,  so  to  speak,  crouching  down 
beside  open  gateways,  and  if  they  did  not  actually 
cackle,  looking  ready  to  stick  their  necks  across  the 
road  and  bar  our  passage.  I  have  ceased  to  be 
afraid  of  geese  and  to  feel  instinctively  the  calves 
of  my  legs  tingling  as  I  approach  the  treacherous, 
white-breasted  things  with  the  cruel  yellow  beak 


i86  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xiv 

nestling  in  the  innocent  seeming  down.  But  I  have 
left  off  being  civil  to  them  and  addressing  a  kind 
word  to  them  as  I  pass.  They  never  respond.  A 
well-nurtured  dog  or  a  cat,  or  even  a  donkey,  at  times 
will  do  so,  but  there  breathes  a  something  wild  and 
untamed  in  the  breast  of  a  goose  —  before  it  is 
fattened,  at  any  rate.  It  is  rebarbatif,  farouche^ 
gauche.  (I  like  to  use  French  words  about  a 
German  goose.)  It  has  possibly  its  civic  duties  to 
attend  to.  It  is  either  the  sentinel  goose  to  which 
you  happen  to  address  your  remarks,  and  of  course 
he  is  busy,  or  it  is  the  lovely  young  goose  that  all 
the  others  are  chaperoning.  A  goose's  politeness 
is  passive.  If  you  are  very  unobtrusive,  the  whole 
lot  will  remain  sitting  as  you  pass,  instead  of  rising 
with  a  quack  and  the  effect  of  a  universal  curtsy. 
Such  passivity  and,  as  it  were,  ignoring  of  you  as 
part  of  the  landscape  is  the  greatest  sign  of  confi- 
dence that  a  goose  can  give. 

Children  G.qu2L\\y  farouche,  but  less  fierce-looking, 
begin  to  potter  about  under  your  feet  as  you  get 
nearer  the  heart  of  the  village.  In  Germany  the 
children,  with  their  slates  and  satchels,  seem  to  me 
to  be  always  coming  in  droves  out  of  school,  just 
like  English  ones.  They  all  look  very  pretty.  Most 
of  them  wear  costumes.  A  child's  costume  is  just 
like  that  of  its  elders,  but  in  miniature.  The  baby 
of  five  has  as  many  rows  of  trimming  on  her 
skirt  as  her  mother,  only  justly  proportioned  to  her 
tininess.  They  suggest  a  general  affluence,  these 
gorgeous  and  variegated  garments  of  the  population, 
which  is  contradicted  by  the  tumble-down,  decrepit 
appearance  of  the  abodes  from  which  they  pour. 


CH.  XIV]     GREAT  DANES  AND  MICE  187 

So  much  straw  litter  is  heaped,  pulled  out,  and 
lying  about ;  opulent  slushy  middens  rank  as  a 
foreground  object ;  nondescript  washing  is  stretched 
over  fences  or  the  threshold  bush  or  vine.  And 
yet  the  row  of  grey-green  jugs,  transfixed,  bottom 
upwards,  on  the  spikes  of  the  pahng,  and  the  house- 
hold vessels  placed  on  the  steps,  each  rinsed  out 
efficaciously,  shining  with  cleanness,  bear  witness 
to  the  Hausfrau's  real  notability. 

And  in  the  worst  little  house  of  all,  with  a  wide 
midden  of  mud  and  garbage  fronting  it,  as  ill  for 
feet  polite  to  cross  as  the  Red  Sea  of  the  Israelites, 
chained  to  a  rudimentary  kennel  between  a  tumble- 
down barn  and  this  vast,  this  prehistoric-looking 
fumier,  was  a  brindled  darling — a  perfect  darling ! 
If  someone  had  offered  to  roll  the  Red  Sea  of  dung 
away  for  me  to  cross,  I  should  not  have  had  the 
patience  to  wait  or  the  prudence  to  go  round  it.  I 
don't  know  how  it  happened,  but  in  a  few  seconds 
I  was  there,  and  my  arm  on  the  puissant  neck  of  the 
Great  Dane  of  my  dreams. 

Though  he  was  chained  he  was  gentle,  sad,  and 
very  thin.  I  began  at  once  to  think  of  the  kennels 
at  Charlton  and  the  pier  at  Dover,  where,  in  prepara- 
tion for  an  enforced  quarantine  of  six  months,  I 
should  be  obliged  to  land  him  in  a  wooden  box  or 
crate  which  would  quite  conceal  him  from  view,  and 
hand  him  over,  crate  and  all,  to  a  chartered  official 
from  the  Government  kennels.  He  would  cost  me 
first  and  last,  including  the  initial  three,  quite  thirteen 
pounds.  I  should  not  have  the  training  of  him,  and 
he  would  probably  never  learn  to  love  me.  But  no 
matter :  I  was  determined  to  have  him. 


i88  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xiv 

However,  Joseph  Leopold,  who  had  seen  many 
Great  Danes  and  intended  to  be  diplomatic  about 
the  purchase  of  this  one — for  he  saw  my  determina- 
tion written  large  on  my  face — suggested  that  we 
should  eat  first  before  entering  into  negotiations 
with  the  landlord  of  the  inn. 

This  was  an  inn  I  I  had  never  before  seen  an  inn 
like  this.  Joseph  Leopold  remarked  that  there  were 
inns  in  the  Spessart  that  he  could  tell  me  of  where 
fowls  slept  in  the  room  with  you — inns  that  were, 
moreover,  in  the  nature  of  a  poorhouse,  so  that  if 
you  had  fared  far  and  had  at  last  succeeded  in 
chartering  a  night's  lodging,  you  might  be  turned 
out  at  the  Government  behest,  if  a  deserving  beggar 
should  turn  up  and  demand  his  right  and  his  due — 
a  night's  lodging  at  the  hands  of  his  country. 

"  This  is  quite  the  roughest  inn  you,  personally, 
have  struck,"  he  admitted.  "Still,  you  won't  mind 
what  you  eat  here,  if  you  end  by  getting  the  dog 
for  three  pounds ;  that  is,  if  he  is  for  sale." 

For  we  did  not  even  know  that  yet,  though  it 
seemed  probable. 

I  agreed.  We  did  not  go  inside,  for  the  Stube 
seemed  to  be  reeking  of  smoke,  though  fairly  clean. 
There  was  a  sort  of  lean-to  built  against  the  wall 
of  the  house,  and  a  thin,  haggard  menagere  came 
forward  and  seemed  to  ask  what  she  could  do  for  us. 

"Was  kann  mann  zu  essen  bekommen?" — Joseph 
Leopold  used  his  usual  negligent  formula. 

She  mentioned  some  comestible  whose  name  left 
Joseph  Leopold  cold,  but  apparently  it  was  all  there 
was,  and  presently  she  served  it.  It  was  "  Brodchen 
mit  Butter,  Bier,  und  Handkase."    The  bread  was 


CH.  XIV]      GREAT  DANES  AND  MICE  189 

delicious,  the  butter  good,  but  the  cheese,  made  by 
hand !  .  .  . 

Imagine  a  piece  of  yellow  soap  that  you  have  left 
by  accident  in  the  water  in  the  bath-room !  Imagine 
yourself  taking  it  out  in  despair  from  the  bottom  of 
the  basin  where  it  has  stuck,  and  nipping  it  franti- 
cally in  the  process.  Then  you  will  realize  what 
Handkase  is.  It  has,  indeed,  been  well  squeezed, 
as  its  name  denotes,  in  the  palm  of  a  large,  per- 
suasive hand,  well  used  to  the  duty.  The  inside 
remains  hard,  only  the  outside  softens  a  little, 
and  a  few  hours  after,  a  slight,  disgusting  sort  of 
skin  forms  on  the  soft  surface.  You  cut  into  it  and 
find  all  these  layers  of  hardness  and  softness,  with 
a  few  dejected  carraway  seeds  drifting  about  here 
and  there.  You  eat  it,  and  it  is  of  varying  degrees 
of  sourness  and  consistency;  unlike  the  curate's 
egg,  none  of  it  bad,  but  not  one  square  inch  tasting 
like  the  other. 

"  Very  nice !"  I  encouraged  Joseph  Leopold ;  "  and 
now  let  us  go  out  and  look  at  the  dog." 

The  landlord,  a  hard-featured,  dull-voiced,  op- 
pressed-looking peasant  came  out,  and  spoke  kindly 
to  the  beautiful,  depressed  animal.  At  his  master's 
behest  it  relaxed  its  sad,  patient  austerity,  and  licked 
my  hand.  It  licked  it  to  order,  the  hand  of  a  poten- 
tial owner,  passionlessly,  automatically.  .  .  .  What 
struck  me  so  strongly  about  master  and  dog  was 
their  respectable  inanity,  the  vacant  good  temper  of 
both.  Then  the  chain  was  undone,  and  the  dog  was 
allowed  to  run  about  to  testify  to  his  powers  of 
locomotion.  Round  and  round  the  midden  he  went, 
in  a  sort  of  dignified  "  lope,"  gathering  his  haunches 


I90  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xiv 

suavely  and  surely  beneath  him  to  produce  that 
beautiful,  easy,  resilient  stride  proper  to  the  Dane. 

"  See,  he  can  run !"  the  master  said ;  "  he  is  quite 
young.  He  would  go  better,  only  I  cannot  afiford 
to  feed  him  on  meat." 

He  spoke  spiritlessly,  the  dog  ran  spiritlessly. 
That  was  it.  Without  being  actually  starved,  they 
neither  of  them   had  enough  to   eat.*     The   man 

*  This  and  the  whole  subsequent  passage  about  the  German 
agricultural  population  represent,  without  doubt,  an  impression- 
istic frame  of  mind  on  the  part  of  an  author,  but  the  conversation 
with  myself  is  the  purest  nonsense,  as  well  as  being  the  sheerest 
invention.  The  innkeeper,  here  represented  as  being  spiritless, 
was  a  wealthy  peasant  worth  at  least  five  hundred  a  year  in 
English  money,  his  inn  being  patronized  by  students  from  the 
neighbouring  city,  whose  taste  for  walking  would  not  carry  them 
any  farther  than  what  I  would  call  a  middle  distance.  This 
gentleman  could  not  afford  to  give  the  dog  meat  to  eat,  because 
with  him  dog  breeding  was  a  serious  business,  his  determination 
being  to  make  a  profit  of  at  least  four  hundred  per  cent,  on  any 
outlay  upon  the  animal  in  question.  The  peasants  of  this  part  of 
the  world  are  generally  suspicious,  obstinate,  and  litigious,  but 
they  are,  before  all  things,  wealthy.  They  own  their  own  lands, 
they  quarrel  violently  about  their  boundary  stones,  they  rise  in 
open  rebellion  if  the  State  attempts  changes  on  their  territory,  even 
though  that  redistribution  may  be  for  their  benefit,  the  State  giving 
them  small  fertile  fields  near  their  house  in  exchange  for  a  stony 
acre  six  miles  away  in  the  mountains.  Their  suspicious  nature  is 
typified  by  the  fact  that  if  you  ask  one  of  these  peasants  the  way 
to  the  next  village,  he  will  reply,  "  I  am  not  denying  that  you 
take  the  second  turning  on  the  right."  It  is  still  further  exemplified 
by  the  crowds  of  Jews  that  are  to  be  found  all  through  Hessia. 
The  Hessian  peasant  detests  a  Jew,  but  he  much  more  distrusts 
his  neighbour.  So  that  if  peasant  Schmidt  desires  to  sell  a  cow 
to  peasant  Braun,  he  will  sell  it  first  to  Cow  Agent  Isaacstein,  and 
Isaacstein  will  afterwards  sell  it  to  the  other  peasant.  There  are, 
of  course,  tenant  farmers  in  Germany  who  are  poor,  but  I  should 
say  that  upon  the  whole  the  German  peasant  is  much  better  o£E 


CH.  xiv]     GREAT  DANES  AND  MICE  191 

hoped  to  have  a  little  more  to  eat  when  he  had  sold 
the  dog,  as  he  was  sure  he  would  do,  for  sixty 
marks.  The  dog,  if  he  thought  at  all,  probably 
expected,  in  his  doggy  way,  to  be  better  fed  when 
he  was  bought  by  some  happy-go-lucky  lavish 
student  or  other. 

We  did  not  buy  the  dog.  I  cannot  now  think 
why.  I  dream  of  that  dog  at  Cappel,  sometimes. 
It  has  become  a  ghostly  dog  to  me.  Not  that  I 
think  it  was  starved  to  death.  I  am  sure  it  was 
bought  and  lived  its  doggy  span,  but  it  got  mixed 
up  with  my  sick  thoughts  in  an  illness  I  contracted  in 
the  course  of  the  next  few  weeks.    And  as  I  lay  in 

than  the  EngUsh  farmer ;  and  the  State — more  particularly  the 
Prussian  State — does  all  that  it  possibly  can  to  foster  agrarian 
prosperity.  The  prices  of  agricultural  produce  are  exceedingly 
high  all  over  Germany  ;  no  internal  taxes  of  any  kind  are  put 
upon  Nahrungsmittel  —  food  products  —  produced  within  the 
German  Empire,  and  protection  for  these  articles  is  very  high 
and  rigidly  enforced.  The  German  farmer  in  certain  cases  does 
not  live  as  well  as  the  English  one ;  when  this  is  the  case,  it  is 
because  he  is  more  provident  on  week-days,  preferring  to  be 
ostentatious  at  feasts.  He  practically  never  has  a  parlour  : 
Nottingham  lace  curtains  are  unknown  to  him,  and  wax  flowers 
under  glass  shades.  He  may  not  have  a  piano  ;  but  if  he  has  one, 
he  plays  upon  it  himself,  and  it  is  not  purchased  on  the  hire 
system.  He  is,  in  fact,  a  peasant — frequently  a  very  rich  peasant, 
sometimes  a  quite  poor  one  ;  but  never  in  his  habits,  his  dress,  or 
his  ambitions,  a  snobbish  imitation  of  the  gentry.  I  am,  of  course, 
talking  of  the  peasant  proprietor,  and  not  of  his  employes.  The 
shepherd,  the  swineherd,  and  the  Tagelohner — the  day  labourers 
generally — are  very  poorly  paid  ;  the  furnishings  of  their  huts 
would  cause  an  English  waggoner's  mate  to  experience  a  sensation 
of  sickness.  And  as  for  their  diet,  it  consists  almost  entirely  of 
potatoes  and  maize,  with  an  occasional  flavouring  of  bacon  ;  but, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  there  are  far  fewer  employed  agricultural 
labourers  in  Germany  than  there  are  in  England. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


19^  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xiv 

my  bed  at  Marburg  I  thought  of  the  day  when  I 
should  be  well  and  able  to  go  down  and  across  the 
plain  again  and  buy  that  dog,  and  feed  it  up  till  it 
could  run  better  and  still  better.  I  would  not  allow 
Joseph  Leopold  to  go  and  buy  it  for  me,  I  meant  to 
buy  it  myself  as  soon  as  I  got  well. 

It  was  my  dog ;  I  dreamt  of  it  every  night.  And 
when  I  was  well  enough  to  travel,  I  was  hustled 
away  and  nobody  remembered  the  brindled  dog  I 
had  talked  about  in  my  ravings  and  desired  to  take 
to  England  and  get  my  mother  to  feed  until  it  could 
run. 

As  we  walked  home  to  Marburg  that  evening, 
Joseph  Leopold,  in  answer  to  my  question,  "  Do  you 
suppose  he  feeds  him  ?"  replied : 

"  He  feeds  him  as  well  as  he  feeds  himself.  These 
German  peasants  are  mildly  poor,  not  abjectly  so. 
They  are  kept  by  their  paternal  Government  at  a 
dead  level  of  mediocre  efficiency  of  health.  It  is 
only  in  England  that  the  farmers  are  really  what 
you  call  prosperous.  .  .  ." 

"All  farmers  come  to  grief  in  England,"  I  said, 
"  sooner  or  later." 

"Now  and  then  ;  but  they  cannot  say  they  haven't 
had  a  good  run  for  their  money.  These  unfortunate 
Germans  are  dully,  glumly  conscious  that  they  are 
all  in  the  hollow  of  the  large,  paternal,  indiscrimina- 
ting  hand.  He  shall  not  suffer  one  sparrow  to  fall, 
etc.,  but  if  the  sparrow  has  no  joie  de  vivre,  no  fun, 
what  does  it  matter  if  he  keeps  up  or  not  ?  English 
farming  is  one  big  gamble,  with  all  the  excitement 
of  gambling." 
"Then  the  German  peasant,"  I  said,  to  show  I 


CH.  XIV]     GREAT  DANES  AND  MICE  193 

understood,  "  knows  that  he  can't  come  to  grief,  but 
he  knows  also  that  he  can't  come  to  pleasure !" 

"  Exactly !" 

We  went  back  through  the  paternally  tended 
village,  and  I  felt  differently  about  it.  There 
were  the  uncircumscribed  middens  and  the  bulging 
heaps  of  fodder  flanking  all  the  little  white-painted, 
faintly  derelict  houses,  having  the  aspect  of  a  decay- 
ing tooth.  And  I  thought  of  the  large  Iron  Hand. 
I  thought  of  an  illustration  in  an  old  story-book 
of  Gulliver — of  the  helpless  Lilliputians  huddled 
into  the  big  enclosing  Brobdingnagian  palm  of  some 
Kaiser  or  other.  We  picked  our  way  along  the  broad 
highway,  avoiding  the  deep  ruts  in  which  the  water 
of  three  days'  showers  ran,  while  the  white  geese, 
with  their  under  parts  smirched,  brooded  in  furrows, 
and  the  dressed-up  children  paddled  in  and  out. 
We  passed  again  the  rows  of  housepots,  grey  with 
the  soft  grey  of  a  Persian  cat,  perched  like  hats  on 
the  fences,  and  we  emerged  on  to  the  broad  unfenced 
road,  with  the  fields  lying  close  up  to  it,  and 
punctuated  by  a  scraggy  apple-tree  dotted  at  rare 
intervals.  The  towers  of  Marburg  surged  dimly  up 
out  of  a  haze  of  dampness  in  the  distance.  And  I 
had  not  got  my  dog. 

We  passed  something  very  black  presently — a 
schoolmaster  convoying  a  little  flock  of  pupils. 
They  seemed  much  occupied  in  poking  sticks  into 
mud-holes  in  the  stubble  fields  that  marched  with 
the  road.  The  schoolmaster  industriously  indi- 
cated these  holes  to  them  with  the  ferrule  of  his 
umbrella. 

"  What  are  these  children  doing  ?"  I  asked  idly. 

13 


194  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xiv 

I  was  tired,  and  annoyed  with  Germany.     "  Is  he 
giving  them  an  agricultural  object-lesson  ?" 

"  No,  they  are  not  learning ;  they  are  practising 
agriculture.     They  are  eradicating  mice." 

"  Killing  them,  do  you  mean  ?  And  the  school- 
master showing  the  little  wretches  how?"  I  shrieked. 

"  The  mice  are  ruining  the  crops,"  Joseph  Leopold 
said  mildly.     "  These  rodents  are  very  noxious.     I 

remember  last  year  at  G there  was  a  plague  of 

mice.     You  could  not  walk  in  the  fields  without 
putting  your  foot  on  them.  .  .  ." 

He  maundered  on  about  the  damage  done  by  these 
pretty  little  creatures — yes,  I  have  seen  even  a  rat 
that  was  pretty,  and  any  way  it  is  a  dumb  animal. 
I  was  so  annoyed  with  Germany,  as  I  said  before, 
that  I  walked  on  in  resentful  silence.  To  see  a 
schoolmaster,  instead  of  acting  as  he  should  have 
done  in  the  interests  of  humanity,  actually  inciting 
his  class  to  deeds  of  cruelty  was  too  much  for  the 
traces  of  British  feeling  that  yet  lingered  in  my  alien 
breast. 

And  then — it  was  Saturday  evening — the  German 
church  bells  began  to  ring  in  Sunday,  as  is  their 
custom.  I  hate  church  bells  as  much  as  the  Devil  is 
said  to  do,  and  now  I  hate  German  schoolmasters. 
I  thought  of  another  German  custom  which  I  had 
heard  hinted  at,  and  it  was  connected  with  mice,  so 
I  took  it  up  as  a  stick  to  hit  a  German  with. 

"  I  suppose  cats  do  the  dirty  work  in  England,"  I 
said ;  "  but  I  never  seem  to  see  a  cat  in  Germany. 
Plenty  of  kittens,  but  no  cats.  I  suppose  you  eat 
them  as  soon  as  they  are  fat  enough  ?" 

"Something  in  that!"  Joseph  Leopold  remarked 


CH.  XIV]     GREAT  DANES  AND  MICE  195 

cruelly.  "  But  the  real  reason  is  that  they  eat 
the  birds.  Germans  love  birds,  and  would  sooner 
have  an  aviary  than  a  cattery  like  yours.  I  am  a 
German,  and  /  love  birds." 

I  got  back  to  Marburg  without  a  dog,  and  with 
several  illusions  the  less  about  Germans,  and  about 
Joseph  Leopold   in   particular.     But  when  Joseph 

Leopold  referred  to  his  stay  in  Gc I  remembered 

an  anecdote  which  a  learned  friend  of  his,  a  Pro- 
fessor in  the  said  town,  once  related  to  me.  Joseph 
Leopold's  sentimental  vagary  amused  and  in- 
terested the  Professor,  and  I  set  it  against  his 
callousness  with  regard  to  mice  and  cats. 

Everyone  knows  that  Rehfleisch  is  the  house- 
keeper's best  asset  in  Germany,  and  her  English 
sister  who  sighs  so  pathetically  for  a  "  new  beast " 
is  emphatically  the  poorer  in  culinary  invention, 
because  the  English  butcher  takes  so  little  definite 
cognizance  of  the  animal  that  pants  in  vain.     But  in 

G deer  are  caught  and  brought  in  alive  from  the 

neighbouring  forest,  placed  in  some  improvised  pen 
and  fattened.  Clients  of  a  favourite  eating-place  may 
see  and  inspect  their  meal  of  a  month  hence  increasing 
behind  his  wattled  prison.  Children  may  poke  the 
poor  thing  with  their  sticks,  prod  him,  throw  him 
mock  food  to  eat,  stare  and  gibe  at  the  patient 
misery  of  the  wild  creature,  prisoned  in  an  enclosing 
cage  where  he  may  not  evade  their  persecution,  but 
only  lie  down  and  await  his  doom. 

One  day,  when  the  right  amount  of  adipose  tissue 
has  deposited  itself  on  his  bones,  his  windpipe  is  slit 
— and  the  table  of  mine  host  of  the  Golden  Anchor 
knows  the  rest.     Il;  is  true  that  if  one  allows  such 


196  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xiv 

fine  feelings  to  sway  one,  one  must  leave  off  eating 
Reh ;  and  Joseph  Leopold  likes  Reh,  and  eats  it  when- 
ever he  can  get  it.  But  the  sight  of  the  means  to  the 
end  is  repellent  to  him.     Each  prod  of  a  passenger's 

umbrella  at  the  deer  of  G ,  each  stupid  onslaught 

on  the  creature's  temporary  peace,  went  to  his  heart. 
It  would  have  gone  to  mine ;  and  when,  later  on,  he 
confessed  to  the  incident,  half  in  shame,  half  in 
pride,  I  admitted  that  he  could  have  taken  no  other 
course. 

He  approached  the  inn  people,  and  asked  if  he 
might  be  permitted  to  purchase  the  deer  alive.  They 
naturally  agreed  at  once.  A  price  was  fixed — £t,  ios- 
— and  Joseph  Leopold  took  his  Reh,  hired  a  cart,  and 
placed  the  bemused  and  recalcitrant  beast  in  it. 
Behold  the  philanthropist  driving  off  jubilantly  to 
the  forest,  across  a  couple  of  fields  or  so,  until  he 
comes  with  his  prey  to  a  clear  space  where  the  dead 
leaves  are  not  so  thick,  and  the  low  boughs  hold  away 
a  little.  Then  he  releases  the  frightened,  scared 
thing,  and  watches  it  bound  away  to  the  forest. 

One  hoped  it  lived  happily  ever  after  to  the 
natural  term  of  a  roe-deer's  life.  But  would  its 
friends  be  kind  to  it  ?  Would  its  limbs  be  as  nimble 
after  their  long  spell  of  restraint  ?  Would  it  not 
get  caught  again  and  eaten  ?  Did  Joseph  Leopold 
himself  eat  it  after  all  ?    There  is  no  knowing. 

But  the  peace  that  passeth  understanding  must 
have  been  his  as  he  watched  the  deer  bound  away 
into  the  open.  Such  a  thing  can  never  have  hap- 
pened before  in  all  the  annals  of  deerdom. 

And  as  the  German  Herr  Professor  who  first  told 
me  the  tale  said,  the  inn  people  were  no  losers  and 


CH.  XIV]     GREAT  DANES  AND  MICE  197 

promptly  supplied  themselves  with  a  fresh  deer. 
Joseph  Leopold  did  not  know  this,  for  natural 
modesty  kept  the  hero  of  such  a  virtuous  and  un- 
worldly action  at  a  distance  from  the  scene  of  his 
exploit. 


CHAPTER  XV 

"DRIZZLING"  AND  OFFICERS 

Kassel  adequately  represents  Germany  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  To  look  out  on  that  wide  Platz, 
with  a  royal  residence  on  one  side,  a  Caserne  on  the 
other,  a  glacis  on  the  third,  and  a  statue  of  a  royal 
Duke  in  the  middle,  is  to  think  of  banner-screens, 
and  Berlin  wool-work,  and  tight  stays,  and  etiquette, 
and  Karohne  Bauer  and  the  tragedy  of  *'  drizzling." 
Very  few  people  know  anything  about  "  drizzling," 
but  they  all  know  something  about  the  beautiful 
actress,  Karoline  Bauer,  who  persuaded  her  uncle, 
stiff  old  General  Bauer  of  Kassel,  to  let  her  go  on 
the  stage.  And  she  was  very  like  Princess  Char- 
lotte of  England,  the  dead  spouse  of  Prince  Leopold 
of  Saxe-Coburg.  The  Prince,  most  morose,  hand- 
somest man  of  his  age,  was  a  confirmed  "  drizzler." 
And  pretty  Karoline  had  played  when  a  child  with 
him.  Her  cousin,  Christian  Stockmar,  managed  the 
Prince  of  Coburg,  and  later,  through  the  respect 
which  the  Prince  Consort  had  for  him,  he  exercised 
a  very  considerable  influence  over  the  Court  and 
policy  of  the  late  Queen  Victoria  of  England.  He 
was  a  managing  man,  and  he  managed  his  niece's 

198 


CH.  XV]    "  DRIZZLING  "  AND  OFFICERS     199 

affairs  for  her  very  badly,  if  we  are  to  believe  the 
statements  made  in  that  vivacious  lady's  memoirs. 

Trading  upon  the  chance  likeness  of  the  young 
actress  to  the  dead  Charlotte  of  Wales,  he  engineered 
a  love-affair  and  persuaded  Karoline  Bauer  to  come 
to  England  in  the  hope  of  becoming  the  stony  but 
broken-hearted  Leopold's  morganatic  wife.  Poor 
Karoline  and  her  good  mother,  en  tout  bien  tout 
honneur,  were  planted  out  in  a  villa  in  the  Regent's 
Park,  and  Prince  Leopold  went  to  tea  with  them 
and  "  drizzled,"  and  the  "  drizzling  "  was  the  worst 
part  of  it  for  Karoline  to  bear,  and  her  chafing  under 
it  would  have  lost  her  her  place  if  the  prospect  of 
the  Greek  Throne  had  not  done  so  more  effectually. 
After  a  year's  suspense  in  England,  when  the 
"  drizzler's  "  visits  were  all  the  amusement  she  had, 
she  was  ignominiously  packed  back  to  Coburg  as 
Countess  Montgomery,  and,  her  memoirs  say, "  worse 
than  hang"  of  all  the  German-English  royalties. 

"  Drizzling "  was  invented  in  France  by  the  fair 
bored  ones  of  Versailles,  and  they  called  \t  parfilage. 
They  begged  their  male  friends  for  gold  and  silver 
epaulettes,  hilt-bands,  galloons  and  tassels,  so  that 
a  lover  in  those  days,  to  make  himself  agreeable, 
would  rob  himself  prematurely  of  the  chief  orna- 
ments of  his  wardrobe,  and  present  them  to  the  lady. 
She  would  put  them  all  into  a  huge  picking-bag,  and 
take  them  to  Court,  where  she  was  proudest  whose 
bag  ran  over  with  the  best  gold.  Bets  between  the 
sexes  were  settled,  not  in  hard  cash,  but  in  so  many 
gold  tassels  for  picking.  Madame  de  Genlis  took 
credit  with  herself  for  having  put  a  stop  to  this  traffic 
in  galloons  and  lace.    "  Since  Adele  and  Theodore," 


200  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xv 

she  says,  "  no  lady  has  been  seen  in  Society  demand- 
ing gold  for  picking  from  a  man."  The  ladies  of 
France  went  back  to  embroidery,  "  the  needlework 
which  had  once  agreeably  whiled  away  the  time  of 
our  mothers  and  grandmothers,"  and  parfilage 
crossed  over  to  England,  where  it  was  called 
"  drizzhng." 

Karoline  Bauer's  lover  was  royal,  and  therefore 
prone  to  the  royal  disorder  of  ennui.  He  combated 
it  by  "  drizzling " — to  the  intense  vexation  of  the 
sprightly  Karoline.  To  see  the  Prince  alight  from 
his  carriage,  followed  by  his  groom  bearing  the 
"  awful  drizzling  box,  made  of  tortoise-shell,"  with- 
out yawning  in  his  face  ;  to  sit  beside  him  while  he 
"  drizzled  with  monotonous  regularity,"  made  her 
inclined  to  run  away  without  waiting  for  the  Prince 
to  declare  himself,  and  thus  defeat  all  the  best-laid 
schemes  of  Cousin  Christian.  But  she  "  sat  tight " 
and  lost  him  after  all ! 

Then  Berlin  wool-work  came  in  and  drove  all 
before  it — even  "  drizzling."  It  killed  all  artistic 
needlework  in  England  till  the  establishment  of  the 
firm  of  Morris  and  Company.  But  it  probably  was 
just  as  efficacious  by  way  of  a  thought-annihilator 
as  any  other  form  of  occupation,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  it  sorted  with  the  inferior  art-instinct 
of  that  generation. 

Taught,  as  a  little  girl,  by  my  astute  nurse  to 
make  an  entire  wardrobe  for  the  doll  I  cherished, 
nude  as  it  came  from  the  godmother,  I  did  not 
realize  at  that  time  that  I  was  laying  up  balm  in 
Gilead,  a  panacea  for  my  middle  age.  And  as  the 
keeping  of  a   diary  is  advised   by  way  of  incul- 


CH.  XV]    "DRIZZLING"  AND  OFFICERS     201 

eating  unconscious  habits  of  composition,  so  my 
nurse's  insistence  on  an  irksome  degree  of  pro- 
ficiency gained  me  that  mechanical  skill  which 
enables  me  to  give  but  the  very  slightest  attention 
to  the  coloured  worsted  that  blocks  out  a  leaf,  or  the 
seam  that  unrolls  itself  steadily  from  the  pin  fixing 
it  to  the  knee.  If  only  half  a  mind  is  left,  the  other 
half  is  not  much  good  to  worry  with.  A  certain 
adjustment  of  the  proportions  only  is  needed  to 
render  one  process  void  and  the  other  useful.  Of 
course,  the  work  must  be  a  little  better  than  the 
perfunctory  night's  sewing  of  an  actress  en  scene. 
That  is  only  fit,  like  Penelope's,  to  be  unravelled 
again  by  day,  though  I  am  credibly  informed  that 
some  of  our  leading  ladies  hem  all  their  household 
linen  during  the  run  of  a  successful  piece ! 

As  I  am  never,  or  hardly  ever,  to  be  seen  without 
a  piece  of  useful  needlework  in  my  hand,  what  I  am 
going  to  say  will  inevitably  suggest  that  I  possess  a 
character  of  the  most  restless,  the  most  pernicketty. 
I  sew  that  I  may  not  weep — or,  rather,  worry.  Other 
people  smoke  or  play  Patience  to  promote  their 
powers  of  abstention  from  a  process  as  undesirable 
as  it  is  futile.  But  from  all  ages,  I  fancy,  this  prin- 
ciple has  been  conceded  :  that  it  is  good  to  withdraw 
even  so  much  as  a  fraction  of  one's  attention  from 
whatever  represents  the  prevailing  form  of  obsession ; 
an  obsession  that  requires  concentration  to  intensify 
it.  It  gets  it — all  the  boring,  drilling  force  of  intellect 
focussed  on  an  annoyance — unless  some  such  panacea 
as  has  been  the  heritage  of  all  the  ages  is  resorted 
to.  The  Egyptians  possessed  playing-cards;  they 
probably  played  Patiences  in  their  mansions  on  the 


202  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xv 

broiling  sand.  Greek  women  spun,  and  we  know 
the  medieval  ladies  embroidered  "  sitting,  lily  like, 
a-row."  The  Bayeux  tapestry  probably  represents 
the  nerve-outlet  of  Matilda,  the  wife  of  the  Con- 
queror, and  of  all  the  wives  of  his  ragamuffin  host, 
left  at  home  in  Normand}''  to  worry  over  the  results 
of  the  great  coup  and  bid  for  landed  property. 
What  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots'  needlework,  which 
is  always  turning  up  in  exhibitions,  and  a  large 
piece  of  which  is  still  shown  among  the  arid  stone- 
work of  a  temporary  abode  of  hers — Edinburgh 
Castle  ? 

Women  who  sew  are  generally  good-tempered. 
And  I  can  point  to  instances  of  great  intellects 
among  my  sex  who  have  not  scorned  the  innocent 
derivative  of  confessedly  feminine  occupation.  I 
can  mention  three  women,  authors,  who  were 
notoriously  nimble  with  their  fingers,  and  one  of 
them,  George  Eliot,  to  my  knowledge,  gave  some 
umbrage  to  a  distinguished  male  visitor,  who  called 
and  found  her,  as  her  custom  was,  engaged  on  a 
piece  of  ugly,  uninteresting  white  work.  Was  she 
stitching  shirt-bands  for  the  late  George  Henry 
Lewis,  that  this  other  literary  magnate  felt  and 
expressed  such  irritation  to  me  years  afterwards? 
Charlotte  Bronte,  too,  was  a  fine  needlewoman, 
though  I  do  not  think  she  embroidered  —  she 
probably  made  lace  collarettes,  as  my  own  mother 
did  when  sewing  in  company.  George  Sand  was 
another  example  of  the  woman  of  genius  who 
realizes  the  immense  use  of  a  mechanical  non- 
fatiguing  occupation  as  a  thought-killer — but  then, 
she  smoked  as  well ! 


CH.  XV]    "DRIZZLING"  AND  OFFICERS     203 

The  best  instance  is  that  of  the  greatest  woman 
of  all.  Joan  of  Arc,  in  her  trial,  was  once,  and  once 
only,  stung  into  the  expression  of  a  personal  and 
domestic  point  of  pride.  "  Oh,  as  far  as  sewing  and 
spinning  goes,  I  give  way  to  no  woman  in  Rouen  !" 
she  said,  and  even  the  monkish  chroniclers  of  the 
court-house  have  not  been  able  to  take  the  innocent 
vanity  out  of  the  phrase. 

From  Kassel  one  goes  to  see  WilhelmshOhe,  and 
I  wonder  if  I  shall  be  sent  to  Glatz  or  Spandau,  like 
Lieutenant  Bilse,  if  I  venture  to  put  on  paper  what 
I  think  about  Wilhelmshohe,  because  I  think  it  is 
without  exception  the  ugliest  place  I  ever  saw,  the 
most  elaborately  tasteless,  the  crudest  in  bad- 
prevailing  colour.  My  impressions  of  it  began  to 
be  planted  at  the  bend  of  the  line  going  to  Kassel ; 
where  it  slewed  round  and  let  me  see  in  the  dis- 
tance a  pretentious  mock  ruin  on  the  crest  of  the 
hill.  It  was  not  the  ruin  of  a  castle,  it  was  the 
elaborate  structure  of  the  Hercules  Cascade.  Even 
from  that  distance  I  could  discern  the  artificially 
chopped  stones,  disposed  in  tiers,  like  the  worst 
Strawberry  Hill  Gothic,  and  of  very  large  propor- 
tions ;  and  that  is,  I  suppose,  why  the  erection,  as  a 
whole,  is  called  after  Hercules.  The  palace,  I  was 
told,  lay  in  the  hollow  below,  between  the  cascade 
and  the  railway-station — it  has  a  station  all  to  itself 
where  Sovereigns,  regnant  and  deposed,  both  must 
alight.  Napoleon  III,  after  Sedan,  was  forced  to 
drag  his  weary  disease-ridden  body  there. 

Somewhere  on  the  road  between  Sedan  and  here  is 
the  little  posting-house  where  he  lay  all  night,  and 
read  in  bed  to  try  and  procure  sleep.    Archibald 


204  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xv 

Forbes  told  me  what  it  was  he  was  reading — a  novel 
of  Bulwer's, "  The  Last  of  the  Barons."  And  Forbes, 
in  his  capacity  of  war-correspondent,  was  there 
when  the  Emperor  gave  up  his  sword  to  the  old, 
severe,  but  by  no  means  brutal,  Moltke.  It  was  a 
sad  mess ;  the  people  who  shouted  A  Berlin  I  so 
frantically  were  in  the  first  place  not  ready,  and  in 
the  second  cruelly  "  done  "  by  their  army  fournis- 
seurs.  Joseph  Leopold  pointed  out  to  me  the  hill 
that  the  Emperor  stood  on  that  day,  and,  sadly  put- 
ting his  field-glass  back  in  its  sheath,  admitted  that 
he  had  lost  the  field  through  bad  guns,  bad  boots, 
and  want  of  discipline.  Sedan  field  is  as  tame  as 
Edge  Hill,  where  a  Stuart  lost  his  chance,  or 
Nevill's  Cross  on  the  Red  Hills  near  Durham  that 
once  ran  with  blood.  Sedan  field  is  more  rtante, 
perhaps,  than  either  of  these.  I  don't  think  I  ever 
realized  the  bitterness  of  the  Emperor's  cup  till  I 
saw  the  scene  of  his  fall,  in  this  quiet  plain,  so  far 
from  palpitating  Paris,  where  wife  and  child,  his 
hostages,  were  sheltered  only  by  the  success  of  his 
Eagles.  And  there,  among  these  tame  sedges,  the 
Eagles  declined  and  the  Emperor  folded  up  his 
glasses  and  knew  full  well  what  would  be  the  next 
move  —  Wilhelmshohe  and  its  hideous  tasteless 
magnificence,  and  old  Wilhelm's  sardonic  deference. 
There  are  carp  in  the  lake  at  Wilhelmshohe,  but 
Napoleon  le  Petit  had  never  lived  at  Versailles,  to 
be  agreeably  reminded  of  it  at  Wilhelmshohe.  And 
there  are  gardens  at  Wilhelmshohe,  a  profusion  of 
anihne-dyed  flowers  set  out  in  flat  mathematical 
beds,  like  table  decorations,  and  window-boxes  fit  to 
tear  your  eyes  out.     The  sick  man  recked  little  of 


CH.  XV]    "DRIZZLING"  AND  OFFICERS     205 

that.  I  imagine  him  lying  there,  wondering  "  k 
quelle  sauce  il  serait  mange."  We  saw  the  very  bed 
on  which  he  lay,  in  the  Empire-decorated  suite  of 
rooms  allotted  by  the  old  King  to  his  distinguished 
guest.  That  was  a  matter  of  custodians,  and  tips, 
and  felt  slippers. 

Yes,  before  we  were  allowed  to  set  foot  in  the 
State  apartments,  Joseph  Leopold  and  I  and  a 
miscellaneous  collection  of  tourists,  chiefly  women"; 
were  asked  to  put  on  felt  slippers,  nominally  to 
prevent  us  from  slipping  on  the  highly-polished 
parquets,  but  I  am  sure  it  was  to  avert  the  possible 
damage  that  our  dirty,  clumsy  boots  might  entail.  I 
say  slippers,  but  these  objects,  flung  at  us  out  of  a 
cupboard  near  the  entry  in  a  contemptuous  manner 
by  the  custodian,  were  more  like  boats,  more  like 
arks,  and  I  should  have  found  it  impossible  to  walk 
in  them.  I  said  so.  And  with  a  look  at  my  clod- 
hoppers, which,  beside  those  of  the  other  two 
German  women's,  had  the  effect  of  what  English 
shoemakers  would  have  called  "smart"  shoes — 
that  is  to  say,  deHcate  and  refined  to  a  point — the 
custodian  tacitly  agreed  that  such  fairy  footsteps  as 
mine  could  do  no  damage,  and  invited  me  to  proceed, 
unshod  in  the  felt  boats. 

After  we  had  seen  the  Napoleon  suite  and  the 
suite  which  the  Kaiser  inhabits  with  his  family 
when  he  comes  down  to  feast  his  eyes  on  his  red 
and  yellow  flowers,  we  got  out  of  the  palace  again 
and  went  to  look  at  the  carp  and  to  send  off"  picture 
post-cards  from  the  great  post-office  which  the 
Kaiser  maintains  in  the  grounds ;  and  then  it  began 
to  rain  and  we  decided  to  mount  to  the  cascade. 


206  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xv 

At  close  quarters  the  Hercules  Cascade  resembles 
a  huge  sugar  cake,  or  one  of  the  epergnes  that  in 
Thackeray's  day  used  to  be  placed  in  the  centre  of 
the  table  to  prevent  husbands  and  wives  seeing  each 
other.  This  ghastly  erection  fills  up  the  whole  of 
the  prospect  and  horribly  interrupts  the  sky-line. 
It  is  the  only  thing  one  sees  from  the  windows  of 
the  Napoleon  suite.  Macabre  and  cheerless,  it  can- 
not have  induced  any  more  pleasant  thoughts  than 
those  that  the  son  of  Hortense  had  any  right  to. 

We  went  back  to  Kassel  and  the  land  of  Casernes 
and  officers,  and  upon  my  word  Kassel  seemed 
almost  picturesque  after  the  palace  of  the  German 
Caesars.  The  sky  was  a  cold  steely  blue  ;  we  heard 
the  cliquetis  of  arms  as  we  approached  the  barracks. 
Looking  over  a  wall  from  the  top  of  the  tram,  we 
saw  the  privates  washing  their  linen.  It  was  late 
in  the  year,  and  those  heralds  of  autumn,  the 
reservists,  were  coming  back.  So  they  say  in 
Germany,  while  summer  is  shown  in  by  the  appear- 
ance of  Mai  Bowie  on  people's  tables  and  placarded 
in  the  signs  of  Gastwirthschaften.  I  like  Mai 
Bowie,  but  I  rather  hate  soldiers ;  and,  above  all, 
Prussian  officers,  and  there  are  many  at  Kassel. 

I  was  really  afraid  of  German  officers  till  I  knew 

Herr  W .     He  is  a  friend  of  Joseph  Leopold's, 

and  on  the  morning  of  my  arrival  in  my  house  in 

H ,  I  looked  out  of  the  window,  and  saw  a  fat 

officer  on  a  fat  white  horse,  bowing  and  prancing 
and  paying  his  respects.  He  was  an  engineer  as 
well.  I  don't  really  understand  how  a  man  can  be 
both  an  officer  and  the  head  of  a  railway  line,  but 
in  Germany,  it  appears,  he  can  monopolize  these  two 


CH.  XV]    "DRIZZLING"  AND  OFFICERS     207 

very  onerous  offices.    And  Herr  W is  heavy 

but  polite.  In  Wiesbaden  I  had  met  officers  in  the 
Allee,  as  free  to  me  as  to  them,  or  so  I  had  thought, 
and  they  had  literally  forced  me  to  give  them  the  pas, 
under  pain  of  being  knocked  down.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  world  like  the  aggressiveness  of  a 
Prussian  officer.  And  I  had  seen  them,  when  I 
have  been  staying  in  garrison  towns,  at  hotels  where 
they  habitually  dine  or  sup.  But  does  anyone  sup- 
pose that  they  condescend  to  sit  down  with  the  rest 
of  us  ?  No,  noisily  and  consciously*  they  swagger 
through  the  common  Speisesaal  into  a  special  Saal 
reserved  for  them — a  holy  of  holies  to  where  the 
best  dishes  are  carried  in  first.  And  if  by  chance  a 
poor  little  common  soldier  happens  to  be  eating  his 
humble  meal  along  with  us  in  the  common  dining- 
room,  he  has  hastily  to  swallow  the  mouthful  he 
has  just  taken  into  his  mouth,  stand  up,  and  click 
his  heels  together,  remaining  in  that  humiliating 
position  until  his  brilliant  superior  has  passed  by. 
I  have  seen  a  poor  \\it\e  pion  rise  at  least  a  dozen 
times  in  the  course  of  one  meal  to  the  unspoken 
best  of  a  brilliant  being  with  floating  cloak  and  with 
ringing  spurs t  who  comes  bumptiously  clashing  in. 

*  I  do  not  know  how  our  author  penetrated  into  the  psychologies 
of  these  gentlemen  so  as  to  know  whether  they  were  conscious  or 
not,  but,  in  most  hotels  of  the  civilized  world,  the  regular  guests 
of  those  hotels,  whether  they  be  Cabinet  Ministers  or  bagmen,  are 
given  either  regular  tables,  or,  supposing  the  company  be  sufficient 
to  warrant  it,  a  separate  room.  So  it  was  with  the  officers  whom 
our  author  has  seen. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 

+  This  would  be  precisely  the  same  in  England  if  a  private 
soldier  in  uniform  happened  to  be  eating  in  a  restaurant  when  an 
officer  in  uniform  entered.    English  officers  in  uniform  are  not 


208  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xv 

I  do  not  care  for  the  horrid  little  jimp-skimp  ill- 
made  grey  ulsters  that  the  Einjahrige  wear,  but  I 
deeply  admire  the  flamboyant  cloak  of  grey,  with 
blue  Gerard  collar  and  gold  military  braid,  worn  by 
officers.  I  admired  them  so  much  that  I  suggested 
to  Joseph  Leopold  that  he  should  have  a  cloak  made 
like  them — borrow  that  of  his  friend  Lieutenant 
von  L.,  for  whom  I  had  once  done  some  slight 
service  in  introducing  him  to  a  young  lady  he  hap- 
pened to  admire  at  Nauheim. 

"  To  wear  when  you  take  me  out  to  tea  on 
Campden  Hill  ?"  Joseph  Leopold  inquired. 

I  explained  that  it  would  not  be  so  much  for 
Campden  Hill  as  for  travelling  about  in  our  native 
country,  and  he  replied  that  he  would  rather  not 
be  arrested. 

All  these  rude  handsome  men  were,  of  course, 
alike  to  me,  but  by  the  fashion  of  their  garments 
Joseph  Leopold  seemed  to  know  to  which  corps 
they  belonged.  In  Trier,  a  frontier  town,  officers 
are  paramount;  I  mean  they  infest  every  walk  of 
life.  You  go  for  a  walk  to  some  distant  Bier  Garten, 
and  there  you  see  all  these  gay  uniforms  sitting 
with  plain  women  at  little  tables  on  the  rough  grass, 
looking  much  too  smart  in  their  gold  galloon  and 
blue  cloth  for  their  ill-dressed  females.  And  all 
along  the  wooded  heights  above  Trier  you  stop  to 
take  breath,  and  there  comes  to  you  the  rub-a-dub 

allowed  to  travel  in  public  conveyances,  or  in  any  class  but  first 
class  on  railways,  because  if  a  private  soldier  happened  to  be  in 
the  same  compartment,  the  private  soldier  would  have  to  remain 
on  his  feet  during  the  journey.  The  same  reasonable  regulation 
obtains  in  Germany. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  xv]    "DRIZZLING"  AND  OFFICERS     209 

of  the  conscripts  practising.*  It  is  an  ordinance 
that  they  may  not  do  so  any  nearer  town  than  a 
mile. 

In  frontier  towns  one  always  feels  in  the  air  the 
unrest,  the  indecisions  of  a  population  standing  on 
debatable  ground.  During  the  war  scare  of  1910 
eighty-four  thousand  men  were  quartered  in  Trier. 
The  men  were  perforce  billeted  in  all  the  houses. 
The  citizens  did  not  mind  that,  for  daughters  went 
off  marvellously  during  this  pacific  occupation. 

*  These  gentlemen  are  not  conscripts,  and  what  our  author 
means  is  that  when  a  regimental  band  is  practising  a  new  piece 
of  music,  or  new  recruits  are  trying  their  hand  at  bugle  calls,  they 
are  requested  to  retire  to  some  distance  from  the  town.  This 
practice  prevails  in  most  civilized  countries.  I  remember  getting 
great  pleasure  outside  the  city  of  Tarascon  hearing  a  regimental 
band  of  chasseurs  practising  in  an  abandoned  graveyard  an 
excerpt  from  "  Die  Walkiire." — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


14 


CHAPTER  XVI 

HOW  IT  FEELS  TO  BE  MEMBERS  OF  SUBJECT  RACES* 

Down  below,  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill  with  the 
many  barrows,  a  dog  barked  unceasingly.  It  is 
absurd  the  amount  of  colour  they  get  into  these 
German  landscapes.  It  is  almost  as  if  Nature  had 
gone  mad.  The  only  thing  that,  beneath  the  hot 
sun,  was  sober  was  the  bit  of  hill-top  with  the 
barrows  where  we  lay.  The  hill  might  have  been 
a  little  piece  of  an  English  down,  dun-coloured, 
irregular,  and  quarried  again  and  again.  But  the 
ploughed  land  that  came  up  to  our  feet  was  reddish 
in  the  high  lights  and  purplish  in  the  shadow.  The 
boughs  of  the  apple-trees,  absurdly  thick  with 
nacreous  blossom,  pushed  themselves  wildly  up  at 
the  blue  sky  between  the  scarlet  roofs  of  houses 
that  were  whitewashed  and  then  painted,  between 
their  black  timbers,  with  bouquets  of  flowers,  stags, 
or  pious,  joyous,  complaisant,  or  defiant  verses. 
One  of  these  verses  as  we  had  come  up  through  the 
village  we  had  observed  to  run :  "  God  helped  me 
to  build  this  house.  If  you  mock  at  its  appearance 
you  will  not  hurt  me,  for  with  the  aid  of  God  I  built 
it  to  please  myself."    And  lying  one  day  on  just 

*  By  Ford  Madox  Hueffer. 
aio 


CH.  XVI]  SUBJECT  RACES  211 

this  range  of  hills  an  old  Landgraf  Heinrich  eight 
hundred  years  ago  made  up  this  verse:  "There  is 
no  place  so  pleasant  as  this  valley  that  I  look  upon. 
For  it  has  a  river  that  is  beloved,  good  hunting, 
pleasant  woods,  fine  hills,  and  excellent  feeding,  as 
well  as  many  apple-trees  and  song-birds."  And 
triumphantly  he  adds :  "  Und  dat  ick  mein  !"  ("  And 
that  I  think  and  that  is  mine  "). 

He  must  have  been  a  fine  old  man,  and  all  that  he 
said  of  his  valley  which  contains  still  the  "  beloved  " 
River  Lein — all  that  he  said  is  true. 

The  dog  continued  to  bark  incessantly,  two 
hundred  and  forty  little  sharp  barks  to  the  minute, 
and  then  suddenly  it  came  into  our  heads  to  observe 
that  the  creature  was  standing  planted  just  outside 
its  hedge  and  barking  at  us.  We  lay  quite  still,  the 
dog  stood  perfectly  still  and  barked.  It  seemed 
to  resemble  the  result  of  several  crosses  between  a 
rat,  a  rabbit,  and  a  wire-haired  terrier.  But  it  was 
so  far  down  the  hill  that  the  sharp  notes  of  its  voice 
were  no  more  disturbing  than  the  rustle  of  wind  in 
the  false  brent  grass  on  the  barrows.  And,  sud- 
denly, again  it  came  into  our  heads  to  wonder  whose 
territory  the  dog  with  such  a  querulous  valiance 
was  defending  against  us  people  who  lay  among  the 
forgotten  dead. 

We  could  not  say,  without  looking  at  a  map, 
whether  this  country  was  the  kingdom  of  Hanover, 
the  duchy  of  Brunswick,  Westphalia,  or  Prussia 
proper.  It  has  been  all  these  things  by  turns,  and 
it  is  certainly  Prussia  now.  There  is  no  doubt 
about  that.  And  once  in  addition  it  was  certainly 
English  territory  in  a  manner  of  speaking,  and  once 


212  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xvi 

without  any  figure  of  speech  at  all,  it  was  much 
more  certainly  part  of  the  Empire  of  France.  Now 
the  peace  of  Prussia  broods  all  across  the  broad 
landscape.  Conquered  territory,  that  is  what  it  all 
is,  and  the  cross  between  a  Hanover  rat  and  an 
Irish  terrier  continued  vociferously  to  defend  it. 
After  all,  that  was  patriotism. 

Consider  all  the  owners  of  this  land  from  Henry 
the  Lion  till  the  days  of  Imperial  Chancellor  Beth- 
mann-HoUweg !  Consider  their  splendid  feats,  or 
the  mere  tough  obstinacy  of  their  patriotisms.  Con- 
sider how  they  won  great  fights  and  lost  all  their 
territories.  It  does  not  matter  whether  it  was 
George  by  the  grace  of  God  King  of  Great  Britain, 
France  and  Ireland,  who  got  hold  of  Celle  by  mar- 
riage with  Dorothea  of  that  ilk,  and  then  got  rid  of 
Dorothea.  It  does  not  matter  that  George  II  fought 
with  the  obstinacy  of  that  rat-dog  at  Dettingen.  It 
does  not  matter  that  in  1809  the  Duke  Frederick 
William,  "  with  only  nineteen  hundred  men,  pierced 
through  the  all-conquering  French  from  Bohemia  to 
the  River  Weser."  He  took  Halberstadt  by  storm  ; 
he  beat  back  the  French  before  the  gates  of  the 
town  which  from  our  barrows  we  can  see  in  the 
distance.  He  pierced  through  till  he  came  to  the 
North  Sea  and  to  England.  He  fought  with  his 
troop  in  the  Peninsula,  and  fell  at  Quatre  Bras  two 
days  before  Waterloo.  He  and  his  nineteen  hundred 
men  were  the  Black  Brunswickers,  and  it  is  a  good 
thing  to  remember  what  they  did. 

And  lying  in  the  hot  sun  on  the  brown  grass, 
looking  at  all  this  conquered  territory,  we  remember 
that  we,  too,  are  conquered.     It  is  an  odd,  sleepy 


CH.  XVI]  SUBJECT  RACES  213 

thought.  Far  below  us  lies  what  was  once,  in  a 
manner  of  speaking,  English  territory.  On  the 
barracks  just  by  the  town  gate  we  shall  see  still 
the  royal  arms  of  England,  And  below  us  lies  what 
was  once  Westphalian  territory,  and,  in  a  manner  of 
speaking,  we  are  Westphalian.  Actually  we,  the 
conquered,  are  subjects  of  the  Grand  Duke  of 
Hessen-Darmstadt  und  bei  Rhein,  a  most  charming 
potentate.  But  we  Hessians,  in  moments  of  pictur- 
esque depression,  are  accustomed  to  say  that  we 
are  not  Prussians  but  "  Must-Prussians."  We  don't 
want  to  be,  but  we  cannot  help  it.  We  have  against 
Prussia  numbers  of  grievances,  connected  with  rail- 
ways and  all  sorts  of  little  things. 

So  that  we,  lying  among  the  barrows,  are  most 
extraordinarily  conquered  people.  We  could  not  be 
more  conquered  if  we  tried.  The  sun  is  very  warm  ; 
the  sky  is  very  blue ;  the  dog-rabbit-rat  entertains 
us  with  the  queer  sound  of  its  two  hundred  and  forty 
barks  a  minute.  But  are  we,  English- Westphalian- 
Hessian — a  queer  mixture  like  that  of  the  rat-rabbit- 
dog — are  we  going  to  get  up  and  do  anything  about 
it  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  We  shall  not  be  even  as 
energetic  as  the  triple  quadruped.  We  have  not 
got  so  much  as  a  bark  in  us. 

And  why  ?  It  is  disgraceful  to  be  conquered.  It 
ought  to  be  mortifying  to  lie  with  a  threefold  mailed 
heel  upon  our  throats.  But  really  we  cannot  feel 
disgraced ;  we  cannot  feel  mortified ;  we  can  only 
feel  it  odd  that  we  don't.  For  consider  this  tremen- 
dous Prussia  that  lies  all  abroad  across  this  land, 
more  evenly  than  the  light  of  the  sun  itself.  Look 
at  the  old,  old  town  on  the  horizon ;  mark  how  its 


214  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xvi 

roofs  smoulder  in  the  sunlight  and  its  cathedral 
towers  burn  with  their  burnished  gold.  No  doubt 
the  man  who  could  write  triumphantly  eight  hundred 
years  ago,  "  Und  dat  ick  mein" — no  doubt  his  ghost, 
if  it  be  sitting  beside  us  amongst  the  barrows,  sees 
little  enough  of  change  in  his  valley  of  the  beloved 
Lein. 

And  yet  from  the  corners  of  our  eyes  we  can  per- 
ceive the  difference  that  there  is.  Just  round  the 
corner  of  the  hill  there  comes  a  shower  of  apple 
blossoms.  They  seem  to  be  arranged,  in  this  absurd 
country  where  everything  is  decorative — they  seem 
to  be  arranged  like  a  Japanese  screen,  to  hide  what 
the  difference  really  is.  Yet  this  screen  the  eye 
can  pierce  ;  there  they  are — five,  seven,  a  dozen 
of  them,  immensely  tall,  thin,  black,  throwing  up 
from  their  summits,  like  defiant  banners,  their 
plumes  of  smoke.  They  are  the  factory  chimneys ; 
and  the  factory  chimneys  are  what,  along  with 
peace,  Prussia  has  given  to  these  Hanoverian  lands. 
And  along  with  them  go  the  broad  white  modern 
suburbs  that  from  here  the  trees  hide.  Along  with 
them  go  the  easy,  pleasant,  electric  trams,  the  funny- 
looking  electric  trains  that  connect,  every  ten  minutes 
or  so,  each  of  the  large  historic  towns  of  this  country- 
side. Prussia  has  conquered  us,  but  undoubtedly 
Prussia  has  given  us  plenty  along  with  peace.  We 
are  probably  much  more  poetic  than  any  Prussian. 
All  our  poetry  is  said  to  come  from  south  of 
Frankfort-on-the-Main,  and  we  cannot  imagine  any 
Prussian  lying  conquered  amongst  barrows,  and 
moralizing  about  the  barking  of  a  dog  that  re- 
sembles a  rat.    We  are  probably  even  more  valiant 


CH.  XVI]  SUBJECT  RACES  215 

in  a  swift  way  than  the  Prussians.  It  was  not 
Prussia  who  produced  the  Black  Brunswickers. 
We  could  probably  get  up  and  beat  any  blessed 
nation  at  any  blessed  moment.  But  it  would  be 
just  hke  Langensalza.  At  Langensalza  in  1866  King 
George  V  and  last  of  Hanover  beat  the  Prussians 
quite  handsomely ;  but  he  woke  up  to  find  that 
every  spot  in  Hanover  was  in  the  possession  of 
Prussians — every  spot  with  the  exception  of  the 
field  of  Langensalza.  And  that  is  just  like  us.  On 
a  hill  that  we  can  see  from  here  our  ancestors — 
the  common  ancestors  of  us  English,  Westphalian, 
Hanoverians,  having  hopelessly  defeated  a  Caesar 
in  the  forests  a  little  to  the  south — on  that  hill 
where  there  is  an  excellent  tea-garden,  our  an- 
cestors buried  a  complete  solid  silver  table  service 
for  four  Roman  noblemen.  Yet  the  Romans  were 
about  the  only  people  who  never  conquered  us  after 
we  had  spendidly  defeated  them,  and  we  may  sup- 
pose that  that  table  service  which  our  ancestors 
buried  was  about  the  only  booty  that  we  ever  made 
by  our  heroism  and  kept  for  a  reasonable  space  of 
time.  We  did  keep  it  for  some  eighteen  hundred 
years,  and  no  doubt  we  should  keep  it  to-day — 
buried  in  a  hill.  But  in  1868  some  Prussians, 
coming  grubbing  about,  putting  up  a  waterworks 
or  something  useful  and  modem,  found  that  table 
service.     It  is  now  naturally  in  Berlin. 

And  that  is  perhaps  the  moral  of  the  whole  story 
for  us  Saxons  and  Anglo-Saxons.  It  is  like  the 
moral  of  the  rat-dog  that  keeps  up  its  barking 
perpetually  through  these  sentences.  For  some  of 
us  are  poets,  and  some  of  us  in  the  great  stretches 


2i6  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xvi 

of  moor  and  heather  that  at  the  due  seasons  turn  all 
this  countryside  wine-purple  into  eternal  distances 
— some  of  us,  nay,  many  of  us,  have  the  second 
sight.  Now  and  then  we  can  produce  heroes  by  the 
nineteen  hundred,  or  heroes  in  little  boatsful  that 
go  out  to  attack  Armadas.  But  in  between  we 
seem  to  have  our  periods  of  slackness.  We  have 
them  inevitably.  The  other  day  an  excellent, 
energetic,  and  quite  English  lady  said  to  us  some- 
where in  Kensington  :  "  I  wish  to  heaven  the 
Prussians  would  conquer  this  country  and  ad- 
minister it.  Then  there  would  be  an  end  of  our 
disgusting  slackness."  This  seemed  to  us  at  the 
moment  an  astonishing  opinion.  But  lying  here 
lazily  among  the  barrows  we  realize  suddenly  that 
it  is  comprehensible  enough.  If  the  Prussians  had 
England.  .  .  . 

If  the  Prussians  had  England  .  .  .  you  know, 
lying  here  it  almost  seems  inevitable.  Not  to-day, 
not  to-morrow,  not  in  ten  years,  not  in  twenty,  not 
in  any  time  into  which  there  will  survive  any  of  the 
passions  or  bitternesses  of  to-day,  but  in  some  time 
when  the  English  won't  care  and  the  Prussians  will. 
That  is  the  real  secret  of  it  all.  There  always  comes 
a  time  when  we  don't  care  ;  there  never  was  and 
there  never  will  be  a  time  when  these  formidable 
products  of  the  mark  of  Brandenburg  were  not  and 
will  not  be  sleeplessly  upon  the  watch.  It  is  like 
the  case  of  the  prisoner  that  somebody  once  put,  we 
don't  remember  where.  The  prisoner,  given  life, 
must  always  in  the  end  escape,  for  the  gaoler  must 
always  in  the  end  grow  tired  of  the  game  and  relax 
his  vigilance.     He  may  wake  to  earnestness  once 


CH.  XVI]  SUBJECT  RACES  217 

more,  but  then  it  will  be  too  late,  and  lying  there — 
the  dog  is  still  barking — we  suddenly  begin  to  think 
of  those  green,  fertile,  and  immensely  wealthy 
islands  in  the  Western  sea.  And  just  for  a  moment 
we  think  of  what  is  called  home  politics,  and  then, 
with  a  quick  shudder,  we  drop  the  thought.  For  we 
are  not  politicians  of  any  politics  that  to-day  can 
show  beneath  the  light  of  the  sun.  We  are  what  is 
called  high  Tories  .  .  .  but  immensely,  immensely 
high.  We  are  the  people  who  will  win  terrific 
victories  against  enormous  odds — in  the  game  of 
tennis,  or  in  the  other  game  of  tennis  that  used  to 
be  played  with  stone  balls.  But  in  the  end,  some 
Prussian,  some  Jew,  or  some  Radical  politician  will 
sleeplessly  get  the  best  of  us  and  take  away  the 
prizes  of  our  game.  That  is  the  way  God  arranges 
it ;  Who  arranged  alike  the  barrows,  the  beloved 
little  river  of  the  Lein;  Who  set  courage  in  the 
hearts  of  the  nineteen  hundred  in  black  garments  that 
went  "  from  Bohemia  to  the  River  Weser";  Who 
set  it  in  the  hearts  of  the  Prussians  that  it  is  for 
them  to  administer ;  and  to  administer  and  again  to 
administer — for  the  love  of  the  thing  just  as  for  the 
love  of  words  we  utter  them.  And,  with  the  shadow 
of  the  thought  of  "  home  politics  "  still  upon  us,  we 
say  once  more,  "It  is  the  will  of  God."  Rat-dog- 
rabbit  ;  English- Westphalian-Hessian  ;  one  of  three 
will  rule  us  in  the  end,  Prussian,  Jew,  or  hungry 
tradesman.  And  for  ourselves  we  say  as  we  get  up 
and  go  down  the  hill :  "  Please  God  that  it  will  be 
the  Prussian,"  He  at  least  will  administer,  will 
enrich  us,  and  will  leave  us  somewhere  some 
barrows  in  the  sun  amongst  which  to  lie.     Possibly 


2i8  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xvi 

he  will  even  put  up  an  Aussichtsthurm  and  a  tea- 
garden.  At  any  rate,  he  alone  of  those  three  sleep- 
less ones  will  not  strip  us  naked  to  the  breezes. 
We  go  down  the  hill  by  a  sunken  road.  On  the  hot 
turf  just  above  our  faces  the  absurd  dog  stands  with 
its  legs  firmly  planted  and  barks  at  us.  Pushing 
through  the  hawthorn  hedge  of  the  first  house  in  the 
village  there  comes  another  dog.  But  it  is  a  puppy ; 
it  is  smaller  than  a  rat ;  it  resembles  a  brown  cloth 
child's  toy.  It  is  the  child  of  the  rat-dog-rabbit,  and 
it  is  more  absurd  than  any  creature  reported  by  Siif 
Richard  Mandeville  or  by  Gulliver.  It  plants  its 
four  legs  in  the  warm  turf,  and  it  barks,  and  it  barks. 
We  stand  and  look  at  it,  and  it  continues  to  bark. 
It  does  not  move  ;  nothing  will  move  it.  It  is  ad- 
ministering.    That  breed  will  not  die  out,  you  see. 

There  are  some  people  who  desire  accuracies 
though  one  write  never  so  "impressionalistically." 
The  city  to  which  we  have  referred  is  not 
Hanover ;  is  not  Brunswick ;  is  not  Osnabriick ; 
is  not  Celle ;  is  not  any  actual  city,  but  contains 
what  we  like  to  remember  as  an  impression  of  all 
these.  Similarly  it  is  not  even  Hamelin  of  the  rats. 
Similarly  we  really  know  that  this  stretch  of  country 
was  never  pedagogically  English  territory.  It  was 
country  united  under  the  sovereignty  of  the  wearer 
of  the  English  crown  by  what  was  called  the 
personal  union.  But  that  would  have  been  good 
enough  for  Prussia.  In  the  year  1837  this  country 
passed  from  under  the  sway  of  the  ruler  of  Great 
Britain,  owing  to  a  trifle  called  the  Salic  law. 
Speaking  in  accurate  English,  the  Salic  law  was  not 


CH.  xvi]  SUBJECT  RACES  219 

a  trifle.  But  it  has  not  bothered  the  Prussian  gullet 
much.  Some  time  ago  I  was  standing  in  the  yard 
of  a  brewery  in  Ashford,  which  is  in  Kent.  An 
immense  drayman  was  about  to  drink  down  a  pot 
of  ale.  He  was  called  into  the  office  and  he  set  his 
pot  on  the  tail  of  his  cart.  Some  evil  practical 
jokers  who  were  standing  by  dropped  a  dead  mouse 
into  the  pot.  Out  comes  the  drayman,  lifts  the  pot 
to  his  mouth,  drinks  down  at  one  draught  the  ale 
and  the  mouse,  and  then,  having  wiped  his  mouth 
upon  his  sleeve,  he  remarked,  "A  hop  or  a  cork!" 
to  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  all  beholders. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

QUEENS  DISCROWNED 

A  TRAM  in  the  open  country  always  seems  to  me 
wrong ;  there  is  something  so  brutal,  so  casual  and 
reckless  about  the  way  it  tears  across  fields,  bisects 
roads,  shaves  cottages,  and  disregards,  if  it  does 
not  actually  remove,  landmarks.  And  all  the  way 
from  Hildesheim,  Joseph  Leopold  and  I  were  think- 
ing, from  totally  different  standpoints,  of  the  great 
and  important  town  we  were  about  to  visit.  He 
was,  I  knew,  dreaming  of  the  splendid,  progressive 
modern  collection  of  parks  and  warehouses,  theatres, 
picture-palaces,  and  shops,  with  the  "  old  part "  con- 
temptuously tucked  away  in  a  circle  of  cramping 
villadom — like  a  bullet  encysted  that  the  doctors  do 
not  care  to  remove — in  the  midst  of  the  new  cells 
of  Hanover's  reconstituted  modernity.  But  I  was 
thinking,  like  the  lover  of  Cynara,  "of  an  old 
passion,"  of  grim  and  lonely  palaces  given  over  to 
sightseers,  of  Herrenhausen  and  the  Leine  Schloss, 
and  piteous  Discrowned  Queens. 

There  were  Sophia  Dorothea,  and  Caroline 
Matilda,  the  one  of  England — at  least,  she  ought  to 
have  been — and  the  other  of  Denmark.    She  only 

220 


CH.XVII]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  221 

reigned  a  year.  Sophia  Dorothea  accomplished  in  the 
old  Leine  Schloss  her  dreary  tragedy  of  royal  neglect 
and  the  fatal  consolations  of  a  courtier,  Caroline 
Matilda,  the  beautiful  mismated  sister  of  George  III, 
came  here  weeping,  a  wreck,  to  Herrenhausen  to 
drag  out  the  remainder  of  her  discredited  exis- 
tence in  the  red-brick  dower  -  house  that  was 
the  appanage  of  her  relatives.  This  lady  trailed 
her  misery  through  Celle,  too.  But  Celle  was 
connected  only  with  the  innocent,  feted  youth 
of  Sophia  Dorothea,  whose  lover  lies  steeped 
in  quicklime  under  the  flags  of  the  Ritter  Saal  in 
the  old  palace  of  the  Electors  of  Hanover. 

And  as  we  breathlessly  traversed  the  flat  Prussian 
plains,  Joseph  Leopold  talked  of  what  interested 
him  more  than  mere  romantic  personalities  about 
royal  ladies ;  of  the  spirit  of  Germany,  of  the  march 
of  armies  over  those  very  fields,  of  how  the  smug 
little  Dorfs  that  we  saw  dotting  the  plain  were 
occupied,  sacked,  rifled  and  pillaged,  again  and 
again,  by  Wallenstein  and  Tilly,  and  their  soldiers 
of  fortune.  Yet  my  thoughts  obstinately  remained 
with  the  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Zell  and  Eleonore 
d'Olbreuse,  who  should  have  been  Queen  of  England, 
but  died  mere  Duchess  of  Ahlden,  and  Ahlden  is  a 
little  homestead  not  much  bigger  or  more  important 
than  the  seat  of  the  humbler  sort  of  country  gentle- 
man in  the  England  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  love  of  an  uncrowned  Queen  is  a  sentiment 
implanted  in  the  hearts  of  men.  It  is  an  old,  old 
mental  attitude — a  Schwarmerei,  as  the  Germans 
would  call  it  —  that  aff'ects  both  sexes  alike.  It 
began — or  who  shall  say  it  began  ? — with  Helen  of 


222  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xvii 

Troy.    It  ended — and  who  shall  say  it  has  ended  ? 
— with  the  ex-Empress  Eugenie. 

Nowadays,  the  record  of  certain  social  movements 
iri  the  daily  papers  enables  us  to  reconstitute  the 
picture  of  a  graceful  mourning  figure,  descending 
at  the  Gare  du  Nord,  and  driving  to  the  Rue  de 
Rivoli  (named  so  by  the  great  one  of  her  family), 
and  taking  up  her  abode  in  the  hotel  that  overlooks 
the  gardens  of  her  lost  palace.  On  reading  this 
item  of  fashionable  news  do  not  we,  most  of  us, 
have  a  sympathetic  tremor  ?  We  say,  "  How  stoical !" 
or  else,  "  How  callous  I"  and  we  incline  to  the  former 
theory.  Physiologists  will  be  likely  to  suggest  as 
an  explanation  of  the  attitude  of  the  wonderful  old 
lady  of  eighty,  some  sort  of  atrophy  of  the  emotional 
centres,  and  that  is  the  explanation  for  me.  I  hope 
it  happens  in  the  majority  of  cases  of  slow,  living 
deaths  by  imprisonment,  and  dispossession.  I  cannot 
imagine,  for  instance,  the  high-spirited,  selfish  school- 
girl, that  modern  historians  tell  us  Mary  Stuart 
was,  settling  down  at  Lochleven  and  Bolton  and 
Fotheringay,  supinely  allowing  her  would-be  rescuers 
to  go  to  the  scaffold  one  after  another,  and  believe 
her  to  have  remained  the  mercurial,  highly  sensitized 
being  who  landed  at  the  port  of  Leith  one  summer's 
day  with  Chatelard  in  her  train  and  all  the  airs  of 
France  about  her.  Yet  it  would  indeed  seem  that, 
barring  the  constant  hope  of  rescue,  a  slight  titilla- 
tion  of  interest  as  regular  and  as  journalier  as  to  us 
the  morning  paper  on  the  breakfast  table,  Mary 
Stuart  did  settle  down  to  her  prayers,  and  her 
rheumatism,  and  the  ordering  of  her  household, 
and  the  teasing  of  her  custodians.     And  did  not 


CH.  XVII]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  223 

Caroline  of  Brunswick,  whose  coffin,  under  its  red 
velvet  pall,  lies  in  the  crypt  in  the  family  cathedral 
at  Hanover — did  not  Caroline,  witty,  bitter  and 
unwashed,  did  not  she  take  refuge  in  cynicism, 
the  employment  of  a  ready  tongue  upon  the  castiga- 
tion  of  the  many  weak  spots  that  characterized 
her  vulnerable  consort?  Once,  in  her  hearty 
prime,  she  had  adopted  the  tactics  of  a  Suffra- 
gette, and  had  demonstrated  her  wrong  on  the 
very  spot  where  that  wrong  was  focussed — the 
Abbey  steps,  where  her  unregenerate  husband  was 
managing  to  get  himself  crowned  without  her.  And 
Sophia  Dorothea,  the  wife  of  George  I,  she  that 
should  have  been  crowned  Queen  of  England  in 
the  fulness  of  time,  soothed  herself,  during  her 
thirty  years  of  durance  among  the  marshes  of 
Ahlden,  with  elaborately  mounting  her  not  incon- 
siderable household,  paying  her  bills  regularly, 
seeing  her  stewards,  and  furiously  driving  within 
the  bounds  assigned  her  by  her  ex -husband. 
Exceeding  the  speed-limit  was  evidently  her  form 
of  nerve  derivative,  and  seems  to  have  been  her 
foible,  her  folly,  in  earlier  days  when  her  fate  still 
hung  in  the  balance;  for  Germans  do  not  believe  in, 
and  are  deeply  outraged  by,  any  signs  of  unseemly 
haste. 

Hers  is  a  story  of  a  coterie — a  large  and  important 
coterie,  of  course,  but  one  that  but  for  some  con- 
tentious souls  in  England  and  an  accident  of  succes- 
sion would  have  remained  a  coterie,  and  whose 
members  could  by  no  possibility  have  got  mixed 
up  with  the  Royal  Family  of  Great  Britain.  And 
when  it  came  to  the  point,  the  heroine  of  a  German 


224  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xvii 

palace  scandal  could  not  be  Queen  of  England.  It 
is  possible  that  if  Sophia  Dorothea  had  known  or 
realized  how  near  it  was  to  her,  if  the  truculent 
figure  of  the  old  Electress  had  not  stood,  all  through 
her  hot  and  heady  years,  in  front  of  her,  a  solid 
block  to  her  hopes  of  a  queenly  future,  she  would 
have  been  more  careful,  and  would  have  sacrificed 
love  to  ambition.  But  nothing  seemed  less  likely 
than  that  George — disagreeable,  stockish,  drunken, 
mulish  George — should  have  a  crown  to  give  or 
withhold,  as  a  reward  for  good  Court  behaviour. 
No,  Sophia  Dorothea  was  just  the  rich  heiress  and 
only  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Zell,  and  George  was 
the  mumpish  son  of  the  Electress,  who  might  par 
impossible  have  some  day  to  go  over  and  reign  in 
Great  Britain.  So  old  Sophia,  while  despising 
young  Sophia's  mother,  the  Frenchwoman,  schemed 
to  get  the  daughter's  dowry  for  her  son.  And  the 
poor  little  girl  was  brought  from  Celle,  where  a 
certain  decency  reigned,  and  pitchforked  into  the 
Electoral  Court  of  Hanover,  where  she  promptly 
went  wrong.  But  her  dowry  was  secured,  and  she 
now  might  be  committed  for  any  simple  crime, 
tried  by  court-martial,  and  whistled  off,  as  indeed 
she  was. 

Konigsmarck  was  a  pretext ;  he  was  the  usual 
adventurer,  but  the  flighty  woman  loved  him,  and  I 
think  he  loved  her.  I  do  not  fancy  that  she  was 
really  at  all  interesting.  She  was  very  big  and 
white  and  black-haired,  with  rolling  black  eyes.  It 
is  easy  to  see  from  her  letters  that  her  French 
mother  had  formed  her  in  her  own  image,  and  that 
in  itself  must  have  been  an  offence.     She  was  too 


CH.  xvii]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  225 

"  previous  " ;  she  was  resented  as  an  early  French 
fashion  is  sometimes  resented  in  crassly  suburban 
circles.  She  began  by  flirting  outrageously  with 
everybody,  lying  in  bed  all  day,  dancing  all  night,  and 
"  crabbing  "  the  clothes  of  the  ladies  of  the  Court, 
notoriously  those  of  Countess  Platen,  her  rival  in  her 
husband's  affection,  and  those  of  her  father-in-law. 
She  mocked  her  husband's  mother,  she  mocked  every- 
body and  everything,  she  behaved  like  a  naughty 
child,  until  the  passion  for  KOnigsmarck  took  hold  of 
her,  and  she  became  jealous  and  vapourish  and  tragic. 

She  bolted  once  like  any  schoolgirl  when  they 
had  all  been  too  severe  with  her,  and  went  home  to 
her  mother.  But  her  husband,  the  Elector,  ordered 
her  back,  and  her  mother  was  afraid  to  keep  her. 
She  took  post-horses,  and  went  back  in  a  rage. 

I  think  I  see  her,  rushing  full  tilt  past  the  "in- 
laws'" palace  of  Herrenhausen,  which  is  a  short 
mile  from  Hanover  and  on  the  way  to  the  Leine 
Schloss,  the  royal  palace,  where  she  was  bound  to 
rejoin  her  peevish  little  husband.  In  Herrenhausen 
there  sat  the  crusty  old  Electress,  waiting  to  be 
propitiated  by  the  naughty  daughter-in-law's  stop- 
ping to  pay  her  respects.  I  see  the  little  French 
fury,  enraged  at  her  recall,  putting  her  black  head 
out  of  the  carriage  window,  and  bidding  the 
postilions  drive  straight  on.  I  see  all  the  expectant 
heads  of  the  Electress's  household  craning  out  of 
the  windows  as  the  daughter-in-law  and  her  escort 
were  whirled  past,  and  I  hear  the  fateful  pronounce- 
ment of  the  savage  old  woman,  openly  defied  by  the 
daughter  of  the  little  "  clot  of  dirt."  So  she  styled 
the  Duchess  of  Celle.     That  the  daughter  of  the 

15 


226  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xvii 

French  lady,  who  had  got  herself  somehow  or  other 
into  the  family,  should  ever  be  Queen  of  England — 
her  own  darling  dream  of  succession  voided  for  her 
by  her  own  death — was  what  the  Electress,  known 
as  "  the  friend  of  the  philosopher  Leibnitz,"  but  a 
narrow-minded  old  woman  all  the  same,  set  herself 
all  along  to  prevent.  The  doom  of  Sophia  Dorothea 
may  have  been  sealed  from  this  moment  of  defiance. 
Less  than  a  year  after  she  was  to  be  the  uncrowned 
Queen  of  England,  and  reign  merely  over  a  sullen 
marsh. 

These  family  jealousies  were,  of  course,  not  all. 
There  generally  is  to  be  found  a  splendid  adven- 
turer at  the  back  of  these  fair  outcasts  from  royal 
Edens  guarded  by  flaming  swords.  Three  gentle- 
men of  fortune  were  connected  with  the  three  ladies 
I  have  mentioned.  Bergami,  the  wretched  Italian 
chamberlain  and  supposed  lover  of  Caroline  of 
England,  may  be  reckoned  negligible,  but  Both- 
well,  Konigsmarck,  and  I  will  add  Struensee,  that 
cunning  doctor  who  became  a  Minister,  "  the  blood- 
red  ray  in  the  spectrum  "  of  the  life  of  Caroline 
Matilda,  a  Stuart  on  the  mother's  side,  and  Sophia 
Dorothea's  ancestress  —  these  gentlemen  were 
kindred  spirits.  They  were,  nearly  all  of  them, 
not  so  much  in  love  with  the  Queen  that  stooped, 
as  anxious  to  use  her  favour  for  their  own  ends  of 
ambition.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Bothwell  found 
Mary  Stuart  a  great  drag  on  his  domestic  bliss ;  he 
much  preferred  his  own  wife,  a  Huntley,  to  the 
royal  lady  he  was  so  busily  exploiting.  Of  Count 
Struensee,  too,  the  ex-physician,  Caroline  Matilda 
was  not  much  more  than  a  political  pawn.     Out  of 


CH.  xvii]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  227 

all  the  three  Philip,  Count  Konigsmarck,  was  the 
most  ardent,  the  most  reckless,  the  least  calculating. 

For  though  we  have,  naturally,  Mary  Stuart's 
"  dead  give-away,"  the  famous  Casket  letters,  which 
I  for  my  part  believe  to  be  genuine,  where  are  the 
letters  of  Bothwell  to  Mary  ?  Was  not  the  astute 
Borderer  too  cautious  to  write  letters,  and  did  he  not 
plead  the  rough,  unskilled  hand  of  a  man  of  the  moss- 
hags  ?  But  Konigsmarck's  letters  to  Sophia  Dorothea 
are  extant,  each  one  a  hanging  matter.  And  hers  to 
him  were  found  by  the  late  Mr.  W.  H.  Wilkins  in 
the  University  Library  of  Lund,  in  Sweden.  He 
translated  them.  These  letters  breathe,  hers  and 
his,  a  savage  and  tender  passion  that  is  incontest- 
ably  genuine,  love  marred  by  temper,  vanity, 
and  sensuality,  but  still  love,  that  rises  some- 
times to  wild  heights  of  selflessness. 

They  amply  prove  the  point,  which,  as  usual  in 
these  cases,  some  Sophiolaters  are  found  to  contest. 
Hear  what  our  superior  moralist,  Thackeray,  says 
about  it : 

"  Innocent  1  I  remember,  as  a  boy,  how  a  great 
party  persisted  in  declaring  Caroline  of  Brunswick 
was  a  martyred  angel.  So  was  Helen  of  Greece 
innocent.  She  never  ran  away  with  Paris,  the 
dangerous  young  Trojan.  Menelaus,  her  husband, 
ill-used  her,  and  there  never  was  any  siege  of  Troy 
at  all.  So  was  Bluebeard's  wife  innocent.  She 
never  peeped  into  the  closet  where  the  other  wives 
were  with  their  heads  cut  off.  She  never  dropped 
the  key,  or  stained  it  with  blood,  and  her  brothers 
were  quite  right  in  finishing  Bluebeard.  Yes,  Caro- 
line of  Brunswick  was  innocent,  and  Madame  Laffage 


228  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xvii 

never  poisoned  her  husband,  and  Mary  of  Scotland 
never  blew  up  hers,  and  poor  Sophia  Dorothea  was 
never  unfaithful,  and  Eve  never  took  the  apple — it 
was  all  a  cowardly  fabrication  of  the  serpent's." 

It  is  all  very  amusing,  but  surely  the  ironic  method 
was  never  so  laid  on  with  a  trowel  before  !  Thack- 
eray was  shocked.  He  was  very  Early  Victorian,  and 
so  that  was  easily  done.  Sophia  Dorothea  was  very 
different  from  Amelia,  and  her  home  life  at  Celle  and 
Hanover  not  at  all  like  Amelia's  in  Russell  Square. 
Thackeray  shouts  praise  grudgingly  of  his  German 
heroine  :  "  How  madly  true  the  woman  is,  and  how 
astoundingly  she  lies  !"  Ameha  was  true,  but 
soberly,  and  never,  as  children  would  say,  "lied 
big."  She  was  not  a  tragic  heroine  at  all,  except, 
perhaps,  for  one  moment  at  Waterloo.  And  yet  we 
see,  as  we  are  able  to  do,  with  tragic  heroines,  whose 
letters  get  published,  how  petty  are  the  causes 
leading  to  the  difficulties  which  broaden  out  to 
such  issues  of  life  and  death.  Sophia  Dorothea 
worried,  bullied,  nagged,  and  practically  hunted  her 
man  to  his  doom.  It  is  fairly  obvious  in  such 
corrupt  entourage  as  hers — and  she  saw  it,  too,  when 
not  blinded  by  jealous  fury — that  if  she  had  allowed 
KOnigsmarck  to  be  civil,  in  the  then  received 
manner,  to  her  father-in-law's  ugly,  all-powerful 
mistress  and  favourite.  Countess  von  Platen,  the 
Count  would  have  lived  to  run  away  with  her  to 
France  or  England,  or  even  to  the  enlightened  Court 
of  Wolfenbuttel.*     Duke    Antony   of    Ulrich,   the 

*  It  was  in  a  precisely  similar  way  that  Guillem  de  Cabestaing, 
the  noble  troubadour,  was  discovered  by  the  husband  of  the 
Princess  he  adored.     He  wrote  various  poems  to  her  ladies  in 


CH.  xvii]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  229 

enemy  of  Hanover,  lived  there,  the  dissipated 
dilettante  relation  who  afterwards  cast  his  niece's 
adventures  in  the  form  of  a  romance,  and  passed  it 
round  to  all  the  Courts  of  Europe,  who  were  deeply 
interested. 

Evasion  was  their  plan,  frustrated  by  the  follies 
of  both.  It  was  more  or  less  arranged  between 
them — and  it  was  a  plan  that  had  recommended 
itself  to  the  worldly  hard-headed  adventurer — that 
he  should  accept  some  of  the  Countess  Platen's 
frequent  invitations  to  supper — the  public  ones, 
where  each  man  took  his  lady  to  dine  at  some 
cabaretier  en  ville — for  all  the  world  as  people  make 
up  to  go  to  "  some  low  restaurant "  nowadays,  and 
the  private  ones  as  well  in  La  Platen's  "  castle 
behind  the  mill"  to  supper.  KOnigsmarck  was  a 
success  at  these  parties,  except  when  the  Electoral 
Princess  of  Hanover  had  scolded  him.  Then  he  undid 
his  work,  refusing  to  sit  down  to  the  collation, 
walking  about  the  room  singing,  or  throwing  himself 
down  among  the  new-mown  hay  in  the  garden  and 
not  saying  a  word  till  it  was  time  to  go.  He  was  the 
handsomest  man  in  Europe,  and  Europe  spoilt  him. 
Sophia  Dorothea  had  written  to  him  :  "  What  ? 
Go  to  La  Platen's  supper  party  two  hours  after  I 
had  gone,  and  when  you  had  bidden  me  so  tender  a 
farewell  ?    You  had  no  end  of  pretexts  for  declining 

order  to  ward  off  suspicion,  alleging  to  his  mistress  that  these 
were  the  common  and  necessary  poHtenesses  of  the  day.  She, 
however,  insisted  that  he  must  address  to  her  still  more  passionate 
poems,  and"  one  stanza  in  the  famous  verses  beginning  "  Li  dous 
cossire,"  betrayed  the  troubadour  to  the  husband,  who  cut  out  his 
heart,  and  made  the  lady  drink  his  blood. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


230  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xvii 

that  supper  party,  and  yet  you  went  I  I  tremble  for 
the  future."  And  well  she  might.  And  this  after 
another  letter,  which  runs  :  "  Don't  be  so  silly  as  to 
keep  away  from  La  Platen  altogether.  ...  It  is 
most  important  to  keep  her  in  a  good  humour; 
therefore,  for  the  sake  of  our  love,  go  there  as 
before." 

K5nigsmarck,  to  please  her,  insists  on  forswearing 
the  Countess,  and  she  writes  again  to  rebuke  him 
for  his  submission  to  her  orders  :  "  I  am  sorry  that 
you  no  longer  go  to  Countess  Platen's ;  it  is  rather 
important  that  you  should  go." 

"  Don't  think  of  inducing  me  to  return  to  La 
Platen.  .  .  ."  KOnigsmarck  replies.  "  You  will  not 
catch  me  that  way  any  more."  And  further,  to 
pacify  the  jealous  lady,  he  adds  the  detail  of  the 
Platen's  "ridiculous  yellow  cloak." 

The  silly  Princess  jumps  at  it.  Quick  comes  her 
reply,  she  is  "  his,  all  his."  For  her  mother-in-law, 
the  Electress,  has  corroborated  his  strictures  on  the 
cloak,  telling  Sophia's  mother  "  that  nothing  could 
be  more  hideous  "  than  the  said  cloak. 

The  magic  of  the  spiteful  innuendo  does  not  last. 
KOnigsmarck  gives  a  party,  and  omits  to  mention 
the  fact  that  he  has  invited  La  Platen  to  it.  "  So  the 
whole  thing  was  got  up  for  her !"  is  the  conclusion 
Sophia  Dorothea  jumps  to,  and,  very  meanly,  throws 
a  potential  rival  in  his  face.  "  Fortune,"  she  says, 
"  to  give  me  revenge,  has  sent  hither  to-day  a  young 
baron  from  Mayence." 

How  truly  tragic  it  all  is — the  useful  "young 
baron  from  Mayence,"  La  Platen's  yellow  cloak, 
KOnigsmarck  sulking  among  the  haycocks  to  placate 


CH.  xvii]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  231 

his  beloved,  in  the  face  of  the  dangers  the  two  were 
running  1  A  lazy,  idle  Court,  full  of  spies,  drink, 
gambling,  sensuality  run  riot — how  could  a  fairly 
pure  passion  be  allowed  to  subsist?  For  it  is 
obvious,  as  even  Thackeray  admits,  that  these  two 
were  passionately  attached  and  that  the  Princess 
was  devoted  to  "  Lothario."  (One  knew  that  Thack- 
eray would  have  had  nothing  better  to  do  than  to 
call  him  Lothario  !)  He  writes,  humbly  and  patheti- 
cally, as  to  the  social  event  which  had  upset  Sophia 
Dorothea  so  much.  *'  My  banquet,  as  you  call  it, 
was  a  very  dull  affair.  ...  La  Platen  came  with  her 
husband."  And  he  tells  the  exigeante  beauty,  once 
for  all,  what  his  social  philosophy  is.  It  is  quite 
in  order  for  the  present  day.  So  might  a  modern 
Belgravian,  called  to  account  by  "  his  great  friend," 
try  to  get  into  her  obstinate  head  the  "  cutlet-for- 
cutlet "  theory : 

"My  reason  for  giving  the  supper  party  was 
because  I  am  going  away  so  soon  "  (to  the  wars,  not 
to  the  moors),  "  and  it  was  the  right  thing  to  do.  I 
have  been  so  often  to  their  dinners  that  it  was 
necessary  for  me  to  make  some  return.  Do  not 
think  I  did  it  to  court  anyone,  or  with  any  thought 
of  intrigue.  I  vow,  on  my  perdition,  it  was  not  so. 
...  As  a  man,  I  am  compelled  to  do  many  things 
that  you,  as  a  woman,  need  not  do.  .  .  .  Sometimes 
we  must  worship  the  devil,  lest  he  should  harm  us." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Konigsmarck  went  a  very 
long  way  with  the  devil.  That  sinister  castle  behind 
the  mill,  deep  embowered  in  trees,  secluded,  dark, 
where  the  jolly  Countess  entertained  her  favourites 
— "To  damn  me,"  says  poor  Konigsmarck,   "she 


232  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xvii 

asked  me  to  supper  there."  And  he  adds  in  self- 
deprecation,  half  sullen,  half  combative,  since  the 
lady  herself  had  counselled  the  step  :  "  It  was  a 
gross  insult  to  my  love  for  you,  for  which  I  mean  to 
see  you  at  my  feet,  begging  my  pardon.  .  .  .  You 
cannot  love  me  as  much  as  I  love  you,  for  at  your 
bidding  I  have  sinned  against  my  love  for  you." 

Yes,  it  was  high  policy,  to  dignify  by  that  name 
a  low  form  of  courtier-like  trimming,  higher  than  the 
egotistic  Princess  could  stand,  although  she  had 
cynically  counselled  it.  And  the  doomed  Konigs- 
marck  comes  to  see  clearly  how  she  is  likely  to 
react.  He,  moreover,  sincerely  loathes  himself  for 
his  paltering  with  the  evil  one.  He  ends  by  vowing 
first  on  his  perdition,  then  on  his  salvation,  that  he 
will  see  the  Countess  no  more,  be  the  consequences 
what  they  may.  "  I  will  never  see  her  again,  though 
it  ruin  me." 

It  did  ruin  him.  If  he  had  even  stuck  to  that  bold 
attitude  he  announced,  it  might  have  availed  him 
somewhat.  But  he  continued  to  kow-tow  to  the 
favourite  in  a  faint-hearted  way,  and  the  favourite, 
preserving  her  weakness  for  him,  held  her  hand  for 
a  space.  At  last  the  Princess,  committing  herself  to 
her  mad  passion  before  the  eyes  of  the  whole  Court, 
contrived  so  to  rub  in  the  fact  of  his  infidelity  to  La 
Platen — yes,  it  had  all  the  while  looked  like  that  to 
the  Countess,  who,  considering  herself  sure  of  his 
heart,  had  doubtless  winked  at  and  permitted  a 
courtier-like  adoration  of  the  Electoral  Princess  as 
the  proper  attitude  of  an  adventurer — that  she  at 
last  decided  to  destroy  him,  fresh  from  the  arms  of 
her  rival.     At  least,  that  is  the  story.    No  one  really 


CH.  XVII]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  233 

knows  how  it  went,  that  summer  night  in  June,  after 
which  Konigsmarck  was  not  seen  again.  But  this  is 
how  tradition  says  she  managed  it. 

Four  clumsy  halberdiers,  lent  to  La  Platen  by  the 
sleepy  old  Elector,  her  lover,  whom  she  disturbed 
with  a  scandalous  tale  of  his  Captain  of  the  Guard, 
alone  with  his  imprudent  daughter-in-law  at  the 
dead  hour  of  night.  .  .  .  These  men  were  to  arrest 
Konigsmarck,  to  take  him  dead  or  alive.  .  .  .  They 
took  him  dead.  An  ambush  behind  the  great  con- 
venient stove  in  the  Rittersaal  through  which  the 
happy  lover  must  pass  on  his  way  out,  a  blow  in 
the  back,  a  lighted  torch  held  up,  and  the  most 
beautiful  face  in  the  world — everybody  grants  him 
that — spoilt,  trodden  under  an  angry,  revengeful 
woman's  heel !  Then,  a  flag  taken  up,  some  quick- 
lime, and  all  quiet  when  day  dawned.  .  .  . 

And  Sophia  Dorothea  left,  with  his  parting  kisses 
on  her  lips,  among  her  torn-up  compromising  papers 
— some  of  them  only  torn  across,  or  we  should  have 
no  data — and  her  jewel  caskets,  and  other  prepara- 
tions for  to-morrow's  flight,  probably  lay  down  to 
snatch  a  few  moments'  sleep,  expecting  to  be  roused 
next  morning  early  by  that  little  note  from  her  lover 
that  was  to  be  the  signal  for  her  departure — the  note 
that  never  came. 

Knesebeck,  La  Confidante,  heard  sounds  in  the 
night,  but  thought  nothing  of  them.  .  .  . 

It  was  a  fortnight  before  Sophia  Dorothea,  kept  a 
prisoner  in  her  wing  of  the  old  Leine  Schloss,  knew 
that  her  lover  was  lost.  And  not  then  officially. 
Everybody  all  over  Europe,  led  by  his  sister,  the 
amiable  adventuress,  Aurora  von  Konigsmarck,  was 


234  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xvii 

hunting  for  the  Elector's  handsome  Colonel  of  the 
Guards.  But  a  sardonic  remark  of  that  potentate's, 
reported  to  her,  must  have  left  her  with  small  doubt. 
It  was  to  the  effect  that  Konigsmarck  was  not  likely 
to  appear  again  in  Hanover.  However,  Sophia 
Dorothea  was  kept  shut  up,  her  children  were  not 
allowed  to  see  her,  she  knew  nothing  of  the  robust 
Aurora's  hearty  search  for  her  brother.  Such  re- 
finements of  cruelty  were  permissible  in  these 
vicious  little  circles.  The  amenities  of  small  ducal 
Courts  must  have  been  very  like  those  of  neighbour- 
ing tribes  of  savages,  and  the  constant  haggling 
over  Sophia  Dorothea  and  her  money,  at  the  time  of 
her  marriage  and  at  the  time  of  her  divorce,  might 
be  fairly  translated  by  the  rites  of  marriage-by- 
capture,  the  raids  of  "  braves,"  and  the  exchanging 
of  cows  and  women  in  Zululand. 

In  the  Princess's  despair,  she  threw  the  cup  after 
the  platter,  as  the  saying  is,  and  played  into  her 
cunning  husband's  hands.  He  wanted  to  get  rid  of 
her  and  keep  her  money.  He  did  not  want  to 
mention  the  KOnigsmarck  affair,  it  was  repugnant 
to  his  pride,  and  if  the  Princess  could  be  strengthened 
in  her  expressed  determination  not  to  return  to  her 
husband,  she  could  then  be  easily  put  away  for 
desertion,  according  to  the  German  law.  The  name 
of  Konigsmarck  was  skilfully  kept  out  of  it,  the 
confidante  was  made  the  scapegoat  and  imprisoned. 
It  was  Frau  von  Knesebeck's  counsels  which  had 
corrupted  the  Princess,  who  was  sent  into  exile  at 
Lauennau  "until  such  time  as  she  returns  to  her 
duties  with  the  Electoral  Prince."  A  farce  I  he 
wanted  none  of  her  duties;  he  had  the  Maypole 


CH.  xvii]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  235 

and  the  Maypole's  child.  The  divorce  proceedings 
that  were  then  inaugurated  were  a  farce,  as  divorce 
proceedings  so  often  are.  The  Celle  people,  repre- 
sented by  her  indefatigable  mother,  the  Duchess 
Eleonore,  wanted  a  separation;  the  Hanoverians, 
that  is  to  say  her  husband,  a  divorce.  The  ill- 
advised  Princess  readily  gave  him  his  wish.  She 
believed  that  freedom  would  follow  the  pronouncing 
of  the  divorce.  So  she  duly  showed  a  rebellious 
spirit — contumacia — and  declared  freely  to  the  com- 
missioners that  nothing  would  induce  her  to  return 
to  her  Electoral  consort. 

Later,  like  Mary  Stuart,  Sophia  Dorothea  intrigued 
constantly  for  freedom,  but  attempts  to  escape, 
conducted  by  letter,  were  not  a  hanging  matter, 
and,  besides,  all  her  friends  turned  out  to  be  in  the 
pay  of  her  enemies,  except  the  plucky  Knesebeck, 
who  escaped  from  prison  and  worked  hard  for  her 
mistress.  I  should  like  to  have  known  Knesebeck. 
She  stood  up  so  gallantly  for  the  theory  of  the 
Princess's  innocence,  and  whether  that  theory  was 
tenable  or  not,  it  was  right  and  fitting  for  La  Con- 
fidante to  hold  it. 

Another  person  held  the  theory  and  supported  it 
in  a  book.  But  then,  as  the  shrewd  old  Duchess 
of  Orleans  observed,  "it  was  only  to  save  the 
honour  of  the  house."  This  was  a  relation,  the 
literary  Duke,  Antony  Ulrich  of  Wolfenbattel.  His 
novel  was  called  "Octavia."  It  was  that  exceed- 
ingly modern  performance,  a  roman  a  clef.  Sophia 
Dorothea  figures  as  the  Princess  Solane;  her 
husband,  George  Louis,  is  romantically  disguised 
as  Prince  Cotys.     KOnigsmarck  is  Eaquilius.    This 


236  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xvii 

official  account  of  a  world-renowned  family  incident 
was  read  eagerly  by  every  Court  in  Europe.  The 
Duchess  of  Orleans,  like  any  gossiping,  idle  old 
lady  of  our  day,  anxious  to  be  amused  in  her 
twilight  of  life — she  was  a  great  stirabout  in  her 
time — writes  to — yes,  actually  the  Electress  Sophia, 
the  mother  of  Cotys,  and  mother-in-law  of  Solane, 
saying : 

"  I  am  going  to  read  the  '  Octavia '  over  again,  as 
George  Louis — yes,  actually  George  Louis  himself! 
— has  been  good  enough  to  send  me  the  key  to 
it."  (The  cynicism  of  this  would  have  delighted 
Thackeray.)  "  Duke  Ulrich  makes  Solane  appear 
innocent,"  she  adds,  unkindly  suggesting  the 
obvious  family  reason  for  his  backing.  She  is 
diplomatic  about  George  Louis,  as  she  is  writing 
to  the  youth's  mother.  "Cotys,"  she  observes, 
"  Cotys,  I  consider,  cold  not  brutal." 

Not  brutal !  And  while  she  wrote,  perhaps  the 
uncrowned  Queen  was  driving  furiously  down  the 
road  to  the  bridge  at  Hayden,  with  her  escort  of 
drawn  swords,  and  black  despair  in  her  heart ! 

And  then  the  Duchess  has  another  dig  at  the  victim 
of  the  coldness  of  Prince  Cotys.  "  Duke  Christian 
looks  on  it  as  an  improvement  that  she  stuck  to  one 
in  particular."  Now  the  good  Duchess  herselt 
admits  to  "finding  safety  in  numbers."  She  is, 
moreover,  curious  as  to  whether  George  Louis, 
who  so  obligingly  furnishes  the  key  to  the  urgent 
family  document,  has  any  hankering  to  see  his  wife, 
"  who  is  still  beautiful." 

Yes,  Sophia  Dorothea  is  fifty,  and  she  is  still 
beautiful,  and  if,  when  he  succeeded  to  the  throne 


CH.  XVII]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  237 

of  Great  Britain,  George  Louis  could  have  taken 
her  with  him  as  his  consort,  it  would  have  helped 
to  popularize  the  Hanoverian  regime.  But  no  one 
ever  said  he  wasn't  shrewd,  and  he  knew  the  sort 
of  woman  he  had  to  deal  with.  He  knew  Sophia 
Dorothea,  her  bitter  French  tongue,  her  German 
obstinacy,  and  he  thought  it  safer  to  give  out  that 
he  was  a  widower,  or,  if  he  had  a  wife,  that  she  was 
mad.  He  made  both  excuses,  apparently.  The 
Jacobites  would  peck  at  him  either  way.  At  the 
same  time,  he  had  the  Queen  guarded  even  more 
closely  than  before,  as  closely  as  he  dared,  without, 
at  the  same  time,  injuring  her  health.  He  had  a 
purely  selfish  reason  for  this ;  a  fortune-teller  had 
assured  him  that  he  would  not  survive  her  six 
months.     Prince  Cotys  valued  life. 

And  when  Sophia  Dorothea  died,  she  raved,  she 
denounced  her  husband,  and  she  wrote,  the  story 
says,  a  letter  to  be  delivered  after  her  death.  It 
was  delivered,  nine  months  after,  to  the  King,  when 
he  landed  on  his  biennial  visit  to  Hanover.  It  gave 
him  the  stroke  from  which  he  did  not  recover.  It 
is  almost  too  dramatic  to  be  true.  It  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  an  omen  could  be  so  fully  justified. 
But  dates  do  not  lie — no,  not  if  you  get  them  right, 
which  I  always  find  difficulty  in  doing. 

Without  being  a  Sophiolater,  I  was  deeply 
interested  in  this  story  of  social  doom  and  murder, 
and  in  my  own  way.  I  was  chaffed,  as  I  suppose 
Mariolaters  and  even  Sophiolaters  have  been,  and 
will  be,  chaff'ed  to  the  end  of  time,  by  people  whose 
imaginative  faculty  cannot  be  set  going  by  anything 
but  tragedies  where  the  element  of  heroism    or 


238  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xvii 

grandeur  comes  in.  My  friends  kindly  escorted  me 
to  Hanover,  that  I  might  batten  upon  the  rehcs  and 
evidences  of  the  culte  which  it  pleases  them  to  say 
is  mine ;  but  they  did  not  contrive  that  my  morbid 
tastes  should  be  fully  fed  and  gratified  by  a  sight  of 
the  very  flag  in  the  corridor  of  the  Rittersaal  (the 
corridor  is  parqueted  now)  under  which  lies  the  body 
of  Konigsmarck,  the  man  who  wrote  those  letters, 
the  man  who  flirted  with  Countess  Platen,  the  man 
who  noticed  the  yellow  cloak,  the  man  whose  mouth 
was  stamped  upon,  who  was  hastily  sepultured, 
doused  with  quicklime  on  that  night  in  June.  This 
particular  spot  in  the  old  Leine  Schloss  was  the 
eye  of  the  picture,  and — I  was  never  inside  the 
Leine  Schloss  !  As  we  drove  to  Herrenhausen  we 
were  due  to  pass  it,  so  the  guide-books  said,  but  the 
guide-books  were  in  German.  Not  until  after  the 
heat  and  the  battle  of  the  day  were  over,  when 
things  had  been  missed,  and  the  conduct  of  the 
excursion  open  to  be  severely  criticized  by  the 
people  who  had  been  glad  to  profit  by  some  self- 
constituted  cicerone's  superior  knowledge  of  German 
and  historical  proportion,  did  I  realize  the  omission. 
What  we  did  on  that  warm  April  day  was  to  drive 
in  a  hired  fly  solemnly  round  the  residential  quarter 
of  Hanover  for  an  hour.  This  is  the  only  way  to 
learn  what  Germany  really  is — so  my  German 
friends  told  me.  I  did  not  deny  it,  only  the  suburbs 
of  a  town  are  depressing  everywhere,  and  a  drive 
in  a  taxicab  round  and  round,  say,  Hamilton 
Terrace  or  Addison  Road  would  produce  just  the 
same  effect,  and  stand  for  Germany  just  as  well.* 

*  A  reasonable  interest  in  the  monuments  of  the  past  is  a  very 
proper  thing,  but  to  confuse  the  disorderly  array  of  houses  which 


CH.  xvii]     QUEENS  DISCROWNED  239 

On  the  road  to  Herrenhausen,  under  the  long 
bordered  avenue,  that  reminded  me  of  the  old 
Birdcage  Walk,  we  did  pass  a  dull,  ugly,  negligible 
building,  and  the  eager,  polite  Kutscher  made  a 
small  detour  to  drive  us  past  the  fagade,  where  the 
White  Horse  of  Hanover  stood  and  ramped  like  a 
great  grey  full-fed  ghost.  The  horse  was  impres- 
sive, and  reconciled  me  to  the  detour,  and  that 
was  all. 

But  this  was  the  old  Leine  Schloss,  modernized 
outside,  but  practically  unchanged  within.  Here 
this  congeries  of  ill-conditioned,  ill-tempered  people 
lived  and  loved  and  festered  in  their  unwholesome 
pleasures  and  shabby  squalid  vices.  The  family 
history  of  this  family  beats  most  hideous  family 
histories,  bating  that  of  the  Cenci  and  the  House 
of  Judah.  Well,  there  it  was,  all  these  tragedy  folk 
had  pattered  about,  been  born,  married,  murdered, 
and  died  in  their  sanctimonious  beds  here.  They 
had,  worthy  and  unworthy,  all  "  dreed  their  weird  " 
behind  these  grey,  unattractive  walls.  And  I  was 
driven  past  it !  Joseph  Leopold,  you  see,  had  the 
guide-books,  and  he  did  not  care  for  the  old  shell, 
the  withered  slough  of  squalid,  politically  unin- 
teresting folk. 

are  to  be  found  in  the  London  suburbs  with  the  carefully-planned 
and  extremely  interesting  groups  of  dwellings  that  surround 
modern  German  cities  is  evidence  of  a  mind  ill-trained  to  observa- 
tion in  its  infancy  and  unaware  of  the  most  urgent  of  civic 
problems  of  the  present  day.  The  outskirts  of  Hanover  are  the 
very  best  model  for  the  outskirts  of  London.  And  just  as  this 
city  in  the  past  gave  to  England  reasonable  and  utilitarian  rulers, 
so  she  might  to-day  to  the  same  country  give  plans  for  a  reason- 
able and  utilitarian  development  of  modern  cities,  which  can  never 
be  very  romantic  things. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


240  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xvii 

I  told  him  a  little  story  of  my  youth. 

I  had  a  witty  mother,  and  I  had  what  was  known 
as  the  Irving  craze  very  badly  in  my  girlhood.  I 
had  just  seen  the  "  divine  "  actor  in  "  Richard  III," 
and  I  was  taken  over  Barnard  Castle,  in  Yorkshire, 
one  of  the  palaces  of  the  Kingmaker.  I  betrayed  an 
unusual  interest  in  historical  detail  concerning  the 
Tudors,  the  Nevilles,  and  the  House  of  York.  I 
plagued  everybody  for  information.  I  insisted  on 
going  over  the  ruined  castle  from  garret  to  oubliette. 
I  bored  the  party,  who  wanted  food  and  less  historical 
detail.  At  my  last  question  my  mother  turned. 
"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  Henry  Irving  did  give  this  castle 
to  Miss  Isabel  Bateman — and  now  let's  all  go  and 
have  tea." 

The  disappointment  about  the  Leine  Schloss  was 
wiped  out  a  little  farther  along  the  road.  We  came 
to  Herrenhausen. 

A  yellowish,  fawn-coloured  building  of  a  cheap 
style  and  fabric,  low  and  crouching — that  is  how 
the  Stammhaus  of  the  Hanoverian  Kings  of  England 
appeared  to  me.  I  did  not  think  it  so  very  like 
Kensington  Palace :  I  had  always  been  told  it  was 
a  copy.  Kensington  Palace  is  stately,  rather  high, 
of  a  dark,  dignified  red  brick.  The  stateliness  of 
Kensington  may  be  due  to  the  new  chimney-stacks 
added  in  Early  Victorian  days  to  the  commanding 
ridge  of  the  coping-stones  all  along  the  face,  and 
tinkered  up  quite  lately  since  it  became  a  museum ; 
but  the  mean,  cheap-looking  yellow -and -white 
plaster  that  covers  the  bulk  of  the  palace  of  Herren- 
hausen hopelessly  belittles  it.  All  the  German 
palaces  are  said  to  be  copies  of  Versailles  ;  Kensing- 


CH.  xvii]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  241 

ton  Palace  is  far  more  like  Versailles  than  Herren- 
hausen. 

We  drove,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  for  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  mile,  along  a  low  range  of  little  houses  like  a 
row  of  pitmen's  cottages  in  England,  but  painted 
yellow  and  white  in  a  garish  crudity  that  would 
not  appeal  to  Englishmen.  These  little  one-storied 
dwellings,  one  door,  two  windows,  built  obviously 
for  coachmen  and  officials  attached  to  the  royal 
service,  led  the  eye  gradually  up  to  a  main  building 
into  which  they  melted,  and  I  said :  "  This  must  be 
Herrenhausen." 

Kensington  Palace  necessarily  housed  its  multi- 
plicity of  officials,  its  grooms  and  stablemen,  but 
their  establishments  do  not,  and  did  not,  form 
part  of  the  main  facade.  The  arrangement  of  the 
German  palace  is  less  snobbish  perhaps.  We  know 
the  Georges  were  very  simple  folk. 

There  is  a  humble  building  just  inside  the  great 
gate  of  Kensington  Gardens  where  one  used  to 
buy  soda  water,  and  ginger  beer,  and  gingerbread 
biscuits  in  1870.  It  was  then  exactly  like  the  little 
erections  of  which  I  speak  that  are  annexed  to  the 
palace  of  the  Georges  in  Herrenhausen.  In  Ken- 
sington Gardens  the  little  square  box  of  a  house  still 
stands,  but  it  is  no  longer  painted  yellow,  and  I  don't 
think  you  can  get  soda  water  there  any  more. 

We  got  out.  The  palace  in  front  of  us  gleamed  a 
chalky  white  and  yellow  in  the  raw  spring  sunlight. 
There  was  an  acre  of  small  cobblestones  in  front  of 
it,  and  a  sufficiency  of  ostler's  pails  and  pumps,  with 
brooms  propped  up  against  them.  No  human  being 
could  be  seen.    The  windows  all  had  formal  linen 

16 


242  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xvii 

blinds,  and  these  blinds  were  drawn.  The  palace  is 
not  shown. 

It  is  not  shown  because  it  is  actually  inhabited  by 
the  owner,  and  yet  it  is  empty. 

There  was  nothing  very  romantic  about  the  Lust- 
haus  of  a  fat,  stupid,  boozy  family  like  that  of  the 
Georges ;  but  now  for  the  first  time  romance  has 
entered  its  doors.  This  is  what  I  thought  when 
Joseph  Leopold  told  me  the  reason  of  the  present 
state  of  affairs. 

Herrenhausen  is  the  property  of  an  exile  for 
conscience'  sake,  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  the 
proscribed  King  of  Hanover.*  He  cannot  live  in 
his  own  house,  in  his  own  kingdom,  because  he  is 
subject  to  arrest.  He  refuses,  and  has  refused  for 
years,  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Prussia. 

How  very  vital — looking  on  this  death  in  life  of  a 
fair  mansion,  this  shell  of  an  ineffectual  royalty — 
seemed  the  principle  for  which  this  man  and  his 
family  are  fighting,  and  for  whose  abstract  sake 
endure  an  honoured  but  nomadic  existence.  You 
might  have  met  the  dispossessed  Duke  anywhere 
during  the  last  twenty  years  in  England,  opening 
bazaars,  at  the  baths  and  cures  of  his  country,  at 
any  of  its  cities  excepting  the  one  city  where  he 
properly  belonged.  You  might  have  met  him  in 
Berlin — on  the  Unter  den  Linden,  maybe.  I  fancy 
the  Kaiser  and  he  were  not  bad  friends  ;  they  were, 
at  any  rate,  relatives.  Yet  if  he  had  walked  into  his 
own  principality  of  Hanover,  he  was  liable  to  be 
arrested  at  sight  like  a  malefactor.  He  has  chosen 
his  line.  Herrenhausen  is  inhabited,  though  no  one 
*  This  was  written  in  1912. 


CH.  xvii]     QUEENS  DISCROWNED  243 

is  in  it.  At  his  other  country  seat,  Wilhelmsberg, 
he  keeps  thirty  beds  made  up.  All  this  is  on  the 
chance  of  his  being  able,  through  some  change  in  the 
political  arena,  to  swoop  down  upon  his  own  and 
occupy  it.  Is  it  not  romantic  to  think  that  in  this 
opportunist  age  there  is  still  a  potentate  who  prefers 
exile  to  abasement  ? 

Our  Kutscher  was  excessively  anxious  that  we 
should  first  of  all  visit  the  towering  glass-domed 
conservatory  opposite  the  palace,  which  was  built 
and  presented  to  the  inhabitants  of  Hanover  by  their 
very  generous  Prince,  but  the  mere  sight  of  it  made 
my  eyes  ache.  So  we  paid  him  and  allowed  him  to 
abandon  us  in  front  of  the  building,  in  the  fond 
hope  that  he  had  brought  us  where  we  wished  to 
be — to  the  haven  of  our  desires.  Remember,  he 
had  been  bidden  to  drive  us  round  the  suburbs  of 
Hanover,  merely  taking  the  old  town  on  our  way 
He  must  have  been  terribly  out  in  his  calculations  of 
our  tastes.  But  we  walked  on.  We  passed  the  glass 
house  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland — ^we  have  no 
better  at  Kew.  We  never  looked  round,  or  else  we 
should  have  seen  our  cicerone's  despair  of  his  clients' 
curious  obtuseness  and  faulty  sense  of  direction. 

And  in  that  part  of  the  gardens,  so  casually 
attained  to,  I  had  a  vision — or  shall  I  call  it  an 
Adventure? — not  of  Versailles,  butof  Herrenhausen. 

I  seemed  to  myself  to  be  in  a  dream,  as  I  walked 
soberly,  quiet  as  a  tourist  mouse,  by  the  side  of 
Joseph  Leopold.  I  did  not  even  take  his  arm,  though 
I  was  possessed  by  a  strange  emotion  of  fear  lest  I 
should  totter,  and  call  for  support  during  this  excur- 
sion into  my  sub-consciousness,  as  indeed  it  was. 


244  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xvii 

Supposing  I  felt  the  need  for  readjustment  of  time 
and  space,  of  the  past  with  the  present,  I  might 
grasp  this  kind  German  convexity,  and  be  saved 
from  falling.  But  I  hoped  all  the  while  that  this 
would  not  happen,  for  I  was  enjoying  the  furtive 
emotion  raised  in  me  with  all  my  might  of  conscious 
sensation. 

We  were  walking,  actually,  in  a  small  rectangular 
garden,  bordered  on  one  side  by  high-cut  hedges, 
and  on  the  other  by  low  pollarded  willows  on  the 
edge  of  what  I  apprehended  then  to  be  water, 
though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  believe  there  was  no 
water  there.  The  lowness  of  the  willows  and  the 
light  of  flatness  reminded  me  of  a  Dutch  landscape. 

And  the  semi-enclosed  space  where  we  were 
walking  suggested  the  foreground  of  a  piece  of 
medieval  tapestry,  with  its  weft  of  dull  green  and 
warp  of  strange,  vividly  picked  out  flowers.  There 
is  a  Morris  wallpaper  called  *'  The  Daisy"  that  was 
constantly  hung  and  renewed  in  my  old  home,  which 
has  something  of  the  same  effect  as  the  parterre 
in  which  Joseph  Leopold  and  I  were  now  walking. 
There  were  two  narrow  and  rectangular  strips  of 
grass,  dotted,  spotted  in  the  regular  medieval  fashion 
of  tapestry,  with  yellow  and  white  flowers  borne  up 
on  strong,  limber,  upstanding  stems,  like  the  spears 
of  grass  that  interspersed  them,  which  was  likewise 
firm  and  broad  and  tall.  And  at  the  end  of  the 
formal  strip,  lost,  diminished,  in  a  sort  of  exaggerated 
dream  perspective,  was  a  small  grey  Greek  Temple. 

It  occupied  the  whole  breadth  of  the  end  of  the 
rectangular  strip  of  green,  and  it  had  a  background 
of  dark  sacrificial  trees.     I  think  they  were  yews. 


CH.  XVII]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  ^45 

And  we  walked  orderly  along.  I  fancy  at  one 
point  there  was  a  kind  of  check  to  the  integrity  of 
my  vision — the  sight  of  our  late  Kutscher,  standing 
by  the  opening  in  the  yew  hedge,  waving  his  arms, 
and  crying,  "  Nicht  da !  Nicht  da  I"  We  had  passed 
the  glass  dome  unnoticed,  and  were  walking  in  a 
mere  wilderness  of  strong  weeds — daisies  and  dande- 
lions I  On  my  bemused  ears,  too,  there  smote  the 
healthy  sound  of  the  whetstone  at  work  on  one  of 
the  gardeners'  scythes. 

But  we  walked  on  towards  the  Temple  that  stood 
for  us  like  a  full  stop  of  solemnity  to  the  flowery 
commas  that  led  up  to  it.  It  was  merely  a  tool- 
house  where  wheelbarrows  and  mowing  machines 
were  propped  against  Ionic  columns  green  with 
damp,  but  it  had  served  probably  for  all  sorts  of 
lumbering  German  fetes  champetres^  and  there  peri- 
wigged gentlemen  and  painted,  patched  ladies  had 
"  languidly  adjusted  their  vapid  loves."  Now,  small, 
grey,  pose^  sinister,  serious,  it  served  to  put  the 
finishing  touch  to  the  submergence  of  my  con- 
sciousness under  waves  of  memory. 

I  definitely  then  lost  all  sense  of  time  and 
place,  as  I  walked  along,  self-supporting,  beside 
Joseph  Leopold.  The  Kutscher  with  the  waving 
arms  faded  away,  the  sound  of  the  scythe  being 
sharpened  somewhere  in  the  neighbourhood  to  cut 
down  the  robust  flowers  and  grass  died  out,  and 
I  became  again  a  child  in  Kensington  Gardens, 
unconscious  of  impressions,  as  all  children  are, 
but  possessed  of  the  usual  plastic  memory  that 
stores  up  unvalued  mind-pictures  wherewith  to 
overwhelm  the  mature  intelligence  in  the  years  to 


246  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xvii 

come.  For  the  scene  was  so  nearly  identical  as  to 
act  as  a  reminder.  But  in  those  days,  instead  of 
Joseph  Leopold  and  the  Kutscher,  there  was  a 
palace  official,  and  two  German  nurses  talking  to 
each  other  on  the  other  side  of  a  slight  iron  fence 
composed  of  two  thin  transverse  bars,  and  four 
small  children  divided  equally  by  these  bars.  The 
two,  of  which  I  was  one,  were  in  stout  boots  and 
socks,  and  bore  hoops  and  hoopsticks,  the  other 
two  were  throned  in  a  chaise  drawn  by  a  white 
donkey.  There  was  a  red-brick  palace  in  the  back- 
ground and  a  Greek  Temple  in  plaster  behind.  A 
babel  of  different  German  patois  rent  the  air.  The 
two  children  inside  were  very  young,  and  only  liked 
their  hands  stroked.  They  were  little  Tecks,  and 
the  palace  was  Kensington  Palace. 

But  the  Westphalian  nurse  of  the  children  of 
Alfred  Hunt,  the  painter,  could  not  long  be  allowed 
to  exchange  ideas  and  dialects  with  the  Hessian 
nurse  of  the  future  Queen  of  England,  and  the  stern 
official  in  charge  of  the  little  royal  party  warned 
our  Milly — from  Paderborn — that  it  must  not  be. 
The  white  donkey  on  this  last  morning  of  many 
mornings  passed  on  firmly  and  finally. 

But  not  until  I  left  that  rectangular  strip  of  grass 
and  flowers  did  I  become  middle-aged  again,  and 
Joseph  Leopold  never  knew,  only  was  a  little 
mildly  interested  when  I  gripped  his  arm  and 
pointed  at  the  Temple  just  as  a  few  drops  of  rain 
began  to  fall.  In  the  days  to  which  I  had  been 
temporarily  switched  back  we  should  have  taken 
refuge — nurse,  children,  perambulator,  and  all — in 
that  temple,  and  bored  ourselves  with  playing  hide- 


CH.  xvii]      QUEENS  DISCROWNED  247 

and-seek  round  the  pillars.  There  were  plenty  of 
Greek  Temples  like  this  in  Kensington  Gardens  in 
the  old  times.  .  .  . 

A  little  later  on,  in  the  tiny  family  museum  at 
Herrenhausen,  I  took  licence  to  linger  long  over 
certain  presses  full  of  mouldy  faded  garments  of  all 
sorts — coats,  laced  with  pale  gold  and  silver,  that 
had  graced  a  George's  broad  chest,  and  narrow- 
chested,  high -shouldered  dresses  that  had  held 
the  firm,  proud  flesh  of  Queens,  but  now  flapped 
dispiritedly  on  hooks  or  on  dummies  that  seemed  to 
shrink  away  and  refuse  to  bear  out  these  royal  rags 
with  any  pride.  I  noticed  during  a  lull  of  the 
irritating  old  ex-military  custodian's  voice  a  velvet 
cape,  of  a  faded,  mousy  brown.  Its  paleness  moved 
me  more  than  eloquence.  I  remember  wearing  one 
very  like  it  myself  in  the  fifteen  years  ago  that 
seems  now  so  much  more  early  than  even  Early 
Victorian.  This  little  wretched  wrap  was  hidden 
away  behind  some  garments  that  had  belonged  to 
Caroline  Matilda,  Sophia's  ancestress,  and  another 
discrowned  Queen. 

Caroline  Matilda  was  the  sister  of  George  the 
Third.  She  was  supposed  to  be  beautiful,  but  she 
had  thick  lips  and  a  stumpy  figure.  It  is  possible 
to  judge,  for  she  was  evidently  a  very  "dressy" 
sort  of  person,  so  that  clothes  of  hers  are  constantly 
cropping  up  in  museums.  She  was  supposed  to  be 
clever,  for  she  could  quote  "  To  be  or  not  to  be  " 
very  much  a  tort  et  a  travers.  They  married  her  to 
a  sottish  King  Christian  of  Sweden,  whose  mother 
Juliana  got  rid  of  her  on  a  possibly  trumped- 
up  story  of  infidelity  as  soon  as  was  convenient. 


248  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xvii 

executed  her  supposed  lover,  and  bestowed  the 
daughter-in-law  with  her  Hanoverian  relations  for 
the  end  of  her  days.  She  would  have  fared  worse 
if  she  had  not  been  a  daughter  of  England  and 
a  subject  for  the  interposition  of  Lord  Keith, 
England's  Ambassador. 

Both  their  dreary  Queenships  must  have  wor- 
shipped in  the  hideous  Reckitt's-blue-tinged  chapel 
at  Celle,  and  prayed,  kneeling  in  their  little  close, 
stuffy,  royal  pews,  for  moral  support  and  better  days 
that  never  came^  adding,  if  one  knows  them  at  all, 
a  touch  of  the  Commination  Service  a  Faddresse  of 
spiteful  stepmothers  -  in  -  law,  named  respectively 
Sophia  and  Juliana.  Both  must  have  dragged  their 
ugly,  heavy  clothes  and  heavier  hearts  along  the 
pleached  walks  among  the  boxwood  mazes  of  the 
Palace  of  Herrenhausen,  must  have  appeared,  and 
disappeared  and  reappeared  again  behind  those  high 
charmilles,  designed,  one  supposes,  to  mask  secret 
meetings,  but  where  the  singed  moths  of  scandal 
now  wander  alone.  For  what  courtier  would  dare 
to  repeat  the  disastrous  flirtations  that  had  cost 
both  KOnigsmarck  and  Struensee  their  lives  ? 

One  dress,  labelled  as  that  of  Caroline  Matilda's, 
looked  as  if  the  careless,  despairing  wearer  had 
subjected  it  to  very  rough  treatment.  The  delicate 
peach-blossom  silk  had  been  dragged  through  wastes 
of  autumn  leaves.  I  was  sure  of  it.  It  was  spring 
now,  but  I  knew  the  place  where,  in  the  fall  of  the 
year,  the  brown,  dusty,  parchment-like  flakes  must 
have  lain  in  heaving  drifts  under  the  trees  that  had 
borne  them. 

When  the  custodian  was  not  attending,  I  stooped 


CH.  xvii]     QUEENS  DISCROWNED  249 

and  examined  the  hem  of  that  dress.  Yes,  it  was 
discoloured,  and  it  turned  up,  weakly,  pathetically, 
just  as  my  own  dresses  do  if  I  let  them  trail  in  in- 
appropriate places.  The  years  were  dissolved,  for 
the  moment,  as  the  custodian  droned  on  about  the 
glories  of  some  royal  George  or  other,  male  relations 
of  this  oppressed  female  of  their  blood.  There  was 
so  little  between  me,  a  woman,  staring  through  to 
the  past,  with  a  travel-stained  skirt  on  of  my  own 
probably,  and  another  woman,  who  had  been  so 
unhappy,  some  hundred  years  ago  or  so,  that  she  had 
not  troubled  to  hold  up  her  gown  asshe  tramped 
aimlessly  through  an  autumn-coloured  park,  the 
fallen  leaves  billowing,  flying  up  all  round  her 
knees,  clad  in  the  neglected  peach-blossom  silk  that 
didn't  matter  now  that  she  was  alone.  Yes,  I  am 
sure  she  walked  alone.  She  was  thinking  of  the 
days  when  things  were  "  nicer,"  as  women  say, 
when  she  walked  in  the  gardens  at  Kew  or  Kensing- 
ton, and  there  were  no  dead  leaves,  and  but  servile 
people  buzzing  about  her  listening  politely  to  her 
misquotations  of  Shakespeare.  Or  later,  of  the 
short,  sweet  time  in  Copenhagen,  when  she  was  a 
crowned  Queen,  with  a  disagreeable  mother-in-law, 
a  brutish  husband,  but — consideration  and  a  crown  ! 

Now ! 

I  tucked  the  dress  back  in  the  glass  cupboard,  and 
sneaked  back  into  the  wake  of  the  custodian,  feeling 
chilly  and  grown  old. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

BONES,  BABIES,  AND  ANABAPTISTS 

"  There  are  in  Miinster,  where  we  are  going,  two 
hundred  and  sixty-nine  of  my  relations!"*  Joseph 
Leopold  observed,  as  the  train  ambled  along  by  the 
side  of  the  vast  northern  heath — the  Liineburger 
Heide — which  corresponds  somewhat  to  the  New 
Forest  in  England.  It  is,  to  my  mind,  a  much 
more  heathy  heath  than  the  New  Forest,  which 
contains  every  kind  of  scenery,  except  mountain 
scenery  and  trees  and  rivers  and  plenty  of  those 
park-like  enclosures  dear  to  the  land-agent.  The 
Liineburger  Heath  is  just  an  immense  tract  of  land 
covered  with  low,  scrubby,  arid-looking  under- 
growth, where  stooping  turf-cutters  heap  up  heavy 
clods  and  gather  sticks  and  cut  the  ling  into  bundles 
to  make  beds  for  their  cattle  and  perhaps  for  them- 
selves. 

I  answered  politely,  as  I  sat  beside  him  and 
looked  out  of  the  window :  "  And  shall  I  have  to 
know  them  all  ?" 

"  Eventually.  We  must  go  soon  and  formally 
pay  our  respects  to  my  cousin  A ,  the  head  of 

*  There  are  316.— J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 
250 


CH.  xviii]  ANABAPTISTS  251 

our  house.  But  to-day  I  am  going  to  show  you 
Miinster,  and  it  will  be  amusing  to  see  how  many 
head  of  relation  I  can  pass  in  the  streets  while  I 
am  going  about  with  you  incognito.  I  want  to  see 
those  low  quiet  arches  all  along  the  main  street 
where  the  Anabaptists  made  their  last  stand,  and 
were  cut  down  as  they  ran  in  and  out,  behind  and 
past,  the  pillars." 

"  What  I  want  to  see  are  the  bones  of  John  of 
Leyden  in  the  iron  cage  slung  on  to  the  church 
tower.     You  are  certain  they  are  still  there  ?" 

"  Surely  !  They  were  there,  gleaming  white 
among  the  jackdaws,  when  I  was  a  boy,"  replied 
Joseph  Leopold  staidly. 

He  was  all  right  as  regards  the  relations.  They 
were  everywhere.  They  might  have  been  the  off- 
spring of  John  of  Leyden  and  his  innumerable 
wives.  Did  we  take  shelter  in  the  old  palace  during 
a  shower,  and  did  we  tenant  the  old  pilasters  of  the 
porta  cochere  in  company  of  a  whole  meiny  of  pig- 
tailed  schoolgirls  who  were  set  down  by  a  zealous 
schoolmistress  to  draw  these  pillars  till  that  the 
shower  should  leave  off — Joseph  Leopold  would 
nudge  me,  and  pointing  out  one  of  these  pig- 
tailed  Madchen — "  That's  one  !"  Or  did  we  cross 
the  street  and  duck  under  the  shadow  of  the  dark 
historic  arches  we  had  come  to  see,  a  lame  man  with 
a  child  would  be  looking  in  at  a  pastry-cook's 
window — "  That's  Cousin  A and  his  little  grand- 
child." Or  did  we  meet,  a  little  way  out,  towards 
the  public  gardens,  a  young  lady  going  to  seek  her 
partners  in  a  game  of  tennis — "  That's  one  of  Fritz's 
girls."    Or  a  beautiful  mature  woman  seen  through 


252  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN    [ch.  xviii 

the  windows  of  the  confectioner's  where    she  is 
ordering  her  Kuchen  for  tea  is  "  My  Cousin  Laura." 

"  It  was  uncles,  uncles,  everywhere, 
And  cousins  flung  in  my  path  like  mad." 

Presently  I  was  bidden  to  look  into  a  shop 
window  and  see  the  page  of  the  Miinsier  Daily 
Journal^  owned,  edited,  and  printed  by  one  of  my 
new  relations.  Then  I  was  taken  to  see  the  dreary 
but  handsome  hospital  given  by  the  family  collec- 
tively. Then  to  the  large  family  mansion  in  the 
Palladian  style — was  it  ? — where  **  My  grand  uncle  " 
lived  and  died,  and  the  church  "  My  people "  had 
built  and  the  other  church  that  they  preferred  to 
worship  in.  All  this  ancestor-worship  left  me 
rather  cold  ;  I  am,  as  I  have  said,  of  the  undomestic 
race  that  scorns  family  ties.  At  last  we  came  to  the 
Servatii  Platz,  a  little  green  triangle  at  the  back 
door  of  that  old  family  mansion.  Here,  to  this 
lonely  square  of  carefully  tended  green  grass,  every 
little  Joseph  Leopold,  including  the  one  who  was 
telling  me  about  it,  is  taken  out  at  a  certain  ap- 
propriate age,  with  every  formality,  to  make  his 
first  tottering  footsteps,  there  where  his  father  and 
his  grandfather  made  theirs,  in  leading-strings  and 
supported  by  parents  and  grandparents  and  a 
proud,  responsible  nurse. 

And  when  I  had  heard  all  about  the  ancestor  who 
was  Burgomaster  of  Miinster,  and  who  had  to  drink 
a  whole  silver  cock  full  of  wine  at  one  draught 
under  pain  of  forfeiting  his  proud  position,  and  had 
been  shown  the  very  silver  cock,  preserved  in  the 
Friedensaal,   I   was    allowed    to   gratify   my   own 


CH.  xviii]  ANABAPTISTS  253 

morbid  tastes,  raise  my  eyes,  and,  removing  my 
centre  of  interest  from  these  family  matters,  look  up 
at  the  tall  tower  of  St.  Servatius  and  pick  out  the 
cage  containing  the  bones  of  John  of  Leyden  and 
his  lieutenant  KnipperdoUing. 

John  of  Leyden,  the  tailor,  alias  John  Bockelson, 
alias  the  King  of  Righteousness,  alias  the  King  of 
Zion,  must  have  been  a  very  terrible,  forcible  villain, 
strong,  proud,  and  lustful.  He  came,  a  refugee  from 
Leyden,  along  with  his  first  lieutenant,  a  baker  from 
Haarlem,  to  avoid  the  persecutions  going  on  there 
against  the  Reformed  Religion,  and  chose  Miinster 
in  Westphalia,  because  Miinster  was  favourable  to 
the  new  ideas,  and  had  lately  taken  the  strong  step 
of  turning  its  Catholic  Bishop  out  of  the  city.  But 
the  citizens  had  hardly  bargained  for  the  lusty 
tailor  in  his  stead.  The  baker  from  Haarlem 
having  been  killed  in  a  sortie,  John  chose  another 
lieutenant,  a  draper  this  time,  with  the  ridiculous 
name  of  KnipperdoUing.  Yes,  they  are  comic 
characters  enough,  both  of  them,  till  we  think  of  the 
red-hot  pincers  and  knives  for  flaying  and  the  iron 
cages  hung  high  on  St.  Ludgerius,  with  the  few  white 
bones  lying  on  the  barred  floor,  dropping  gradually 
through  the  chinks  on  to  the  heads  of  the  exces- 
sively Catholic  posterity  below.  For  as  good 
Mrs.  Markham  remarks  : 

"  Munster,  ever  since  that  time,  has  been  one  of 
the  most  bigoted  popish  cities  in  Europe." 

That  is  the  way  it  always  is,  and  that  is  why 
the  Joseph  Leopolds  pullulate  in  it. 

The  new  chief  of  insurrection  began  his  reign  by 
running  stark  naked  about  the  streets  of  Miinster, 


254  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN    [ch.  xviii 

screaming  that  the  King  of  Zion  had  come,  while 
Knipperdolling  incited  the  mob  to  pull  down  the 
steeples.    Then  began  a  period  of  almost  incredible 
laisser  aller.      "As,"   Mrs.   Markham    says,   but  is 
unable  to  go  into  the  reasons  thereof  for  fear  of 
shocking  young  George  and  Mary,  "  the  number  of 
females   who  flocked  to  the  enfranchised  town  of 
Munster  was  six  times  greater  than  that  of  the  men," 
John  counted  it  politicable  and  indeed  necessary 
to  decree  that  all  men  should  treat  themselves  to  a 
plurality  of  wives.     He  took  to  himself  seventeen. 
.  .  .  And  we  look  up  again  at  the  cage  with   the 
rotting  bones.  ...  At  first  it  was  free  wives  and 
free  meals,  and  men  and  women  ate  together  at 
public   tables  set  in  the    public  street.      But   the 
dispossessed  Bishop,  armed  and  accompanied  by  the 
forces  of  law  and  order,  laid  siege  to  the  perverted 
city,  and  it  behoved  the  King  of  Righteousness  to 
put  it  in  a  state  of  defence.     Boys  stood  beside  the 
men  on  the  walls  and  shot  arrows  on  to  the  besiegers, 
while  the  women   poured   boiling  oil  on  to  their 
heads.     Then  famine  reared  its  head,  as  famine  will 
on  these  occasions.     But  still  John  of  Leyden,  pre- 
destinated, mad,  drunk  with  power,  married  wives 
and  attired  them  sumptuously,  and  lived  with  them 
and  his  lieutenants  on  the  diminishing  provisions  of 
the  garrison,  so  that  the  common  people  starved, 
though  they,  and  they  alone,  carried  on  the  defence 
of  Munster.      One   wife,   Elizabeth,   history  says, 
expostulated  with  the  madman  who  ruled  all,  and  put 
in  a  plea  for  the  starving  population,  pointing  out 
that  John  himself  was  meanwhile  living  in  unstinted, 
unheard-of  luxury.     He  struck  off  her  head  pictur- 


CH.  xviii]  ANABAPTISTS  255 

esquely  with  his  two-handed  sword,  and  then  danced 
round  her  body  with  his  other  wives,  including,  I 
suppose,  the  fair  Divara,  who  was  chief  among 
them.  I  think  one  ought  to  be  able  to  make  a  play 
out  of  all  these  incidents  and  the  strange,  mad, 
picturesque  scoundrels  who  had  their  fun  and  then 
paid  the  price  for  it. 

For  the  city  was  stormed  and  the  Anabaptists 
put  to  the  sword.  And,  seeing  those  low-browed 
stunted  arches  that  are  built  in  a  wavering,  sagging 
line  over  the  flagged  walk  of  the  principal  street, 
and  which  hide  nearly  all  the  daylight  from  the  shops 
which  are  here  now  and  were  there  in  the  old  days, 
I  could  only  see,  as  Joseph  Leopold  did,  the  awful 
drama  for  which  the  scene  still  remains  set.  I  saw 
the  hunted  fanatics  as  they  were  chased  hither  and 
thither,  in  and  out  of  their  poor  shelter  through  three 
days.*  I  saw  the  blood  pouring,  streaming,  from  the 
knees  of  the  stone  work  into  the  gutters,  and  heard 
the  shrieks,  now  muffled,  now  piercingly  audible, 
that  must  have  come  from  the  hollow  of  the  pillars 
as  these  unhappy  dese'quilibres  who  had  not  been 
able  to  make  their  city  of  Zion  a  going  concern  paid 
for  their  politics  with  their  lives.  Oh,  Miinster  in 
Westphalia  is  an  old,  hard,  cruel  place !  And 
Miinster  is  really  Germany — bigoted,  self-centred 
Germany. 

As  for  the  three,  John  of  Leyden  and  Knipperdoll- 
ing  and  another,  there  was — there  could  be  no  mercy 
for  them.    Their  hands  were  cut  off,  their  flesh  was 

*  I  don't  believe  the  author  saw  anything  of  the  sort.  We 
were  too  much  engaged  in  debating  where  we  should  eat. — 
J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


256  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN    [ch.  xviii 

torn  from  their  bodies  by  red-hot  pincers,  they  were 
flayed  alive,  and  then  they  were  hung  up  by  the 
neck  in  the  iron  cages  I  have  spoken  of,  and  hitched 
up  to  the  central  tower  and  left  to  starve.  They 
hung  there,  and  the  flesh  melted  off  their  bones, 
and  then  the  bones  themselves  dropped  slowly 
down  to  the  bottom  of  the  cage,  and  some  of  them 
fell  through,  as  I  have  said.  But  there  are  no  bones 
there  now,  I  swear,  although  Joseph  Leopold  says 
he  saw  them  fifteen  years  ago.     I  was  cheated. 

We  went,  towards  dusk,  into  a  grim  council 
chamber  with  stained-glass  windows  rather  like  the 
chapter-house  of  Durham  Cathedral.  There  are 
stalls  all  round  it  and  small,  old,  moth-eaten,  velvet- 
embroidered  cushions  set  on  the  hard  seats  of  those 
stalls,  and  on  those  very  velvet  cushions  nearly  all 
the  sommites  of  Europe  sat  once  on  a  time  when  they 
were  met  in  Miinster  to  ratify  the  Treaty  of  West- 
phalia and  end  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  The  man 
whose  name  is  written  on  a  script  above  that  seat* 
undoubtedly  sat  there,  and  the  labels  speak  of 
Philip  IV.  of  Spain,  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  III., 
and  Louis  XV.  of  France. 

***** 

Half  the  population  of  Germany  perished  in  that 
war.  Nine  hundred  thousand  men  were  destroyed 
in  Saxony  alone  in  two  years.  The  population  of 
one  town,  Augsburg,  was  reduced  from  eighty 
thousand  to  eighteen  thousand,  and  so  on,  in  pro- 
portion all  over  the  land.  What  makes  people  do 
it?  for  people  nowadays  would  not  allow  them- 
selves to  be  killed  off  like  that  for  a  faith,  or  even 
*  Or  his  representative.-  J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  xviii]  ANABAPTISTS  257 

for  money.  Was  war  in  those  days  really  a  trade, 
and  were  the  sure  facilities  of  loot  that  had  to  be 
given  to  soldiers  of  fortune  the  inspiring  cause? 
For  there  are  now  no  Church  treasuries  to  rob,  and 
if  there  were  soldiers  would  not  be  allowed  to  rob 
them.  Or  was  it  in  obedience  to  a  blind  natural 
law,  making  for  the  reduction  of  populations,  that 
nations  did  for  themselves  the  work  of  floods  and 
pestilence  ? 

We  went  to  the  "  Queen  of  England,"  and  had  the 
worst  English  restaurant  dinner  I  have  ever  had, 
either  out  of  England  or  in  it,  and  away  by  the  nine 
o'clock  train,  and  so  ended  our  day  incognito  in 
Munster. 


17 


CHAPTER  XIX 

CELLE 

Celle — the  early  home  of  a  Queen  of  England  that 
was  not  to  be,  Sophia  Dorothea — is  just  such  another 
Browning  town  as  Hamelin.  As  Joseph  Leopold 
and  I  drank  our  coffee  and  munched  Sandkuchen 
over  a  red-checked  table-cloth  in  front  of  the  best  and 
smartest  inn  of  Celle,  patronized  and  sealed  as  its 
respectable  own  by  the  Automobile  Touring  Club — 
as  we  sat  in  the  hostelry  at  Hamelin,  with  signed 
firmans  and  framed  mandates  of  that  powerful  com- 
pany on  the  walls,  I  felt  for  all  the  world  as  if  we 
were  under  the  same  dignified  auspices  as  at  Tours 
or  Evreux  in  France,  or  Warwick  or  Ludlow  in 
England.  And  later  on,  when  we  had  penetrated 
farther  into  the  smug  little  town  of  Celle  and  found 
the  old,  florid,  out-at-elbows  family  hotel,  with  its 
heavy  gilt  cornices  and  fusty  rep  hangings,  one 
thought  of  the  old  coaching  inns  at  Sandwich  in 
Kent  or  Alnwick  in  Northumberland.  The  differ- 
ence was  that  whereas  even  the  distant  Northum- 
brian inn  had  brought  itself  painfully  up-to-date, 
with  separate  tables  and  exiguous  portions  served 
and  delivered  in  attempted  French  style,  the  German 
hotel    "  ordinary "    was    still    Early    Victorian    in 

258 


CH.  xix]  CELLE  259 

amplitude  and  mode  of  cooking  and  serving.  We 
all  sat  at  one  long  table,  with  tourists,  sportsmen, 
and  commis  voyageurs.  And  whereas  in  England, 
when  replete — that  is  to  say,  quite  stuffed  with 
sawdust — you  sally  forth  to  visit  the  ill-restored 
cathedral,  or  the  hopelessly  ruined  castle,  in 
Germany  there  is  nearly  always  a  Gothic  cathedral 
or  church  well  left  alone  and  in  full  working  order, 
and  a  Schloss  in  as  good  repair  as  it  ever  was, 
with  a  roof  on,  and  a  well  that  can  be  used.  And 
if  you  look  for  it  in  England  there  is  generally  a 
museum.  But  you  don't  look  for  it — don't  want 
to;  you  know  too  well  what  you  will  see  there. 
A  few  vases,  a  few  geological  specimens,  some 
section  of  Saurian,  a  model  of  a  mine,  of  a  ship, 
of  a  town-hall,  and  perhaps  a  Saxon  altar.  But  in 
Celle,  at  any  rate,  you  have  not  to  look  for  the 
museum.  It  is  large,  new,  spick  and  span,  and 
planted  opposite  the  entrance  to  the  castle.  It 
is  a  very  fine  museum  —  very  airy,  high-pitched 
and  light,  and  not  nearly  so  tiring  to  go  over 
as  most  museums.  I  think  it  is  the  dust  that 
one  imbibes  that  so  fatigues.  And  where  every- 
thing was  interesting,  well  shown,  cleverly  placed, 
I  fixed  my  attention  on  what  I  shall  never  see 
in  England,  though  I  have  seen  it  in  Provence, 
where  the  inhabitants  of  a  show  place  are  educated 
as  they  are  in  Germany,  and  take  an  intelligent 
interest  in  their  own  town,  and  their  own  pasts  as 
citizens.  For  in  France  the  Ministere  des  Beaux 
Arts,  in  Germany  the  State,  in  one  form  or  another, 
steps  in  when  something  in  the  way  of  local  his- 
torical evidences  is  disappearing,  and  buys  it  up — 


26o  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xix 

puts  a  moral  fence  against  vandalism  round  it,  if  it 
is  not  transplantable,  or,  if  it  is,  moves  it  bodily  to  a 
museum.  In  the  Arlaten  Museum  at  Aries  there  is 
the  entire  reconstruction  of  a  Provencal  mas — furni- 
ture, waxwork  figures,  and  the  rest  of  it.  In  Celle 
the  society  has  done  even  better :  there  is  no 
papier  mache  eidolon  of  the  mouldering  lodge  of  the 
past,  but  the  actual  farm — two  actual  farms — bought 
up  and  placed  in  a  museum  there. 

And  there  they  are — two  peasant  houses,  farms  of 
a  date  certainly  earlier  than  1640,  though  the  model 
remains  the  same  —  the  very  needy  woodman's 
cottage,  with  its  little  light  shining  through  the 
thick  impenetrable  forest  to  guide  errant  Princes, 
Huntsmen,  and  Clever  Tailors  to  a  shelter,  planked 
down,  lock,  stock,  and  barrel,  in  the  lower  hall  of  the 
Celle  Museum.  We  see  three  out  of  the  four  walls, 
like  a  grown-up  doll's  house,  stained  with  the  smoke 
from  the  big  fire  in  the  very  centre  of  the  earth  floor, 
and  the  crook  and  the  great  pot  slung  on  it.  The  real 
household  utensils,  shining  bright,  are  hung  on  the 
walls,  and  the  effigies  of  many  hams  hang  from  the 
rafters.  It  has  been  used,  this  room.  Families  have 
lived  and  died  surrounded  by  these  walls;  in  the 
inner  rooms  are  their  sleeping  arrangements,  shut  in 
and  curtained  close,  all  of  them,  so  that  no  air-loving 
Englishman  could  sleep  in  such  a  hot  bed.  The  little 
candle  of  legend  that  flings  its  light  on  a  naughty 
world,  and  calls  in  adventure,  and  sometimes  mis- 
fortune, from  the  wide  waste,  stands  against  a  square 
window  on  a  shelf,  so  that  it  may  be  seen  as  far  as 
possible,  and  at  the  very  least  tamely  light  the 
goodman  home. 


CH.  xix]  CELLE  261 

And  to  exemplify  the  fact  that  the  German  peasant 
farmer  chose,  and  I  believe  does  still  choose,  to  have 
his  ox  and  his  ass  and  everything  that  is  his  or  his 
feudal  lord's  within  doors  at  night,  the  byre  is  next 
to  the  Stube,  with  only  a  door  between.   The  patient 
beasts,   the    farmer's   daylong  companions   of   the 
furrow,  are  gathered  into  his  peace  when  all  their 
work  is  done.    No  distant  defenceless  stable  for  these 
good  servants,  and  stumbling  pilgrimages  over  the 
rough  cobbled  yard  at  night,  by  the  light  of  an  in- 
effectual lantern  for  him,  roused  from  his  slumbers 
by  a  summoning  moo  or  whinny  !     I  can  imagine 
scenes  like  a  "Nativity"  by  Rembrandt — the  good- 
man  sitting  by  his  fire  surrounded  by  his  family,  in 
the  one  room,  among  the  flickering  shadows,  and 
watching,   with    the    sleepy   paternal    eye   of  the 
shepherd,  the  oily  rafters   of  the  stable,  and  the 
dung  floor  that  reflects  no  firelight  rays ;  listening, 
though  he  cannot  see  in  the  dim  penumbra,  to  the 
patient  ox  nosing  at   the  props  of  his   stall.  .  .  . 
And  on  Christmas  Eve,  when,  as  the  legend  says, 
these  humblest  servants  of  all  are  granted  the  gift 
of  speech  in  remembrance  of  the  Christ-Child  Who 
once  deigned  to  lie  in  their  midst  nor  scorned  them, 
I  can  fancy  some  Madchen  or  Junker — aware  of  the 
wonderful  miracle  that  may  even  then  be  passing — 
leaving  his  warm  place  in  the  light,  and  stealing  into 
the  dim  stable  to  listen  to  the  beasts  that  speak  then 
and  then  only,  on  that  night  of  memories. 

And  having  lived  with  the  Peasant  awhile,  we 
came  away,  and  attuned  ourselves  to  the  greater, 
finer  life  of  the  Prince.  The  Schloss  of  Celle  is  just 
opposite  the  museum.   In  the  old  engravings  we  see 


idJ  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xix 

it  with  a  full  moat  and  four  large  tourelles,  with 
sprightly  flags  flying  at  the  four  corners  of  all  of 
them.  It  is  difficult  to  realize  the  defensible  nature 
of  the  old  building  now  that  the  flanking  towers  are 
gone,  replaced  by  ugly,  shapeless,  yellow  buttresses 
that  seem  to  lean  up  against  the  main  fabric  rather 
than  support  it.  The  moat  is  filled  up,  occupied  by 
peaceful  shell  walks  and  low,  scrubby  trees.  An  old 
man  who  keeps  chickens  is  custodian,  and  his 
daughter  shows  you  round.  He  is  an  old  army 
officer,  whose  military  services  have  been  thus 
rewarded.  That  is  the  way  they  save  the  Govern- 
ment's money  in  Germany.*  Instead  of  giving  a 
pension  to  a  retired  military  man,  he  is  appointed  to 
a  nice  soft  place  such  as  custodian  of  this  kind,  or  he 
is  made  a  railway  station-master. 

Inside  there  is  no  sign  of  rack  and  ruin.  The 
whole  place  gives  the  impression  of  cheer,  ease,  and 
comfort.  It  reminded  me  of  some  old,  chintz- 
covered,    lightly-papered    English    country  -  house. 

*  It  is  the  way  they  do  it  in  England,  too;  or  what  are 
Hampton  Court  Palace  and  Chelsea  Hospital,  with  their  rooms 
and  appointments  for  servants  of  the  State,  for  ?  This,  in  fact, 
is  the  way  international  comparisons  get  written.  A  German 
officer,  A.D.,  gets  a  pension  like  any  other  officer,  and  although 
every  railway  official  was  once  a  soldier,  that  is  only  because 
every  male  German  is,  or  was  once,  a  soldier.  The  railway 
services  belonging  to  the  various  States  may  be  entered  by  any 

officer  on  his  retirement  from  the  army,  and  if,  like  Major  W , 

whom  our  author  has  frequently  mentioned,  he  be  a  skilful 
engineer,  he  will  be  employed  to  build  new  railway-lines  and  may 
become  in  time  chief  engineer  of  one  of  the  great  systems,  which 
is,  of  course,  a  very  good  post.  But  the  same  career  is  open  to 
any  civilian  after  he  has  performed  his  two  or  one  year's  military 
service. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  xix]  CELLE  263 

There  is  plenty  of  faded  tapestry  of  a  French 
character  hung  on  the  walls  of  the  lower  rooms 
and  covering  the  sofas.  In  the  upper  ones  the  old 
paper  still  hangs  on  the  walls,  and  it  is  generally  a 
Chinese  wall-paper,  such  as  one  sees  in  English 
country-houses,  with  pagodas  and  strange,  long- 
tailed  birds  flying  about  among  twisted  boughs. 
At  the  very  top  is  the  theatre,  a  round  arena  built 
into  a  square  apartment.  The  chapel  is  down  below, 
and  there  is  Caroline  Matilda's  pew  where  she  sat 
and  mourned  her  fall ;  and  the  Duke  of  Celle's  great 
pew  where  his  daughter,  the  other  discrowned 
Queen,  must  have  sat  and  worshipped  in  her 
happier  days. 

It  was  not  far  from  here  that  she  expiated  her 
errors,  if  errors  they  were,  and  lived  for  thirty 
years  as  Princess  of  Ahlden.  Sophia  Dorothea's 
enthusiastic  biographer,  the  late  W.  H.  Wilkins, 
found  his  way  to  Ahlden  on  the  marshes  and  gives  a 
picture  of  it  in  his  book.  It  is  not  very  like  a  castle ; 
it  is  more  like  a  court-house,  which,  I  believe,  it  is 
or  was  used  for.  It  reminds  me,  too,  of  a  fortified 
Northumbrian  manor-house  or  rectory  such  as  I 
saw  last  year  at  Embleton  and  Elsdon.  It  is  situated 
in  an  unhealthy,  low-lying  marsh — so  Mr.  Wilkins 
told  me — and  flat  it  is,  for  all  the  world  like  a  piece 
of  Cambridgeshire.  From  his  description  I  used  to 
make  myself  see  a  characteristic  scene,  inspired  by 
jny  knowledge  of  the  curious  tic  Sophia  Dorothea 
had  for  furious  driving.  A  long  low  road,  stretching 
out  over  flat  marsh-lands  for  six  miles,  and  cross- 
ing a  little  bridge  at  Hayden,  and  over  this  road, 
in  an  open  carriage  in  all  weathers,  a  lady  with  black 


264  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xix 

hair  and  diamonds  in  it,  drives  furiously  backwards 
and  forwards  as  far  as  the  bridge,  many  times  in 
the  day,  for  thirty  years.  An  escort  of  cavalry, 
their  drawn  swords  flashing  with  another  sheen 
than  diamonds  in  the  low  light,  rides  always 
behind  her. 

But  no  one,  either  in  Hanover  or  Celle,  seemed 
able  to  tell  me  anything  about  Ahlden,  and  I  had  to 
give  up  the  idea  of  seeing  it,  except  with  the  eyes 
of  my  head.  It  was  only  another  Schloss :  Germany 
is  studded  all  over  with  them.  Germany  would 
seem  to  have  had  more  potentates  to  the  square 
mile  than  any  other  country.  I  never  realized  till  I 
had  lived  in  Germany  the  true  incidence  of  the 
Prussian  hegemony.  A  kingdom  may  occupy  no 
more  space  than  a  good-sized  pocket-handkerchief; 
yet  it  boasts  a  Schloss  or  palace  in  which  the  owner 
lives  or  not  according  to  his  fulfilment  of  the  pact 
with  Prussia.  The  Duke  of  Hessen-Darmstadt  has 
a  large  patrimony  and  plenty  of  other  places,  and 
his  palace  at  Giessen  makes  a  very  useful  barrack. 
The  Prince  of  Lippe  is  lord  of  a  spring,  so  he  has 
instituted  a  Kur. 

And  as  for  architecture  and  appearance,  palaces 
and  Schlosses  are  all  different.  Bieberich,  for 
instance,  is  like  an  Enghsh  country-house — a  pale 
yellow  mass  of  buildings  built  round  a  courtyard. 
Celle  was  once  fortified,  as  I  have  said,  but  it  is  so 
no  longer.  .  .  . 

Hear  what  Caroline  Matilda,  the  English  Princess 
who  dragged  out  her  last  weary  days  of  banishment 
at  Celle  and  prayed  for  resignation  in  the  chapel 
there,  said  about  the  palaces  she  saw  as  she  passed 


CH.  xix]  CELLE  265 

through  Germany  on  her  way  to  take  up  her  royal 
state  at  Copenhagen  as  the  wife  of  Christian  of 
Denmark.  I  found  her  remarks  in  a  httle  French 
version  of  her  Memoirs  that  I  picked  up  on  the 
quays  in  Paris. 

She  was  an  ahen,  but  hardly  a  desirable  one,  so 
her  mother-in-law  said.  She  seems  to  have  had 
plenty  of  spirit  until  they  broke  it  for  her  in  her 
country  of  adoption,  beheaded  her  lover,  the 
physician,  and  imprisoned  her,  till  our  Ambassador, 
Lord  Keith,  insisted  on  taking  her  away.  She 
wrote  ;  she  read  ;  she  had  quoted  Hamlet  in 
England  a  propos  of  her  intended  marriage — "  To 
be,  or  not  to  be !" — i.e.^  "  Shall  I  marry  Christian  ?" 
And  this  is  what  she  says  about  the  sauvagerie  of 
her  father's  German  relations  : 

"  Every  two  or  three  leagues,"  so  she  avers,  "  we 
seemed  to  pass  into  the  territory  of  a  different 
Sovereign.  Sometimes  I  went  by  without  even 
discovering  that  I  was  in  the  capital  town  of 
yet  another  Princeling.  There  they  live,  these 
Counts  and  Barons  of  the  Holy  Empire,  in  tumble- 
down castles  with  towers  and  turrets,  and  which 
they  can  only  afford  to  half  inhabit.  They  all  brag 
of  their  illustrious  ancestry,  and  when  once  I  had 
seen  their  wretched  places  for  myself  I  was  able  to 
believe  their  boast,  since  it  was  plain  they  really 
had  lived  in  them  from  time  immemorial.  .  .  . 
There's  more  comfort  and  elegance  to  be  found  in 
the  country-house  of  a  Londoner,  than  in  any  one 
of  these  dreary  abodes,  hung  with  rotten  tapestries, 
where  some  Serene  Highness  or  other  dies  of  ennui, 
though  he  lives  in  all  the  pomp  of  a  monarch,  with 


i^  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xix 

a  suite — people  called  JEcuyers,  Grand  Ecuyers, 
High  Chamberlains — and  all  unpaid.  ..." 

She  was  evidently,  as  the  custom  was,  put  up  for 
the  night  at  some  of  these  dilapidated  residences, 
or  at  any  rate  taken  to  the  owners  of  them,  for  she 
speaks  contemptuously  of  their  women,  "  sitting 
inanimate  in  their  own  drawing-rooms  like  the  wax 
figures  that  are  kept  at  Westminster." 

And  we  went  on  to  Osnabriick,  where  a  stage  of 
the  other  Hanoverian  tragedy  was  enacted.  For 
when  Sophia  Dorothea,  the  wife  of  our  first  George, 
lay  on  her  deathbed  in  the  castle  of  Ahlden,  she 
raved,  she  denounced  her  husband,  the  King  of 
England,  and  she  wrote  or  dictated,  so  the  story 
says,  a  letter  to  be  delivered  to  him,  after  her 
death.  And  the  same  story  says  that  it  was  de- 
livered nine  months  afterwards  to  the  King  when 
he  landed  on  his  biennial  visit  to  his  other  less 
important  but  more  darling  kingdom  of  Hanover. 
The  receipt  of  it  brought  on  the  apoplectic  stroke 
that  he  did  not  recover  from.  Moaning  and  crying 
out,  the  red,  puffy,  unwholesome  little  old  man  put 
his  head  out  of  the  carriage  window  and  passion- 
ately urged  the  postilions  forward.  "  Osnabriick  I 
Osnabriick !"  he  mumbled,  as  his  faculties  became 
more  and  more  bemused.  His  brother  was  Bishop 
of  Osnabriick,  and  he  wanted  to  die  in  the  palace 
there.  He  knew  he  must  die ;  a  fortune-teller  had 
assured  him  long  ago  in  England  that  his  wife's 
death  would  only  too  surely  herald  his  own.  It  is 
hinted  that  Sophia  Dorothea's  own  span  might  have 
been  shorter,  and  her  existence  made  less  tolerable, 
if  this  superstitious  idea  had  not  taken  solid  root  in 


CH.  xix]  CELLE  267 

the  mind  of  George.  He  was  a  mass  of  supersti- 
tions, and  his  spirit  kept  its  word  and  visited  the 
Duchess  of  Kendal — i.e.,  Kielsmansegge,  the  lady 
whose  yellow  cloak  Sophia  Dorothea  had  mocked — 
after  death.  She  was  used  to  swear  that  into  the 
window  of  her  room  at  Richmond  a  white  dove  flew, 
and  that  it  was  the  ghost  of  her  royal  lover. 

The  shabbiness,  the  vapidness,  as  of  an  old,  bat- 
tered, tattered,  two-shilling,  yellow-back  novel,  of 
OsnabrUck  struck  me  to  the  soul.  And  yet  we 
stayed  in  it,  in  a  mouldering  hotel,  very  big,  very 
vast,  with  enormous  rooms  opening  through  tall 
oppressive  folding-doors  into  other  enormous  rooms ; 
we  slept  in  little,  cheap  iron  bedsteads  that  sneaked 
in  the  corners,  leaving  vast  unoccupied  spaces  of 
moth-eaten  carpet  where  a  bed  with  a  baldaquin 
and  tester  should  have  reared  its  proud  head.  I 
was  very  glad  it  didn't,  though  !  It  was  impossible 
to  eat  in  the  hotel.  There  were  only  two  restaurants 
in  Osnabriick,  and  they  were  no  better  qua  food 
than  the  hotel,  only  the  table  linen  was  clean  and 
mended.  It  was  a  city  of  desolation  to  me,  but  yet 
it  was  a  handsome  city.  It  had  parks  and  walks 
laid  out  on  the  ramparts,  and  two  churches  and  a 
Bishop's  palace — the  palace  that  George  tried  to 
attain  to,  but  did  not.  There  was  nothing  to  do 
there ;  there  was  not  even  a  cinematograph.  One 
night  we  went  to  a  smoking  concert  in  a  Biergarten 
and  heard  miners  sing  through  a  long,  interminable 
programme.  And  yet  they  sang  very  well.  In  the 
afternoons  we  walked  along  one  of  the  three  straight 
allees  laid  out  on  the  ramparts  and  stared  at  the 
queer,  reticent  old  Bishop's  palace  on  the  other  side. 


268  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xix 

One  of  these  three  allees  had  a  board  up  bearing 
the  words  :  "  Only  for  Old  Ladies  " ;  another  was 
"  Verboten  to  Old  Ladies  " ;  the  third  was  reserved 
for  Cavaliers.*  There  was  probably  some  reason 
for  this,  but  I  never  discovered  what  it  was,  or  in 
which  allee  I  was  to  walk.  Supposing  I,  as  an  old 
lady,  wished  to  visit  a  cousin  at  the  end  of  the  park 
in  company  with  Joseph  Leopold ;  supposing  I 
needed  the  support  of  his  stalwart  arm  ?  It  could 
not  be  done.  I  should  have  to  walk  in  the  allee 
that  was  only  for  old  ladies ;  he,  in  that  forbidden 
to  my  kind,  and  the  whole  allee  reserved  for 
cavaliers  would  be  between  us  I 

*  I  do  not  believe  that  these  notice-boards  ever  existed.  Our 
author  was  probably  hypnotized  into  seeing  them  by  the  English 
belief  that  such  things  exist  in  Germany.  Of  course  many  notice- 
boards  exist  in  that  fertile  and  regulated  land.  In  almost  every 
public  place  you  will  read  on  one  seat  the  words  :  "  Only  for 
children,"  and  on  the  next :  "  Forbidden  to  children."  Perhaps 
once  in  Brunswick  City  there  was  an  Obertribunal  procurator, 
whose  children  put  out  their  tongues  at  an  infirm  but  disagree 
able  Lady-in- Waiting  to  the  Serenity.  Such  things  happen.  Then, 
to  avoid  scandal  between  these  important  functionaries,  to  avoid 
Court  intrigues,  the  fall  of  Ministries  and  possible  revolutions,  the 
benevolent  Prince  would  order  that  children  and  old  ladies 
should  be  separated — and  very  sensibly,  too. — J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CHAPTER  XX 

TRIER 

We  had  been  in  four  countries  that  day,  I  thought, 
with  a  shiver  of  globe-trotting  pride,  as  I  turned  in 
that  night.  From  a  bed  in  Paris  it  was  that  I  had 
arisen  that  morning.  In  the  course  of  the  day  we 
had  passed  through  Belgium,  looked  in  at  the 
Grand-duchy  of  Luxembourg,  and,  misliking  it,  had 
packed  into  the  train  again  and  come  across  the 
frontier  back  into  Germany.  We  could  truly  say, 
that  morning  when  we  paid  our  bill  in  Paris,  we 
were  all  unwitting  that  we  should  sleep  in  Germany. 
That  was  the  fun  of  it.  Our  country  drew  us 
unknowingly  to  its  bosom. 

Luxembourg  was  a  fraud.  Joseph  Leopold  had 
always  had  a  weakness  for  Luxembourg.  It  is 
small  and  independent ;  a  buffer  State  between  two 
great  antagonistic  Powers ;  a  capital  that  has  never 
been  taken.  For  that  it  has  to  thank  its  impreg- 
nable position.  It  has  a  coinage,  a  set  of  postage- 
stamps,  quite  nice  and  suitable  little  laws.  Nobody 
ever  seems  to  be  naughty  there,  and  nobody  makes 
trouble ;  nobody  is  looking  for  it. 

And  so  we  went  to  Luxembourg.  We  got  out 
of  the  train  about  one  o'clock,  and,  says  Joseph 

269 


270  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xx 

Leopold,  picturesquely  recounting  the  tale  of  our 
brief  descent  upon  the  city,  I  gave  one  wild  scream 
and  desired  to  brush  its  mud  from  off  my  boots  at 
once.  I  did  not  scream.  I  sniffed  and  said  that 
Luxembourg  was  to  me  like  a  place  in  a  dream,  an 
ugly  dream  of  suburbia.  That  was  all  I  said  then, 
and  although  I  have  been  driven  to  mention  the 
particular  district  of  suburban  London  of  which 
Luxembourg  reminds  me,  I  will  not  do  so  again, 
because  a  distinguished  novelist  of  my  acquaintance 
lives  there,  and  has  protested. 

We  spent  in  this  truly  blessed  town  two  hours, 
and  in  that  short  space  I  realized  what  the  perfect 
State,  as  designed  by  a  Radical  House  of  Commons, 
and  which,  by  means  of  Insurance  Bills  and  other 
forms  of  grandmotherly  legislation  they  are  now 
hoping  to  inaugurate  in  good  old  naughty  England, 
would  be  like.  It  is  also  the  poet  Wordsworth's 
personal  ideal  multiplied  by  numbers  : 

"To  sit  without  ambition,  hope,  or  aim, 
And  listen  to  the  flapping  of  the  flame 
And  kettle  singing  its  faint  undersong." 

And  one  pictures  the  inhabitants  of  this  dignified 
city,  socially  a  cut  above  Wordsworth  and  the  cottage 
at  Rydal,  sitting  behind  stucco-marbled  pilasters,  in 
gardens  full  of  pot-shrubs,  listening  to  the  sudden 
jar  of  the  embers  in  the  heated  stoves,  eating  in- 
digestible cakes,  and  meditating  their  reasonable 
alliances,  their  gentle  business  bargains,  their 
seasonable  deaths,  or  simply  thinking  of  nothing  at 
all.  This  may  not  be  so — I  do  not  state  it  as  a  fact 
for  one  moment.     I   was  in  no  private   house  of 


CH.  xx]  TRIER  271 

Luxembourg,  except  a  mild  cafe,  a  quiet  post-office, 
a  respectable  church.  But  I  seemed  to  feel  this  sort 
of  thing  going  on  in  the  white  plastered  houses 
ensconced  in  gardens  full  of  shrubs,  behind  reticu- 
lated stuccoed  balustrades,  like  A Road,  or,  let 

us  say,  Palace  Gardens — both  streets  where  even 
art  nouveau  has  not  penetrated. 

It  may  not  be,  but  I  think  that  no  Luxembourgeois 
would  be  capable  of  crime — splendid  crime,  at  least. 
History  only  records  one  crime,  and  that  is  a  mean 
one.  The  Bastard  of  Luxembourg  sold  Joan  of 
Arc  to  the  English  for  a  few  hundred  crowns. 

The  reason  Luxembourg  has  never  been  taken  is 
its  position,  coupled  with  its  want  of  importance. 
The  town  is  situated  on  a  vast  rambling  series  of 
hills  surrounded  by  a  sort  of  wide  natural  moat 
approached  by  long  bridges  built  over  the  valley 
from  all  sides.  Two  rivers  flowing  right  through 
would  connect  it,  in  case  of  a  siege,  with  the 
material  resources  of  the  outer  world.  But  as  yet 
war  has  not  menaced  Luxembourg.  The  florid 
gardens  of  the  citizens,  with  their  stucco  bastions, 
hang  over  the  embattled  steep,  and  the  noise  of 
gracefully  dripping  fountains  fills  the  air.  .  .  . 

We  bought  some  stamps  and  some  postcards, 
changed  some  money  and  got  some  Luxembourg 
coins  in  exchange.  These  we  took  as  curiosities. 
(Specimens  of  them  lurk  in  my  purse  to  this  day, 
wherewith  I  affront  peaceable  citizens  in  England, 
France,  and  Germany.)  And  then  we  took  the  train 
for  a  town  in  Germany,  Treves — or  Trier,  as  I  am 
bound  to  call  it. 

Trier  is  more  or  less  a  frontier  town.    There  is 


272  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xx 

that  feeling  about  it  all  the  time.  One  seems  to 
hear  the  uncertain  twittering  of  embarrassed  peoples, 
living  on  the  edge  of  one  civilization  where  it  merges 
into  another.  The  want  of  character  of  the  duchy 
is  in  dreary  juxtaposition  to  the  cranky  national 
idiosyncrasies  of  a  borderland  of  German  people. 

We  got  in  about  eleven  o'clock  at  night.  We 
consumed,  naturally,  the  unfailing  Wiener-Schnitzel 
(generally  a  safe  draw  in  Germany)  at  the  station, 
and  then  walked  along  into  the  town,  in  search  of  an 
hotel  indicated  by  the  waiter.  It  was  a  very  dark 
and  dull  night. 

The  sight  of  Trier  to  a  woman  who  has  never 
seen  Rome  and  never  hopes  to  do  so — I  do  not,  be 
it  observed,  say  hopes  never  to  do  so — is  something 
stupendous.  And  Joseph  Leopold,  who  has  seen 
Rome — had  just  come  from  thence,  in  fact — when 
we  entered  Trier  by  the  Porta  Nigra  was  very 
nearly  as  deeply  impressed  as  I.  We  walked  from 
the  station.  The  streets  were  dark,  lighted  only  by 
the  average  city  illumination,  as  we  approached  a 
slight  ditch,  answering  to  the  raising  of  the  soil's 
level  in  the  course  of  two  thousand  years,  and  in 
that  ditch  we  saw  a  mass  of  crumbling  masonry, 
huge,  portentously  old,  cruel  and  jagged-looking. 
That  was  all. 

On  our  left  was  the  great  modern  hotel,  "  The 
Porta  Nigra,"  outfacing  the  town  lights  with  the 
glare  of  its  restaurant,  and  here  was  its  ancient 
namesake,  the  great  gate  of  the  old  Roman  town  of 
Trier,  dull,  lonely,  unlighted.  Two  tram  -  lines, 
dipping  into  the  shallow  ditch,  passed  round  it,  like 
an  ambulant  girdle  of  light,  and  then  coalesced. 


CH.  xx]  TRIER  273 

The  gate  is  for  all  the  world  like  the  fitoile,  or  the 
Marble  Arch.  But  it  is  not  rtante,  or  commonplace 
like  those  two;  it  is  grim  and  sardonic,  hopeless  and 
left  behind,  majestic  in  its  indifference.  It  has  none 
of  the  well-to-do  spruceness  of  a  gate  in  which  a 
concierge  lives.  The  citizens  do  well  not  to  light  it ; 
they  merely  allow  it  to  be  girt  round  with  the 
rattling,  glaring  evidence  of  civilization.  I  had 
never  seen  anything  like  it. 

By  daylight  it  is  hardly  less  portentous,  though 
the  stone  looks  greyer,  more  powdery,  and  patched 
in  places.  It  reminded  me  of  an  old  hollow  tooth, 
or  of  another  ruin  of  equal  caducity  of  aspect — 
that  is,  the  very  oldest  tree  at  Burnham  Beeches. 
And  it  is  quite  hollow,  like  those  majestic  wrecks. 
The  custodian's  room,  built  in  modern  medieval 
times  by  some  dead  and  gone  Bishop,  has  fallen 
also  to  decay;  the  arched  galleries  where  the 
Roman  soldiers  walked  and  sighted  arrivals,  the 
conning-towers  whence  they  flashed  their  wireless 
messages,  are  less  frittered  and  crumbled  than 
those  trees.  But,  as  the  child  said  of  the  elephant, 
it  looks  so  big  it  can't  all  of  it  die.  There  is  no 
reason  why  these  swart  ungainly  lumps  of  stone, 
laid  together  and  cemented  with  the  faultless 
Roman  mortar,  should  ever  disintegrate.  It  is  not 
a  flimsy  structure  like  St.  Paul's  in  London,  which 
the  loaded  trams,  the  underground  tubes  can  sha':e 
into  disruption. 

I  saw  once,  in  childhood,  a  picture  of  the  Porta 
Nigra  in  my  German  history  book,  and  I  recognized 
the  original  with  a  positive  flash  of  gladness.  But 
the  little  cut  over  Mrs.  Markham's  twelfth  chapter 

18 


274  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xx 

does  not  give  the  massive  solidity  of  the  heap  of 
stones  that  came  to  stay,  and  has  stayed,  and  will 
stay. 

Trier  w^as  Roman,  and  is  Roman  still.  I  felt  it  there 
keenly — the  continuity  of  races,  and  the  basic  value 
of  Rome — just  as  I  do  in  France  at  Carcassonne,  in 
England  at  Old  Sarum,  and  in  every  place  where 
Rome  has  been,  has  washed  in,  pushing  its  irre- 
sistible tide  of  conquest.  One  realizes  the  patient, 
stolid,  plodding  staying-power  which  makes  Rome 
seem  so  young  and  vital — everywhere  but  in  Rome. 
There,  I  am  told,  the  sense  of  solidity  and  endur- 
ance have  cracked  and  been  burnt  out  with  the 
scarifying  heat  and  sun  of  centuries.  Anyhow,  one 
never  gets  away  from  Rome  anywhere  else.  Why 
should  one  ?  Rome  is  very  recent,  viewed  with 
that  strong  sense  of  continuity  of  time  which  is 
mine. 

The  first  day  I  was  in  Trier  I  took  a  walk  up  the 
hills  on  the  Luxembourg  side.  I  saw  the  monu- 
ment of  Ygel,  so  like  the  monument  at  St.  Remy. 
I  passed  the  Marien  Saule,  a  figure  of  the  Virgin, 
with  her  crown,  composed  of  stars,  lit  up  at  night  by 
the  town  electric  works,  and  placed  on  a  Roman 
altar  to  some  General  or  other.  I  looked  on  the 
glancing  white,  low-roofed  houses  of  the  plain,  the 
delicate,  deliberate  slope  of  the  arched  bridges  that 
spanned  the  Mosel ;  I  noticed  the  ferry,  the  large, 
black  caulked  boat,  worked  by  pulleys  and  levers  on 
the  Roman  system.  Then  my  eyes  harked  back  to 
pick  out  the  Roman  buildings,  the  palace  of  the 
Caesars,  the  Basilica,  the  Porta  Nigra,  isolated  by 
its  ring  of  tram-lines,  and  the  faint  tracings  of  the 


CH.  xx]  TRIER  275 

foundations  of  the  Baths.  The  Arena  is  hidden 
behind  a  low  hill  with  trees.  There  is  all  Rome, 
its  royalty,  its  religion,  its  health,  its  amusements. 
The  Basilica  is  complete  and  as  ugly  as  it  ever  was. 
The  small  portion  of  the  ruined  palace  of  Constantine 
seems  as  important  as  the  whole  of  any  ordinary 
restored  medieval  castle ;  it  makes  up  in  massive- 
ness  and  weight  for  what  it  has  lost  in  wall 
space.  It  is  an  empty  shell — granted — but  the 
shell  of  a  roc's  egg,  or,  to  use  another  zoological 
comparison,  the  rotundities  broadening  at  the  base 
of  its  four  bastions,  like  an  elephant's  feet,  seem 
planted  firmly  on  the  soil  for  ever.  Yes,  seen  from 
the  Marienhohe,  Trier  must  have  looked,  those  few 
poor  hundred  years  ago,  when  Constantine,  fighting 
at  Neumagen,  made  his  splendid  speech,  much  as  it 
looks  to-day. 

And  with  characteristic  German  thoroughness, 
the  worthy  dispassionate  guide-books  take  pains  to 
acquaint  one  with  all  the  e'iapes  of  wilful  neglect 
which  the  vestiges  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  two 
wanton  centuries  that  preceded  our  two.  This  gener- 
ation is  so  proud  of  them  I  The  Baths,  now  they  are 
excavated,  are  laid  out,  the  different  levels  accounted 
for,  and  the  foundations,  where  not  even  foundations 
exist,  carefully  made,  put  in  the  plans  sold  by  the 
polite  custodian.  But  of  the  Baths  themselves  there 
is  nothing  left  but  a  few  props  of  the  hypocausts, 
pillars,  and  an  uneven,  broken-up  floor  or  so.  It  re- 
minds one  very  much  of  the  basement  of  a  large  Lon- 
don house  after  the  house-breakers  have  done  their 
worst.  Still,  in  innocent  self-damnation,  there  are 
given,  at  the  back  of  the  plan,  views  of  the  buildings 


276  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xx 

as  they  existed  two  centuries  ago.  "  Siidfagade 
bis  zum  Jahre,  1610,"  and  again,  "  Innen  Aussicht, 
1610."  Both  cuts  show  fine  upstanding  groups  of 
masonry,  rising  to  one  story  in  most  cases,  some- 
times to  two,  portals,  arches,  all  crumbling,  but  a 
building  still,  not  a  basement.  So  it  is  obvious  that 
up  to  1610  holes  might  have  been  stopped,  lead 
roofs  put  on,  necessary  reparations  made,  a  little  of 
the  civic  money  spent,  whose  sum  would  gladly  be 
doubled,  tripled  by  the  antiquarian  societies  of  to- 
day. Best  of  all,  the  general  process  of  "  lifting," 
winked  at  all  over  the  world,  might  have  been  pre- 
vented, instead  of  being  encouraged.  Then  the 
stones  of  Trier,  of  Carcassonne,  of  Borcovicus  on 
the  Roman  wall,  would  not  have  been  filched.  Now- 
adays, they  "  stop  a  hole,  t'expel  the  winter's  flaw  " 
in  the  cottage  of  some  yokel,  leaning  slavishly 
against  some  of  the  grandest  bits  of  masonry  in  the 
world.  Whole  villages  would  not  have  grown  up, 
like  toadstools  in  a  forest  of  arching  trees,  built  of 
stones  prigged,  without  manorial  or  seigneurial  re- 
proach, from  the  patient  unconsidered  ruin  near  by. 

But  nobody  knew  or  cared  anything  about  anti- 
quities in  those  two  dreadful  centuries.  Read 
Giovanni  Casanova,  who  did  his  courting  of  the 
Roman  girls  "  dans  quelques  vieilles  mines  tom- 
bantes  " — great  chunks  of  villa  and  gate  and  circus, 
extant  then  and  standable  on,  that  have  simply  disap- 
peared to-day  !  In  those  days  Nature  alone  was 
worshipped — and  not  even  Nature  very  much — on 
the  Continent. 

In  England  a  few  protests  were  made  by  local  anti- 
quaries— dry-as-dust  inhuman  people  like  Surtees 


CH.  XX]  TRIER  9fT 

and  Raine — but  Strawberry  Hill  Gothic  was  not 
condemned,  and  Walter  Scott  collogued  with  these 
Vandals  in  disguise  and  built  Abbotsford. 

The  arena  at  Trier  has  in  the  nature  of  things 
not  suffered  so  deeply  as  the  baths.  There  was 
less  to  carry  off,  only  a  circle  of  stone  seats  and  a 
couple  of  chariot  entrances,  for  most  of  the  business 
was  conducted  below.  The  great  circle  has  been 
excavated — it  is  all  lightly  grass-grown — the  three 
tiers  of  seats,  the  two  entrances,  and  a  half-dozen 
or  so  of  bins  at  the  sides  for  the  wild  beasts,  which 
the  eager  crowds  looked  at  and  poked  up  while  they 
waited  for  the  real  fun  to  begin,  and  the  victims 
brought  up  by  the  lift  to  the  trap-door  and  planked 
down  ready  for  the  carnage.  The  zealous  Ger- 
man antiquaries  have  excavated  below.  We  went 
down,  led  by  our  old  soldier  of  a  guide,  into  a 
ghastly  pit  of  shining  mud  and  glassy  pools  of 
water,  holding  in  solution  all  that  is  left  of  the 
original  floor  of  the  basement.  And  in  recondite 
caverns  leading  off  from  the  main  underground 
parterre,  the  victims  were  penned.  Here  was  the 
lift  that  brought  them,  dazed  and  brutalized,  up 
to  the  light  of  day  and  death.  The  mouldering 
joists  of  the  lift  machinery  are  still  here :  the 
Roman  had  every  convenience  that  an  inventive, 
a  cool  and  calculating  mind  could  suggest. 
«  «  «  «  « 

It  is  one  of  the  insane  peculiarities  of  the  tempes- 
tuous, restless,  German  nature  of  Joseph  Leopold 
that  he  is  incapable  of  spending  what  is  called  a 
quiet  evening  at  home.  He  must  be  out,  and  he 
must  drag  his  womankind  out  with  him  too.     When 


278  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xx 

we  are  staying  in  hotels  there  is  some  justifiable 
excuse  for  this  course,  at  all  events  in  German 
hotels ;  for  in  these  there  is  no  drawing-room — in 
its  primary  sense  of  withdrawing  room.  When  you 
have  dined  or  supped,  you — a  Dame,  or  even  a  Frau 
— have  nowhere  to  retire  to  except  your  bedroom  or 
the  Schreibzimmer.  Now,  the  exceedingly  unso- 
ciable and  grotesque  arrangement  and  appointments 
of  the  Schreibzimmer  would  lead  one  to  suppose 
that  every  German's  correspondence  is  of  a  dark 
and  secret  nature,  for  one  is  expected  to  sit  severally 
in  a  sort  of  cubicle  or  bin,  and  the  traitorous  move- 
ments of  one's  pen  are  hidden  by  a  series  of  glass 
shields  erected  between  the  writer  and  the  tenant 
of  the  next  compartment. 

"  There  is  always  the  smoking-room,"  I  hear 
someone  exclaim,  I  know  that  my  sex  frequently 
does  penetrate  to  this  desecrated  male  holy  of 
holies,  but  that  is  in  the  larger  hotels,  where  there 
is,  of  course,  a  drawing-room  as  well  as  a  lounge, 
and  it  is  pure  feminine  perversity  which  suggests 
a  raid  on  exclusively  male  quarters.  But  the  adven- 
turous female  who  wishes  to  follow  her  husband 
and  share  his  after-dinner  cigarette  with  him  must 
make  up  her  mind  to  reverse  the  proceeding  and 
follow  her  Orpheus  into  a  milder  sort  of  hell,  rank 
with  tobacco  fumes ;  its  rough  wooden  tables  littered 
with  Schoppen  and  pools  of  spilt  beer;  a  region 
whose  reigning  Pluto  does  not  want  Eurydice  at 
any  price.  It  is  never  done.  I  once  saw  two  high- 
bred English  ladies  peering  disconsolately  into  the 
extremely  Teniers-like  interior  of  the  Weinstube  of 
a  certain  hotel  at  Trier,  looking  earnestly  for  the 


CH.  XX]  TRIER  279 

usual  stuffy  apartment  with  dull  stained -glass 
windows  giving  on  to  the  mews,  but  glorious 
within  in  the  style  of  Liberty,  set  with  palms  whose 
genesis  is  wrapped  in  scarves,  and  dotted  with 
tables  bearing  travellers'  Bibles  and  hotel  advertise- 
ments, and  pens  that  won't  write. 

"  What  ?  No  drawing-room  ?"  they  cried,  and 
flounced  out. 

So  after  dinner  I  put  a  Schleier  over  my  head, 
and  we  go  out  into  the  square  front  of  the  Hotel 
zur  Post  and  turn  a  corner  and  find  ourselves  in 
one  of  the  little  narrow,  stone-paved  streets  of  which 
the  old  town  of  Trier  is  composed.  The  gables  of 
the  houses  seem,  in  the  dimness,  to  peer  down  on 
us  and  brush  our  shoulders.  Ten  to  one,  after  we 
have  been  walking  for  five  minutes  or  two,  we  meet 
the  ambulant  police  officer  with  his  quiet,  sullen- 
looking  dog.  He  peeps,  gently,  and  with  no  great 
effect  of  excessive  vigilance,  down  this  or  that  dark 
valley,  into  dusky  entries ;  he  examines  tall  porte 
cocheres  where  dusky  forms  wait  and  linger.  The 
German  streets  are  the  constant  scene  of  crime  and 
violence.  Yet,  though  people  are  nervous,  they  are 
so  distrustful  of  the  police  that  they  subscribe  to 
Watchman  Societies  in  the  hopes  of  sleeping  sound 
o'  nights.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  German  police 
are  dishonest  and  untrustworthy.  The  post  of 
policeman  is  the  usual  appanage  of  a  non-com- 
missioned officer,  and  he  is  no  good.  Having  no 
traditions,  no  point  of  honour,  he  is  utterly  unfitted 
for  the  responsible  post  of  guardian  of  the  liberty 
of  the  subjects  of  the  Kaiser. 

My  Aunt  Emma,  in  her  lonely  villa  at   B , 


3§o  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xx 

resembling  a  villa  at  Surbiton  or  Laleham,  has  like- 
wise no  great  opinion  of  her  national  police.  So, 
although  she  subscribes  with  her  neighbours  to 
employ  a  private  constable  to  watch  her  door  at  night, 
she  prefers  to  make  assurance  doubly  sure,  and  sets 
a  thief  to  catch  a  thief,  as  it  were.  A  clever 
mechanical  contrivance  in  the  nature  of  a  clock  is 
attached  to  her  front  door.  The  trusty  watchman, 
passing  to  and  fro  on  his  beat  every  ten  minutes,  is 
bound  to  punch  the  clock  every  time,  and  the 
incorruptible  instrument  registers  the  punch.  So 
much  for  Aunt  Emma,  who  is  very  old  and  very 
wise,  for  so  far  her  watchman,  his  morals  reinforced 
by  this  clock,  has  never  failed  her. 

We  go  on  through  a  maze  of  little  quiet  streets 
of  houses  interspersed  by  high  mute-faced  garden 
walls,  enclosing  churchyards,  some  of  them,  for 
the  long  yew  boughs  lean  over  into  the  roadway. 
As  we  wander,  for  half  an  hour  together  all  is  dark, 
mysterious,  and  silent,  until  the  city  tram,  like  a 
huge  perambulating  nightbeetle,  all  iridescent  and 
phosphorescent  in  the  gloom,  comes  blundering 
through,  tickling  the  shutters  of  the  houses,  and 
flattening  us  against  the  wall  till  it  has  passed. 
And  presently,  in  pursuance  of  Joseph  Leopold's 
nightly  policy,  we  pass  through  the  lighted  portals 
of  one  of  three  homes  of  light  and  song  that  Trier 
holds.  There  is  no  play  on  at  the  theatre  that  night, 
and  no  concert  at  the  Club  next  door.  Only  last 
night  we  took  our  tickets  a  couple  of  hours  before- 
hand, and  returned  at  seven — seven,  mind  you ! — to 
see  "  Der  Condottiere."  It  was  the  history  of  a 
certain  CoUeone  who  for  love  of  a  lady  betrayed 


CH.  XX]  TRIER  281 

Venice.  One  lady — nay,  two,  even  three — all  of 
them  were  ready  to  risk  life  and  honour  for  the  sake 
of  Colleone,  who  was  quite  old  and  not  ashamed  of 
it.  This  was  one  of  the  touches  of  realism  in  an 
otherwise  romantic  play ;  everyone  comes  and  tells 
Colleone  that  he  is  gaga,  and  ought  to  know  better, 
but  he  naturally  falls  back  on  his  demonstrable 
fascinations ;  so  lovely  Venetian  ladies  continue  to 
be  admitted  at  all  hours. 

In  between  the  acts  we  wandered  about  in  a  large 
foyer,  very  white  and  clean,  hung  with  portraits  of 
great  actors,  and  drank  bocks  and  coffee  served  from 
a  buffet  by  two  lovely  Madchen  not  a  bit  like  bar- 
maids. Then  we  went  in  to  see  Colleone  die 
impressively  in  his  chair  before  the  Doge's  throne, 
stripped  of  his  honours,  and  condemned  to  death.  At 
least,  this  is  how  I  made  out  the  Byronic  story. 

But  as  I  say,  there  was  no  play  on  that  night  at 
all,  and  no  concert.  For  weeks  we  had  seen  across 
the  square  from  our  hotel  a  dreary  civic  building  of 
sorts  which  had  borne  in  white  letters  the  announce- 
ment "  Tuberculosis  Museum,"  and  I  had  promised 
myself  that  one  hour  at  least  I  would  sup  full  of 
horrors.  But  this  evening  the  label  had  gone,  and 
the  plain  grey  building  became  what  it  always  was 
— the  Cadastral  offices  of  Trier.  And  so  we  fell  back 
on  the.  plat  dujour — a  cinematograph. 

I  had  never  seen  a  cinematograph  show  until  I 
came  to  live  in  Germany.  I  was  then  told  that 
England  abounded  in  them,  and  that  this  wild  joy 
was  at  hand,  and  had  been  at  hand  for  years  in  the 
two  main  streets  that  bounded  my  dwelling.  I  had 
never,  so  far,  discovered  them — never  known  this 


282  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xx 

famous  form  of  amusement.  Now  I  live  in  them.  I 
am  only  sorry  that  the  censor  has  lately  been  allowed 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  them ;  for  now  I  shall 
never  see  again  what  I  saw  in  the  course  of  my  first 
cinematograph — the  .  .  .  No !  Joseph  Leopold, 
taking  upon  himself  the  office  of  the  much-abused 
functionary,  says  that  I  am  not  to  set  down  what  I 
saw.  At  any  rate,  it  was  the  triumph  of  the 
unexpected,  and  that  surely  is  the  salt  of  cinemato- 
graphs and  entertainments  generally.  And  it  was 
nothing  wrong — it  was  only  out  of  place,  and  would 
not  have  been  out  of  place  in  a  musical  comedy — 
nay,  it  would  have  been  indicated.  ...  I  burn  to 
say  what  it  was.  .  .  . 

Joseph  Leopold  does  not  take  a  frivolous  view 
of  this  enormous  international  development.  The 
cinematograph  is  an  institution ;  it  is  educational ; 
it  is,  at  any  rate,  reading  without  tears.*  It  is 
vastly  inducive  of  a  philosophical  attitude  of  mind  ; 
it  is  a  vivid,  cogent  object-lesson  in  the  sequence 
of  events.  The  couple  of  stories  usually  given — 
historical,  cosmopolitan,  revelatory  of  varieties  of 
national  character,  as  even  the  more  laughable  films 
are — must  be  provocative  of  something  like  the 
prophetic  powers  that  a  study  of  history,  past  and 
present,  gives. 

A  Hoch  Spannendes  Detective  Drama  may,  in  its 
details,  pander  to  a  vulgar  taste,  but  it  is  pretty 
certain  to  reach  the  level  of  the  intelligence  it  is 
designed   to   impress.     Possibly  some    forger  has 

*  The  village  of  Kreuzberg  on  April  14,  1913,  allocated  ;^50 
of  its  yearly  revenue  to  purchasing  seats  for  poor  children  at 
the  local  cinematographs  on  Sundays  throughout  the  year. — 
J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


CH.  XX]  TRIER  283 

been  turned  from  his  wickedness,  some  fool  from 
his  folly,  some  potential  murderer  from  his  crime,  by 
the  sight  of  one  of  these  dramas  of  financial  ruin,  of 
blood  and  revenge,  even  though,  owing  to  the  obvious 
imperfection  of  the  medium,  blood  cannot  run  red 
or  the  face  of  the  ruined  man  blanch.  It  is  better 
so ;  it  is  better,  as  Shakespeare's  Helena  said,  that 
"  the  white  death  should  sit  on  their  cheeks  for 
ever,"  for  the  coloured  films  are  abominable.  But 
as  it  is,  I  should  not  mind  wagering  that  conscience 
money  has  been  paid  as  a  result  of  some  evening 
spent  in  a  red  plush-covered  armchair,  with  an  anti- 
macassar slung  over  the  back  of  it — a  square  of 
tawdry  lace  that  is  apt  to  follow  you  out  into  the 
street. 

And  are  no  simple  souls  induced  to  a  more  tolerant 
rule  of  piety  after  seeing,  say,  "The  Bellringer," 
where  the  devil  terrifies  the  ancient  functionary 
from  ringing  the  Angelus,  and  only  gives  him  leave 
to  pursue  his  calling  on  condition  that  the  devil  shall 
take  the  first  soul  that  enters  the  church  while  the 
bell  is  ringing  ?  It  is  hard  on  the  soul,  but  the 
philosophy  of  the  scapegoat  is  sound  enough.  The 
innocent,  since  medieval  times,  must  suffer  for  the 
guilty.  And  an  angel  from  Heaven,  her  wide  wings 
disguised  under  a  beggar's  cloak,  enters  the  church, 
and  rings  the  bell  for  the  charitable  old  bellringer, 
who  has  stooped  in  the  porch  to  succour  her. 

This  is,  of  course,  a  film  which  would  not  obtain 
in  a  Protestant  town.  And  others  which  I  have 
seen  in  Germany  would  be  prohibited  in  England 
for  the  sake  of  the  young  person. 

People  rail  in  England  against  this  large-looming 


284  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xx 

personage,  and  her  invasion  of  the  library  com- 
mittees and  the  stalls  at  the  "  problem "  plays,  so 
dear  to  the  English  soul.  But  we  have  a  short  way 
with  her  in  Germany.  English  people,  who  have  a 
reasonable  zest  for  seeing  life  as  it  is,  complain  that 
they  are  driven  by  their  parental  susceptibilities  to 
read  milk-and-water  stuff,  and  view  plays  that  are 
only  fit  for  babes.  But  no  one  suggests  that  the 
onus  of  chaperonage  might  be  thrown  on  the  police, 
as  it  is  in  Germany,  and  the  young  person,  deaf  to 
moral  suasion  of  parents,  kept  by  armed  force  from 
the  book  or  the  play,  instead  of  the  play  or  the 
book  from  the  young  person  !  Yet  it  is  practically 
so  in  Germany  as  far  as  the  theatre  is  concerned. 
Reasonable  plays  are  put  on  and  enjoyed  by  the 
elders.  An  angel  with  a  flaming  sword  stands  at 
the  gate  of  the  theatrical  Eden  and  forbids  the  young 
of  both  sexes  to  enter  Paradise  before  their  time — 
i.e.,  eighteen  years  old.  The  Chief  of  Police  pre- 
scribes to  what  plays  young  men  and  maidens  under 
this  age  shall  be  admitted  or  no,  and  places  a  simple 
policeman  at  the  doors  of  the  theatre  to  enforce  his 
behest. 

And  as  for  children  of  tender  years,  the  Germans 
see  that  the  lesson  shall  not  be  too  strong,  too 
deeply  driven  home  to  the  tender  intelhgence. 
When  a  film  that  may  prove  a  bugbear  is  presented, 
or  one  holding  the  powers-that-be  up  to  execration 
or  vilifying  the  Army,  and  any  other  lawfully  con- 
stituted authority,  children  are  not  allowed  to  enter 
at  all. 

It  is  impossible  for  local  governments  to  take 
such  a  tender  interest  in  the  morals  of  their  subjects 


CH.  XX]  TRIER  285 

without  the  conflict  of  authorities  producing  some 
odd  results.  It  must  never  be  forgotten  that 
Germany  is  a  mass  of  little,  ill-welded  nationalities, 
all  under  a  First  War  Lord.  That  is  what  the  Kaiser 
literally  is.  The  curious  local  jealousies  existing 
between  one  State  and  another  are  the  unknown 
factor,  and  make  a  topsy-turveyness  which  in 
operation  remind  one  of  an  opera  of  Gilbert  and 
Sullivan. 

There  is  one  famous  film,  "  Heisses  Blut,"  which 
was  prohibited  in  Frankfort  and  forbidden  to  be 
performed  in  Trier.     That  is  why  I  was  able  to  see 

it  in  H ,  because  H is  in  Hessen-Darmstadt, 

not  in  Prussia.  And  it  is  really,  as  its  name 
denotes,  a  "  Spannendes  Drama,"  A  beautiful 
and  famous  Danish  actress  has  played  in  the 
preparation  of  the  film  the  part  of  the  woman  of 
strong  passions  united  to  a  gentleman  unable  to 
satisfy  them.  She  casts  her  affection  on  the  new 
chauffeur,  and  makes  an  assignation  with  him  during 
her  husband's  absence.  He  returns  and  surprises 
the  pair,  and  turns  the  temperamental  lady  and  her 
lover  out  of  the  house.  The  degraded  one  becomes 
a  burglar's  mate,  and  we  see  her  in  a  thieves'  kitchen 
concocting  a  plan  for  the  breaking  into  her  former 
abode.  She  is  persuaded  by  her  truculent  chauffeur 
lover  to  dress  as  a  boy,  to  scale  the  window  and  let 
him  in.  She  naturally  chooses  the  nursery  window. 
By  her  boy's  cot  the  ex-husband  finds  her ;  she  con- 
fesses, and  he  takes  her  back.  Hoch  Spannendes, 
indeed ! 

For  novelists  like  Joseph  Leopold  and  me  the  rage 
for  picture  theatres  is  a  distinct  gain.     It  may  be 


286  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xx 

the  novel-form  of  the  future.  When  there  will  be 
so  many  books  published  that  no  one  has  time  to 
read  them,  the  author,  wise  before  his  time,  will 
devote  his  intelligence  to  the  presentation  of  his 
message,  whatever  it  is,  through  this  hasty  medium, 
to  all  who  will  not  wait  for  the  development  of  style, 
niceties  of  dialogue,  and  so  on.  It  is  not  perhaps 
generally  known  that  the  actors  who  take  the  parts 
of  characters  in  a  film  accompany  all  their  gestures, 
for  the  sake  of  vraisemblance,  with  speeches  appro- 
priate thereto — half  gag,  half  set  down  for  them. 

But  without  envisaging  such  a  total  abnegation  of 
the  merits  of  style  in  the  future,  let  us  see  that  in  so 
far  as  the  present  condition  of  things  affects  authors 
they  have  all  to  gain  by  the  tales  that  are  told 
nightly  in  dumb  show.  The  audience,  composed 
pretty  nearly  of  rustics  in  the  classical  sense,  un- 
sophisticated, unlettered,  slow  at  apprehending  the 
contortions,  the  mysteries  of  a  good  plot,  will 
gradually  get  more  and  more  used  to  following  its 
peripatetics,  tracing  out  its  issues,  holding  the 
multiple  strands  that  go  to  make  a  story,  weaving 
them  gradually,  skilfully,  into  the  main  one,  till  by 
the  time  the  light  suddenly  grows  in  the  "  Saal," 
and  the  Pathe  cock  seems  to  stand  on  the  empty 
sheet  and  crow  triumphant,  the  whole  has  grown 
coherent  in  their  minds.  It  is  magnificent  training 
for  readers.  We  see  in  "  Das  Gefahrliche  Alter," 
another  good  German  film,  the  spendthrift  at  the 
restaurant  confronted  by  la  douloureuse,  and  the 
elegant  harpy  who  has  cost  him  so  dear  at  his  side 
egging  him  on  :  "  Get  the  money  to  pay  it !"  Her 
speech  is  given  in  writing  on  a  board,   but   it  is 


CH.  XX]  TRIER  287 

hardly  necessary — the  context  is  explanatory  enough. 
The  slide  shifts,  we  see  his  mother  weeping  over  her 
secretaire,  where  notes  for  fifty  pounds  are  tumbling 
about,  mixed  with  correspondence  cards,  as  they 
will  in  the  desks  of  mothers  in  films.  We  see  her 
go  to  bed.  And  in  the  next  slide  her  son  appears, 
walking  in  the  peering,  creepy  way  which  is  sug- 
gestive of  proposed  criminal  attempts  on  secretaires. 
.  .  .  And  so  on  and  so  on,  to  a  mother's  inevitable 
forgiveness. 

Yes,  I  consider  the  advent  of  the  Boy  Scouts,  the 
invention  of  picture  postcards,  and  the  rage  for 
picture  theatres,  as  the  three  most  important  de- 
velopments of  this  age  of  brass  and  iron. 

I  began  this  book  with  a  procession  ;  1  will  begin 
to  end  it  with  one.  The  stateliness  of  a  King  of 
England's  coronation,  its  proud  aloofness,  has  no 
parallel  in  this  lively,  bourgeois  city  of  Trier,  where 
incapable  policemen  are  jostled  by  the  crowds  they 
marshal,  and  even  the  imperious  military  are  not 
taken  seriously  on  a  day  of  feasting.  And  I  re- 
membered that  orderly  and  well-dragooned  crowd 
in  front  of  Parliament  Square  on  June  22,  191 1, 
when  the  police  had  carefully  winnowed  and  mown 
the  street  of  possible  suffragettes,  and  incidentally 
of  all  the  people  who  had  come  to  see  other  people. 
But  here  in  Trier  I  was  glad  enough  of  Joseph 
Leopold's  tidy  German  circumference  as  we  pushed 
our  way  through  the  narrow  streets  in  the  thickest, 
the  bluffest  crowd  I  ever  found  myself  in. 

The  occasion  was  the  hundredth  Jahrfeier  of  the 
Kaiserin  Augusta  "  verbunden  mit  Kornblumentag 


288  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xx 

in  Trier."  A  deeply,  nationally  beloved  Queen  she 
was.  Her  picture  in  the  programme  shows  her  a 
quiet,  determined,  sage  lady,  her  head  wrapped  in  a 
Schleier  becoming  her  age.  The  Kornblume  is  her 
flower — blue  is  the  Prussian  colour — and  the  loyal 
inhabitants  of  Trier  were  glad  to  link  up  a  His- 
torische  Festzug  with  her  day,  and  promote  a 
festival  of  the  nature  of  one  of  the  Pageants  they 
arrange  so  often  in  England  nowadays  to  stir  up 
the  dormant  histrionic  and  spectacular  talent  of  the 
old  maids  of  provincial  towns. 

The  programme  began  at  seven,  with  Military 
Wecken.  From  eight  o'clock  onwards,  Helfende 
Damen  sold  favours  in  the  streets,  Kornblumen ; 
picture  postcards  and  programmes.  Hastily,  of  the 
first  Helfende  Dame  who  came  along  smiling,  with 
a  basketful  of  the  small  blue  cornflowers,  Joseph 
Leopold  purchased  a  couple  or  so  of  blooms,  and 
stuck  them  about  us  both.  He  was  right,  for  we 
were  besieged  by  more  beautiful  ladies,  each 
clamouring,  like  any  enterprising  fish-wife,  for  us 
to  buy  her  particular  wares.  The  sight  of  the 
Kornblumen  pinned  on  our  coats,  purchased  of  a 
colleague,  stilled  and  daunted  the  others  some- 
what, and  we  were  allowed  to  pass  along  to  the 
places  we  had  secured.  Kornblumen,  for  months 
afterwards,  surged  into  my  ken,  from  wardrobes 
and  letter-cases  and  trunks — we  had  been  obliged 
in  the  end  to  buy  dozens  of  these  tickets-of- 
leave. 

We  got  at  last  to  the  stand,  erected  in  the  old 
market-place,  with  the  two  great  churches  on  the 
one  side  and  the  old   house  of  Councillor   K , 


cH.xx]  TRIER  289 

with  its  hot,  sulphurous-looking  painted  gables,  on 
the  other. 

The  procession  began  with  the  usual  heralds,  a 
sort  of  plain  bread-and-butter  course  before  the 
cake  and  jam  of  the  important  entries.  After  the 
Vorgruppe,  came  a  very  telling,  and  to  German  eyes 
pleasant,  scene  of  Germans,  after  a  successful  fight 
leading  home  the  captive  Romans  in  chains,  and  ox- 
carts laden  with  spoil.  That  is  how  'twas.  Even 
my  Mrs.  Markham  says  so.  The  German  warriors 
were  a  hairy  set  of  people  covered  with  skins  and 
gold  bangles,  and  wearing  helmets  crowned  with 
the  horns  of  every  known  beast.  A  personage, 
called  on  the  programme  Hermann  der  Cherusker- 
furst,  followed  them.  Mrs.  Markham  had  not  en- 
lightened me  as  to  him,  and  I  puzzled  in  vain  to 
discover  if  Cherusker  wasn't  a  German  way  of 
spelling  Merovingian.  You  see  I  had  a  better- 
drawn  literary  picture  in  my  mind — Carlyle's — of 
the  "  Merovingian  Kings  wending  slowly  on  their 
bullock-carts  through  the  streets  of  Paris  with  their 
long  hair  flowing.  .  .  ."  Carlyle's  few  words  have 
for  ever  made  me  see  the  great  eyes  of  Clovis  and 
Merovee  full  of  the  unassuaged  wild  melancholy  and 
savagery  of  primitive  conquerors  and  rulers.  I  look 
at  their  presentations  in  frescoes  and  statues,  and 
imagine  them  saying  always,  "  A  quoi  bon  ?"  And 
these  travestied  actors  and  apprentices  and  shopmen 
of  Trier,  as  I  suppose  they  were,  posing  as  Neustrians 
and  Austrasians,  clad  temporarily  in  such  impossible, 
unspeakable  garb,  easily  suggested  by  their  gloom 
and  gaucherie  and  "  wish  I  were  at  home  "  air  the 
necessary    touch    of   verisimilitude.      Then    "  mit 

t9 


290  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN        [ch.  xx 

seinem  Gefolge  "  came  the  greatest  man  Europe  has 
ever  been  privileged  to  see,  according  to  Joseph 
Leopold,  Kaiser  Karl  der  Grosse.  The  German 
who  impersonated  Charlemagne  seemed  a  little 
weighted  by  his  importance.  I  think  he  was  an 
actor.  He  had  an  Abteilung  all  to  himself.  He 
was  followed  by  an  overbalanced  section  compris- 
ing Barbarossa,  looking  very  shy  in  his  immense 
red  wig,  and  Henry  the  Lion,  with  knights  and 
standard-bearers  galore. 

The  next  part,  without  an  interval,  struck  me,  in 
my  limited  Mrs.  Markham-bounded  knowledge  of 
German  history,  as  a  tremendous  leap  across  the 
centuries  to  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  There  was  an 
end  of  impersonators  cluttered  up  with  wigs  and 
skins  and  bangles ;  instead,  we  had  dignified  gentle- 
men in  coats  and  cocked  hats  and  gold  lace, 
Generalissimus  Field  -  Marshal  Wallenstein  and 
Piccolomini.  And  I  thought  of  the  pathetic  plaint 
of  Thekla : 

"  Du  Heilige,  rufe  dein  Kind  zuriick 
'  Ich  habe  genossen  das  Irdische  Gluck 
Ich  habe  gelebt  und  geliebet.' " 

But  everybody  has  not  ploughed  through  "  The 
Piccolomini"  and  read  the  tale  of  Wallenstein's 
defaulting  General  and  his  daughter's  fate  —  not 
Joseph  Leopold,  for  instance,  who  gazed  unswayed 
by  sentiment  on  the  long  procession  of  the  real 
victims  of  Tilly  and  Wallenstein — i.e.,  the  Lands- 
knechte  and  Bauern,  samples  of  the  hapless 
peoples  whose  homesteads  were  sacked  and  burned, 
whose  fields  were  the  marching  grounds  for  thirty 
years  of  the  armies  of  these  selfish  contending 
dynasties. 


CH.  xx]  TRIER  291 

The  fifth  part  dealt  with  the  time  of  the  great 
KurfUrsten  and  Frederick  William  and  his  big 
grenadiers ;  and  the  sixth  part,  which  took  as  long 
again  as  any  of  the  others  to  unroll,  with  Frederick 
the  Great  and  his  Generals,  Ziethen,  Schwerin,  and 
the  romantic  figure  of  the  Old  Dessauer. 

Most  people  have  a  weakness  for  the  Old  Dessauer 
because  of  his  mad  passion  for  Anna-Lise,  the 
apothecary's  daughter.  It  was  not  at  first  admitted 
by  his  family,  but  once  when  he  came  back  from 
some  campaign  or  other  to  be  covered  with  honours, 
the  young  impulsive  fellow  was  not  to  be  found  to 
receive  them.  "  Where  is  he  ?"  cry  Court  Chamber- 
lains, Gold-sticks-in-Waiting,  pages,  and  all.  At  last 
some  unconsidered  menial  hazards  the  suggestion, 
"  Er  ist  bei  dem  Apotheker !"  And  sure  enough 
Leopold  of  Anhalt-Dessau,  placing  his  sweetheart 
before  all  honours  and  claims  of  family,  had  run 
straight  to  her,  and  there  was  nothing  to  be  done 
but  give  him  his  wish  and  marry  him  to  the 
apothecary's  daughter. 

It  goes  on,  the  tramp  of  soldiers'  feet,  the  Trom- 
meln  and  Pfeifenchor,  the  Freiheitskampfer,  the 
Lutzower  Freihusaren,  and  Schiedhusaren,  and  end- 
less military  figures  on  horseback  with  names  that 
stir  one — Theodor  KOrner,  Gneisenau,  Scharnhorst, 
Von  Horn,  and  General  Field-Marshal  Bliicher  ;  and 
then  the  Einigungskriegen,  and  its  authors — General- 
feldmarschall  von  Moltke,  Kriegsminister  von  Roon, 
and  Filrst  Bismarck ! 

This  is  German  history.  And  where  was  William 
the  First  ? 

The  great  dignified  figures  sitting  negligently  on 


292  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xx 

horseback  with  serious  faces,  the  gold  galloons 
showing  under  their  cloaks,  passed,  and  gave  way 
to  a  parade  of  modern  weapons  and  uniforms — a 
coarse  show  of  warlike  strength,  almost  paralyzing 
in  its  suggestion  of  completeness.  And  following, 
Spielleute,  Infanterie,  Jager  and  Schutzen,  Masch- 
inen  Gewehr  complett,  Pioniere,  Fussartillerie, 
Feldartillerie,  and  Kavallerie,  and  last  but  not  least, 
after  Die  Rothe  Kreuz  Sanitats  Truppe,  came  the 
saddest  post-reflection  on  all  these  splendours — 
Unsere  Veteranen ! 

Old,  worn,  battered,  like  wind-tossed,  rain-faded 
scarecrows,  the  men  of  1870  paraded  their  honour- 
able caducity  along  the  sunshiny,  wind-swept  street. 
In  rows  of  four  they  tottered  along.  Some  could 
walk,  and  some  could  only  drive.  In  carriagefuls 
of  four  these  drove  slowly  by.  They  did  not  look 
happy  or  prosperous.  Dazed  they  seemed,  half 
puzzled,  half  annoyed  by  the  light,  these  ghosts  of 
a  warlike  past  dragged  away  from  their  chimney 
corners  where  they  are  permitted  to  dream  away 
in  penurious  decency  the  rest  of  a  life  whose  youth 
was  devoted  to  the  Kaiser.  They  have  lived  through 
it,  just.  One  could  hardly  picture  them  as  they 
were  then,  bold,  strong,  erect,  and  kind.  Yes,  they 
were  kind  :  France  owns  it.  Of  all  the  procession 
of  mummers  these  were  the  real  thing — the  grey, 
morne  reality  of  war.  The  rest  was  "  fake,"  but  this 
was — silence. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

"TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES" 

In  those  last  days  of  September,  nineteen  hundred 
and  eleven,  there  breathed  over  all  South  Germany 
a  spirit  of  breathless  calm — such  a  calm,  says 
Euripides,  as  preceded  the  advent  of  the  supreme 
beauty  and  good  of  Helen.  The  promise  of  the  vivid 
and  portentous  summer  was  about  to  be  fulfilled, 
and  over  this  land  where  for  ever  the  words  seem 
to  whisper,  "  Take  us  the  little  foxes,  the  little  foxes 
that  eat  the  grapes  !"  the  Spirit  of  the  vine  brooded 
over  her  nurslings  as  they  were  being  brought  to 
pure  perfection  in  the  deep  peace  of  seasonable  days. 
And  only  a  year  before  the  Rhinelanders  were 
in  mourning.  The  aspect  of  Germany's  divinest 
product  was  pitiable  indeed,  even  to  the  eyes  of  a 
comparative  outsider.  The  little,  mysterious  plants 
on  which  so  much  depended  were  still  stiffly  up- 
standing, showed  no  weakness,  though  they  were 
drenched  with  rains,  harried  by  cold  gusts,  con- 
sumed to  the  heart  by  mildew.  Yet  all  the  while 
the  pernicious  damp  was  eroding  the  leaves  and 
rotting  the  grapes  in  the  bunch.  The  fruit  was  not 
worth  gathering,  and  nobody  gathered  it,  but  passed 
the  vines,  moribund  in  their  thousands,  with  more 

293 


294  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

or  less  averted  gaze.  The  whole  vine-crop  was 
ruined. 

But  in  this  year,  that  I  was  permitted  to  see  fulfil 
its  promise,  it  was  not  so.  The  outrageous  summer 
of  which  we  had  all  complained,  that  was  Europe's 
poison,  was  at  least  the  South  German's  meat,  and 
the  autumn  weather,  during  the  fateful  three  weeks 
that  precede  the  accomplishment  of  the  vintage, 
deigned  to  be  propitious  for  the  health  of  these 
nacreous  balls  of  green  jelly,  whose  force  and 
sweetness  is  bound  to  make  the  world's  stored 
gaiety  for  the  next  ten  years  and  more.  That 
vintage  was  a  record  vintage,  and  bottled  joy,  with- 
out a  headache  in  a  hogshead,  bearing  on  its  cork 
faces  the  impressive  four  figures,  will  for  a  full 
decade  be  sought  after  and  prized. 

It  was  the  hottest  summer  since  fourteen  hundred 
and  fifty-three.  The  summer  bred  no  rotting,  root- 
destroying  rains ;  only  towards  autumn  came  such 
beneficent  natural  mists  as  do  not  pierce  and  suck 
into  the  soul  of  the  grape,  but  merely  bathe  the  skins 
gently,  considerately,  in  a  soothing  and  stimulating 
moisture.  Soft  skies  and  cloudless  hung  over  the 
vine-hills,  and  over  an  utterly  happy  people  going 
about  the  businesses  that  occupy  them  for  forty-nine 
weeks  of  the  year,  but  stealing  now  and  then  a  posses- 
sive glance  at  the  parterre  of  vines  that  marches  with 
the  road  they  are  travelling,  or  gazing  up,  craning 
their  necks  at  the  precipitous  crags  where  perhaps 
their  own  vines  hang.  They  are  thinking  of  that 
time,  so  near,  when  from  grey  dawns,  through  broad 
days,  and  into  the  very  heart  of  dim  moonlights, 
breathlessly  the    harvest    of   their    hopes  will  be 


CH.  XXI]  "  TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  295 

gathered.  The  eye  of  their  thought  sees  the  stems 
stripped,  the  grapes  squeezed  and  pressed,  weighed, 
tested,  and  paid  for,  squeezed  again,  and  sent 
through  pipes  into  the  barrels  of  the  cellars  below. 
There  the  last  long  stage,  ere  the  juices  reach  their 
throats — and  ours — is  consummated  in  an  absolute 
and  secret  darkness. 

In  Italy,  I  suppose — for  I  have  never  been  there 
— all  at  this  season  is  colour  and  excitement,  flam- 
boyant faldetti,  gorgeous  purple  winepresses  and 
barefoot,  faun-like  peasants  dancing  down  the  foam- 
ing must  to  the  twanging  of  the  zither  and  the 
bagpipe.  In  France*  the  wildest  passions  have 
sway,  they  tell  me,  pleasure  turned  to  pain  and  riot, 
and  the  free  blood  of  the  vine  spilt  in  the  furrow,  in 
the  streets  even,  not  in  love,  but  in  hate.  But  here,  on 
the  broad  Rhine,  on  the  Mosel  and  the  Saar,  broad 
streams  too — here  in  my  adopted  country,  as  far  as  I 
can  see,  reigns  the  true  Pax  Germanica — no  noise, 
no  sound  of  quarrelling,  but  an  almost  Sabbatical 
hush  as  the  yearned-for  time  draws  near.  It  is  all 
temperate,  concentrated  anticipation.  In  the  little 
vine  villages  I  noticed,  many  a  day  before  the  pick- 
ing, the  smart  red  and  green  winepresses  piled  in 
joiners'  shops,  stacked  at  the  corners  of  streets, 
being  washed  clean  in  the  dun  gloom  of  outhouses 
in  readiness  for  the  day  of  days.     On  that  day  they 

*  This  is  a  suggestio  falsi.  The  French  winegrower  is  a  vastly 
less  jovial  man  than  the  German.  He  is  also  immeasurably 
more  scientific  in  his  methods,  both  of  growing  and  of  picking. 
If  he  rioted  the  other  day  it  was  because  of  the  bitter  seriousness 
with  which  he  takes  his  profession,  and  wine  ran  in  the  streets 
mixed  with  a  little  blood.  The  Germans  would  have  drunk  it  all 
up.— J.  L.  F.  M.  H. 


296  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

will  be  placed  in  carts,  and  the  carts  will  be  driven 
away  to  stand  somewhere  as  near  the  field  of 
labour  as  the  oxen  can  drag  them  up  the  steep  an^ 
slaty  roads,  and  all  the  pairs  of  hands  will  be  com- 
mandeered to  work,  while  long,  slow  chorales  of 
praise  and  benison  shall  rise  between  the  furrows. 

I  say  "  day  of  days,"  but  luckily  every  vineyard  is 
not  ready  to  be  gathered  on  the  same  day.  The 
ripeness  of  each  hill  varies  according  to  the  position, 
the  soil,  the  degree  of  care  expended,  and  scientific 
cultivation.  But  during  those  three  weeks  before 
the  "  Lese,"  it  is  true  that  I  was  impressed  by  the 
sight  of  quiet,  satisfied  men  and  women,  dressed, 
not  in  striking  colours,  but  in  plain  hodden  grey, 
going  about  with  the  calm  light  of  pleasurable 
expectation  on  their  faces,  giving  their  thanks  at 
wayside  shrines,  where  they  obviously  vowed,  from 
the  depths  of  their  simple  and  devout  hearts,  peace 
to  men  of  good  will  because  this  was  such  a  good 
vintage  year.  They  did  not  dance  to  pifferari,  or 
sing  to  the  sound  of  zithers,  but  the  true  lyric  note 
of  thankfulness  was  in  their  voices  as  they  mumbled 
the  obligatory  "  Tag  1"  of  civility.  ..."  Tag !"  they 
always  said,  passing  me  on  the  road  or  looking  down 
on  me  from  the  carts — those  long  waggons  made 
of  two  ladders  and  drawn  by  two  oxen,  piled  with 
empty  baskets,  and  the  scarlet  and  emerald  wine- 
press throned  in  the  middle,  on  their  way  to  the 
vineyards.  And  many  of  the  vineyards  are  very 
distant,  and  some  of  them  almost  inaccessible. 

Here,  in  the  proper  vine  country,  the  crop  is  set 
anywhere,  everywhere,  up  and  down  ravines,  across 
and  beyond  streams,  perched  in  every  possible  coign 


CH.  XXI]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  297 

of  a  mountainous  and  jagged  landscape,  if  only  it  may 
there  catch  the  sun.  The  poor  man,  whose  means 
do  not  admit  of  the  purchase  of  good  level  sites,  lays 
a  little  soil  on  the  bare  rock,  plants,  waters,  tends 
and  grows  his  few  bushels  as  well  as  he  can.  This 
is  the  lowest,  humblest  end  of  the  scale,  but  the  point 
is  that  there  is  no  peasant  of  this  countryside  who 
does  not  possess,  be  he  never  so  poor,  some  little 
corner  of  a  vineyard,  and  on  this  account  is  the  joy  of 
a  good  vintage  so  universal  in  the  land.  On  the  top  of 
the  scale  are  the  domains  of  the  great  "  Weinhand- 
lers,"with  their  tall  buildings  like  factories,  and  vast 
machinery  of  distribution.  The  peasants  mostly  join 
together  to  found  co-operative  pressing  associations 
called  "  Winzervereins."  And  there  are  the  landed 
magnates  with  their  purchased  or  inherited  estates, 
situated  on  high,  appropriate  pinnacles  of  rock, 
topped  by  feudal  castles — the  robber  strongholds 
of  fiction  and  of  very  real  historic  fact.  Either  their 
ancestors  have  lived  in  these  castles  time  out  of 
mind,  as  in  the  case  of  the  owners  of  the  famous 
Schloss  Eltz,  or  they  have  purchased  them  and 
rendered  them  habitable  and  tastelessly  magnificent. 
Ruin  or  habitation,  such  a  favoured  site  is  rigor- 
ously devoted  to  the  culture  of  the  vine.  The 
modern  German  seigneur  has  no  use  for  the  hand- 
some approach,  for  those  "  park-like  grounds " 
embosoming  his  mansion,  which  figure  in  the 
English  agent's  advertising  circular;  he  prefers  to 
grow  the  romantic  grape  up  to  his  very  doorstep,  if 
so  be  that  grapes  will  grow.  The  vines  at  Schloss 
Braunfels  and  Braubach  seem  to  creep  up  and  peer 
into  the  very  windows,  and  doubtless  the  sight  of 


298  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

so  much  property  that  is  at  once  poetic  and  realiz- 
able affords  the  lord  thereof  considerable  pleasure. 
And  the  commercial  millionaire  Geheimrath,  owner 

of  the  famous  castle  at  C ,  instead  of  looking 

down,  as  his  predecessor  might  have  done,  from  his 
robber  fastness — a  modernized  Schloss,  perched 
high  over  the  town,  and  dominating  the  Mosel 
Valley — instead  of  looking  down  on  fat  convoys  of 
merchandise  which,  at  some  slight  personal  risk,  he 
would  presently  descend  to  harry  and  appropriate, 
can  sit  quietly  at  home  in  his  modern-medieval 
armchair  and  gaze  out  of  the  window  at  his  so 
practicable  wealth  lying  all  round  him.  It  is  his 
very  own,  secured  to  him  and  his  heirs  by  no 
desperate  deed,  but  by  the  power  of  the  purse  and 
the  getting  of  the  best  chemical  advice  afforded  by  a 
paternal  Government.  Yes,  he  may  sit  there  the 
livelong  day  with  his  august  and  titled  house-party 
from  Berlin  or  Frankfort  and  muse  upon  the  beauty 
of  utility. 

But  that  is  not  the  view  of  Mr.  George  Moore, 
who  in  his  latest  book  declares  that  he  knows  nothing 
more  unpicturesque  than  a  vineyard,  and  that  "  a 
hillside  planted  with  them  is  abhorrent." 

No  one  could  surely  be  less  Teutonic  in  sympathy 
than  Mr.  George  Moore,  but  even  an  alien  who 
wishes  to  be  as  placable  as  possible  may  concede 
that  at  a  little  distance  the  effect  of  the  neat  planta- 
tion is  somewhat  hard.  Berncastel,  Cochem, 
Braubach,  and  the  other  feudal  towers  that  crown 
nearly  every  peaked  hill  in  Germany,  manage  to 
carry  it  off  The  regular  rows  of  vines,  creeping 
up  like  an  army  of  green  spears — like  Birnam  Wood 


CH.  XXI]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  299 

come  to  Dunsinane — seem  to  culminate  dully  enough 
in  the  little  collection  of  sharp  turrets  that  break  out 
at  the  top,  and  surmount  the  rising  tides  of  green. 
And  all  along  the  Rhine  the  enormous  height  of  the 
hills  renders  their  clothing  negligible,  as  it  were  the 
hides  of  mastodons,  gigantic  and  couchant.  But, 
indeed,  the  comparatively  low  hills  that  border  the 
Mosel  and  the  Saar  suggest  to  me  rather  the  shaggy 
loins  of  short,  rough-coated  dogs,  clipped  down  to 
the  quick.  One  misses,  of  course,  the  soft,  swathing 
clumps  of  foliage  that  clothe  the  slopes  of  the  hills 
in  England  or  Belgium.  We  will  say  that  answers  to 
the  fur  that  covers  the  haunches  of  a  Newfoundland 
or  a  collie.  We  do  not  get  the  modulations  of  colour 
that  would  be  given  by  the  inequalities  of  size  and 
shape  of  the  different  trees  and  bushes,  but  "  there 
is  always  the  other  bank,"  as  Mr.  Moore's  patient 
friend,  Edward  Martin,  pointed  out.  "  Yes,  it  is 
higher    and    steeper,"    the    professional    grumbler 

replies  ;  and  there  are  trees,  but "  and  here  is  a 

sentence  which  every  desirable  alien  should  burn  to 
avenge  with  every  drop  of  her  newly  naturalized 
blood  :  "  The  trees  in  Germany  seem  to  lose  their 
beauty.  They  clothe  the.  hillside  like  gigantic 
asparagus."  Nonsense  1  Has  our  only  Realist,  who 
once  placed  a  haystack  in  Peckham,  never  read  his 
Tacitus,  or  heard  of  the  monstrous  oaks  of  the 
Black  Forest,  the  high  Eiffel,  the  Teutoburger 
Forest,  or  the  Hartz  ?  I  should  rather  like  to  see 
Mr.  Moore  set  down  before  one  of  these  on  toast.  .  .  . 
To  me  the  vine  plant,  taken  singly,  is  a  pathetic 
object.  The  small,  pyramidal,  valuable  thing  appears 
so  frail  and  tottery.     Each  plant,  standing  ever  so 


300  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  ^xi 

little  apart  from  its  fellows,  as  if  fully  conscious 
and  proud  of  its  small  but  important  individuality, 
reminds  me  of  a  mawkin  at  a  fair,  a  doll  dressed  up 
like  an  Early  Victorian  lady  in  a  gala  gown,  flounced 
right  up  to  the  waist,  and  the  flounces  composed  of 
soft  taffetas  silk  of  faintly  differing  shades,  or,  if 
we  must  have  Irish  similes,  like  the  late  Lady  Wilde, 
who  dressed  exactly  like  this.  For  the  leaves  grow 
all  round  in  tiers  and  have,  some  of  them,  a  curious, 
uncanny,  coppery  sheen.  Those  that  have  been 
chemically  treated  look  iridescent — a  deadly  poison- 
ous brown  in  the  shadows,  and  of  a  sinister,  greyish- 
blue  where  the  light  strikes  them.  No ;  I  should 
not  care  to  be  left  alone  in  a  carefully  kept  vine- 
yard in  the  magic  time  of  evening  when  the  sun 
has  declined  in  the  sky,  and  the  fleeting  shafts  of 
sunset  catch  the  swart  tips  of  the  leaves,  and,  like 
an  enchanter's  wand,  point  out  the  evil  pathological 
smears  and  stains  that  pass  unnoticed  in  broad  day- 
light. But  I  am  falling  into  the  pathetic  fallacy 
which  Mr.  Ruskin  spent  a  whole  chapter  in  condemn- 
ing in  "  Modern  Painters." 

*  «  jj^  «  « 

It  was  the  endeavour  and  constant  custom  of  Herr 
Kramp,  the  landlord  of  the  Hotel  Prinz  Carl  in 
Treves,  and  a  great  vine-grower,  to  have  a  look  in 
on  as  many  of  his  vineyards  as  was  possible  at  this 
season,  consistently  with  the  other  calls  on  his  time 
and  attention.  We  asked  him  to  let  us  accompany 
him  on  one  of  these  occasions,  and  he  ratified 
his  dignified  consent  with  one  of  those  slow  sudden 
smiles  of  his  that  we  had  grown  used  to.  His  moon- 
face,  with  the  button  mouth,  had  something  Oriental 


CH.  XXI]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  30I 

about  it.  It  was  usually  puckered  into  a  due  gravity, 
but  now  and  again  it  melted  into  such  a  sweet  and 
cynical  curve  as  I  fancy  the  mouth  of  the  Pied  Piper 
of  Hamelin  may  have  worn  when  he  stepped  into  the 
streets,  "smiling  first  a  little  smile." 

He  had  no  English  ;  he  had  been  chef  in  some  large 
hotel  in  the  United  States — the  Waldorf  Astoria,  I 
believe — and  he  sometimes,  but  not  often,  exchanged 
his  native  language  for  that  of  America,  I  once 
observed  him  fondling  a  fine,  fat  boy,  tucked  up  in  a 
perambulator  outside  the  hotel,  and  asked  him 
politely  whose  baby  it  was.  His  laconic  reply, 
"  Mine !  Sure  !"  was  a  masterly  blending  of  German 
unctuosity  and  American  dryness.  Yes,  he  had  been 
a  chef,  but  the  cooking  at  his  hotel  was  bad — so  we 
thought,  but  did  not  say.  Even  this  truly  superb 
cellar  cannot  wash  away  the  memory  of  those  dreary, 
flavourless,  unblessed  dishes.  "  Zander  gebak  mit 
Butter,"  and  "  Junger  Hahn  mit  " — something  else, 
Junger  Hahn  that  would  never  see  three  again.  We 
never  complained,  because  our  rooms  were  so  clean, 
and  anyone  who  has  lived  in  England  knows  that 
cleanHness,  coming  next  to  godliness,  infallibly, 
somehow  or  other,  means  "  cuisine  a  Teau."  Later 
on  Herr  Kramp  volunteered  this  piece  of  information 
unsought.  He  said  that  at  the  beginning  of  his 
career  as  chef  at  the  Waldorf  Astoria  he  had  given 
his  clients  the  best  he  knew,  but  that  he  soon  found 
that  no  one  in  the  city  of  haste  had  the  leisure  to  dis- 
criminate between  his  successes  and  his  failures,  so 
that  at  last  he  had  lost  all  heart  fof  his  art,  and  not 
even  returning  to  his  Fatherland — where,  as  a  rule, 
cooking  does  not  in  all  its  items  resemble  warm. 


302  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

moist,  pink  indiarubber,  or  gummy  sawdust — even 
his  repatriation  had  not  given  him  back  any  gusto  of 
the  casserole.  But  if  his  kitchen  neither  enthralled 
him  nor  occupied  much  of  his  time,  his  cellars 
certainly  did  this,  and  more. 

The  wine  trade  and  the  hotel  trade  seem  to  go 
very  kindly  hand  in  hand  in  Germany.  Herr 
Kramp's  brother,  also  a  Weinhandler,  was  the  land- 
lord of  another  hotel  in  the  city,  and  his  father,  who 
was  staying  with  him  all  through  this  auspicious 
season  of  the  grape,  was  the  landlord  of  an  im- 
portant hotel  in  Thuringia,  and  was  also  a  wine 
merchant. 

The  father  was  of  a  more  commonplace  type ;  he 
had  the  air  of  a  vietix  militaire,  and  an  enormous 
paunch,  which  he  wore  not  in  the  least  deprecatingly, 
though  he  acknowledged  its  inconvenience.  And 
he  accompanied  us  on  that  particular  grey  day  in 
September  to  a  certain  vineyard  which  his  son 
owned  near  Trittenheim  on  the  Mosel. 

Trittenheim  is  the  next  village  to  Cluserath, 
which  figures  in  the  guide-books  as  the  longest 
village  in  Germany,  for  it  is  merely  a  mile-long 
double  row  of  houses,  a  backbone  with  no  ribs. 
And  there  is  no  railway  to  it,  exactly,  but  we  under- 
stood that  we  could  make  the  little  Mosel  Bahn 
serve  and  our  legs  too.  The  train  would  drop  us 
at  a  village  where  there  was  a  convenient  ferry 
across  to  the  other  sunnier  bank  where  the  vine- 
yards were. 

The  small  train  took  us  very  slowly,  turning  and 
twisting  in  obedience  to  all  the  bends  of  the  river. 
The  carriages   have  vast  plate-glass  windows,  so 


CH.  XXI]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  303 

that  passengers  can  feast  their  eyes  step  by  step, 
or  sleeper  by  sleeper,  on  the  "  schoener  Aussichten." 
There  are  tables  fixed  in  the  centre  of  each  hand- 
some saloon  carriage,  covered  with  the  usual  red- 
checked  tablecloth.  (I  never  drink  Rhine  or  Mosel 
wine,  or  even  beer  for  the  matter  of  that,  without 
thinking  of  a  tablecloth  with  red  squares.)  A  brass 
fiddle,  such  as  one  has  on  board  ship,  was  placed 
across  it  to  retain  the  glasses  and  the  slippery 
napery  as  well.  For,  of  course,  people  drink  when 
and  where  they  happen  to  be  thirsty  in  Germany ; 
they  have  not  to  go  to  a  special,  indispensable 
emporium  for  drink  as  they  are  obliged  to  do  in 
England.  They  do  not  drink  beer,  for  in  the  wine 
country  that  is  regarded  as  a  social  crime ;  so  it  was 
Mosel  wine  the  attendant  supplied  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  there  they  sat,  Joseph  Leopold  and  the 
two  Kramps,  with  their  glasses  in  their  hands,  and 
the  priest  with  his  breviary  in  his,  amiably  discuss- 
ing the  vintage  and  the  prices  current  of  the  grape. 
The  Mosel  is  about  as  wide  as  the  Thames  at 
Marlow  or  Goring,  but  by  no  stretch  of  the  imagina- 
tion could  I  have  thought  it  was  the  Thames. 
It  looks  so  lazy,  and  it  is  so  swift.  In  the  part  that 
the  line  was  now  marching  with  it  is  not  navigable. 
Little  spits  of  shore,  manoeuvred  into  breakwaters, 
run  out  from  the  south  bank,  the  side  on  which  we 
were  travelling.  I  did  not  notice  any  on  the  other. 
There  the  reddish  earth  shelves  in  and  is  un(dercut, 
just  as  the  banks  of  the  Thames  deplorably  are, 
though  there  are  no  steamers  here  to  do  it  with 
their  wash.  Straggling  herbs  and  flowers  grow  on 
it,  as  the  melilot  and  willow  grow  at  Goring  or 


304  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

Pangbourne,  but  still  it  does  not  look  the  same. 
It  looks  "  wilder,"  as  children  would  say ;  "  haunted," 
as  their  elders  might  feel,  especially  as  I  saw  it 
to-day,  flattened  out  under  low,  grey  clouds,  "  a 
stream  that  hears  the  flowing  of  all  men's  tears 
beneath  the  sky." 

Yes,  that  was  it,  it  was  haunted  ;  there  was  some- 
thing unearthly  in  its  opaque,  green-grey  calm,  its 
steady,  relentless,  cynical  flow,  through  a  region 
abandoned  perhaps  under  a  curse — a  country  seen 
in  a  dream  through  glass.  No,  not  a  curse  ;  a  spell 
such  as,  according  to  holy  Grimm,  any  old  knock- 
kneed,  wall-eyed  witch  has  power  to  throw. 

It  was  the  day,  it  was  the  place,  when  Two  Eyes 
— whose  envious  sisters  Three  Eyes  and  One  Eye 
could  not  endure  her  because  she  saw  exactly  like 
other  people — sat  down  on  the  ridge  of  grass  (it 
is  there  to-day,  it  forms  one  of  the  breakwaters  of 
this  undammed  river)  to  cry  because  she  had  not 
enough  to  eat.  Here  it  was  that  the  Prince,  who  is 
happily  always  at  hand  to  succour  unmerited  mis- 
fortune in  these  sociologistic  tales,  came  to  her  and 
asked  her  why  she  was  crying.  I  imagine  him  in 
the  gilt  scales  of  a  Roman  centurion,  girt  with  a 
short  sword,  with  bare  golden  locks,  and  arms 
and  face  dyed  by  the  same  sun  that  colours  the 
grape,  till  they  have  the  colour  of  newly  tanned 
leather. 

It  was  here,  too,  that  the  persecuted  Princess 
with  the  unprepossessing  but  royal  attribute  of 
hair  made  of  gold  and  silver  in  equal  proportions, 
leant  over  the  river's  brim  to  drink,  and  wrought, 
a  spell  so  that  the  little  hat  of  Conrad,  the  neatherd, 


CH.  xxi]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  305 

flew  away,  and  he  could  not  touch  her  hair  that  he 
so  presumptuously  admired.  For  she  was  a  King's 
daughter,  and  carried  portable  spells  about  with 
her  as  a  modern  Princess  would  carry  her  card-case 
and  her  smelling-salts.  This  lady  possessed  three 
drops  of  blood,  wrapped  in  a  napkin  that  her  royal 
mother  had  given  her,  and  as  she  leant  down  to 
drink  the  napkin  floated  away  down  the  stream, 
and  the  three  drops  of  blood  spoke  for  her  when 
the  time  came.    That  is  the  story, 

A  little  farther  on  was  the  rustic  bridge  that  the 
Fisherman  bent  over  when  he  was  sad,  to  gaze  into 
the  stream  until  a  beautiful  Nix  raised  her  head  from 
the  ripples,  and  spoke  to  him  kindly  and  comforted 
him.  Yes ;  they  might  all  have  been  there — these 
shy  heroes  and  heroines  of  my  youth.  It  was  by 
them  that  the  stream  was  haunted. 

A  succession  of  little  red-roofed  villages  came  in 
sight ;  bend  of  the  river  followed  bend ;  the  steep 
cliffs  of  the  banks  covered  with  the  shaggy  vines, 
and  more  quiet  pastures.  To-day  the  vines  did 
not  hang  formal  and  lonely ;  the  gatherers  were 
crawling  about  among  the  patches  like  black  and 
white  ants,  unrecognizable  from  the  opposite  bank 
as  human  beings.  It  made  the  hills  appear  to  be 
alive — to  be  moving.  For  indeed,  all  the  world  was 
out  there  picking  grapes.  "Some  little  town  is 
emptied  of  its  folk,"  Joseph  Leopold  quoted,*  having 
joined  me  at  the  window. 

There  came  another  sudden  and  outrageous  bend, 
and  another  of  these  empty  little  towns  came  into 
view — and  then  more  wide  hill-sides  covered  with 

♦  J.  L.  F.^M.  H. 

20 


306  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN       [ch.  xxi 

human  ants.     I  questioned  every  now  and  then,  as 
in  a  fairy  story  : 

"  Is  that  your  vineyard,  Herr  Kramp?"  And  the 
answer  was  always,  "  Noch  weiter — a  little  farther 
on!" 

At  last  we  left  the  train  at  Unheim,  where  there 
was  a  convenient  ferry  for  the  vine-slopes.  We 
embarked  on  an  ancient  boat,  with  a  still  more  ancient 
ferryman — so  ancient  that  he  might  well  have  been 
he  whom  St.  Christopher  hailed  on  that  wild,  black, 
and  surely  German  night  when  the  Christ  Child 
called  across  the  rushing  stream.  We  were  slowly, 
dreamily  floated  across  the  shallows,  amid  the  sound 
of  the  ripple  on  the  bows  mingled  with  the  soft  hum 
of  vine-talk. 

A  little  later  in  the  afternoon  we  were  landed  on 
the  working  bank,  and  started  to  walk  back  a  long 
way  to  Herr  Kramp's  vineyard.  We  went  in  Indian 
file,  the  river  just  below  us  and  the  vineyards 
precipitously  ascending  at  our  sides.  Herr  Kramp 
senior,  with  his  paunch,  waddled  swiftly — the  last 
of  the  file  of  us.  We  had  a  couple  of  miles  to  go — 
and  I  felt  some  pangs  of  consideration  for  his  eighty 
years — over  the  path  that,  slippery  and  narrow, 
climbed  now  to  the  shale  of  the  vineyards,  and  then 
plunged  down  amid  blackberry  thickets,  down  to  the 
very  water-smoothed  marbled  boulders  of  the  stream- 
bed  itself.  But  I  soon  left  off  pitying  him  or  depre- 
cating the  length  of  the  excursion  on  his  behalf, 
because  it  was  quite  easy  to  tell  that  of  all  the  four 
of  us  he  it  was  who  most  thoroughly  enjoyed  it.  He 
was  having  the  time  of  his  life ;  and  they  were  not 
his  own  vines,  or  even  his  son's. 


en.  XXI]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  307 

Shouting,  singing,  jodelling,  throwing  out  exple- 
tives, the  old  man  blundered  along,  ravishing  huge 
bunches  of  "Himmelschoene  Trauben"  from  the 
vine-stocks  as  he  passed  one  estate  after  the  other ; 
he  offered  them  to  us  broadcast.  For  his  son  was  a 
very  great  Weinhandler  in  that  part  of  the  country, 
and  we  were  all  privileged  persons.  There  is  no 
paling,  no  apparent  division,  no  fence  between  the 
properties ;  you  have  but  to  stretch  out  your  hand, 
and  to  help  yourself.  Yet  Joseph  Leopold  says 
there  is  no  stealing ;  it  would  not  be  patriotic,  and  it 
would  not  be  worth  while.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
between  one  allotment  and  another  there  is  usually, 
by  way  of  a  "  term,"  or  landmark,  an  iron  pole  set  up. 
On  this  there  will  be  an  enamelled  label,  and  on  these 
labels  you  may  read  the  mighty  names  of  the  Gebrue- 
der  Deinhard  or  the  Koenigliche  Domaene,  or  the 
names  of  the  smallest  peasants.  .  .  . 

All  that  day  I  was  eating  grapes.  In  one  day  I 
ate  more  grapes  than  I  had  ever  eaten  in  my  life — 
not  excepting  the  time  when  I  had  scarlet  fever,  and 
lost  my  taste  for  the  things  that  swell  to  enormous 
purple  tastelessness  in  English  hothouses,  for  ever- 
more. From  the  hands  of  all  four  of  us  depended 
continuously  bunches  of  grapes ;  grapes  quenched 
our  thirsts  ;  grapes  ballasted  us  on  the  rocky  marble 
pinnacles  beside  the  shallows ;  the  juice  of  grapes 
streamed  from  our  mouths,  and  with  that  same  juice 
were  our  hands  wet.  As  fast  as  we  had  partaken  of 
the  produce  of  one  vineyard  we  were  invited  to  test 
another's.  It  was  what  one  might  call  a  grape- 
crawl,  and  I  wondered  if  the  hardened  sinners,  male 
and  female,  in  England,  slouching  drearily  past  one 


3o8  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

public-house  after  another,  in  rain,  and  mud,  and 
sleet,  would  not  have  enjoyed  the  harmless  variety 
of  the  unintelligent  pursuit  as  much  as  a  gin-crawl  ? 
.  .  .  Perhaps  not ;  perhaps  the  male  sot  and  female 
drudge  would  have  replied  like  the  sated  Duchesse 
de  Longueville :  "  Que  voulez-vous  que  je  vous 
dise?    Je  n'aime  pas  les  plaisirs  innocents," 

"  Glorious  !  Splendid !  Praise  the  Lord  !"  the  fine 
old  German  gentleman  behind  me  muttered,  polish- 
ing off  one  bunch  after  another,  stripping  round  globe 
after  round  globe  off  from  its  stalk  as  he  walked 
along.  And  from  time  to  time,  indeed,  he  burst  into 
a  shout  at  sight  of  a  laden  tree — such  a  real  shout  and 
roar  of  praise  that  I  thought  at  first,  not  knowing  his 
dialect  very  well,  that  he  was  enraged  at  the  misdeeds 
rather  than  overjoyed  at  the  good  fortune  of  his 
neighbours.  .  .  .  And  all  the  while  we  were  strip- 
ping the  round  globes  from  the  wet  stalks.  I  should 
not  have  dared  for  a  moment  to  drop  to  the  ground 
the  fleshy  envelope  of  the  god  of  Herr  Kramp's 
adoration.  And  there  was  no  need  to  do  so.  The 
skins  were  quite  soft,  and  no  hand  but  my  own  had 
ever  touched  them. 

And  old  Herr  Kramp's  paean  was  one  of  the  most 
gratifying  and  spiritually  beautiful  workings  of  the 
mind  that  I  have  ever  witnessed.  To  hear  him 
break  forth  into  jubilation  and  thanksgiving,  to  see 
him  craning  up,  stretching  his  troublesome  stomach 
longitudinally  as  he  raised  his  short  arms,  prolonged 
by  a  forked  stick,  to  pull  down  into  his  purview  the 
boughs  of  fruit-bearing  trees  that  fringed  the  vine- 
yards, and  became  more  common  as  we  approached 
the  villages — all  these  things,  ejaculations,  smiles, 


CH.  xxi]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  309 

roars  of  joyful  laughter,  the  whole  being  of  the  man 
stretched  to  express  satisfaction  and  gratitude — all 
these  things  seemed  to  be  an  essay  in  pure  thanks- 
giving as  one  might  make  essays  in  the  art  of  pure 
music,  or  pure  art  for  the  sake  of  the  art — all  these 
things  seemed,  since  none  of  the  fruit-trees  were  his 
nor  the  vines,  to  render  more  pleasant  and  more  good 
that  great  green  landscape  that  lay  beneath  a  sky 
like  a  jewel,  and  a  sun  that  hung  breathless  and 
motionless,  as  if  it  gazed  with  wonder  upon  its  own 
work.     It  was  pure  religion. 

A  simple  piety — for,  although  just  now  the  vine 
was  the  thing  and  the  sky  was  actually  grey,  he 
could  take  an  interest  in  all  the  other  kindly  fruits 
of  the  earth  and  the  other  harvests  of  this  remarkable 
year,  that  seemed  for  so  long  to  have  lain  beneath 
that  sky  and  that  sun  that  it  was  difficult  to  gaze 
upon  them  in  the  greyness,  and  forget  that  of  which 
they  were  the  real  expression.  So  that  it  seemed 
that  the  fruits  themselves  radiated  a  tranquil  sun- 
shine. And  apples,  plums,  and  pears — the  reddest, 
the  purplest  I  have  ever  seen,  except  the  shiny 
produce  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada  that  one  sees 
behind  plate-glass  at  the  top  of  Whitehall,  and  that 
seem  monstrous  and  unreal,  as  if  they  had  been 
fabricated  out  of  waxes  and  soaps — plums  and  pears 
showed  me  their  blushing  beauties  one  after  the 
other,  as  the  boughs  that  bore  them  were  pulled 
down  for  a  moment  and  allowed  to  fly  back  again  by 
the  enthusiastic  old  fellow.  And  now  I  know  the 
meaning  of  that  verse  of  the  English  Litany  that  I 
had  so  often  heard  droned  out  without  unction  or 
emotion  in  numberless  village  churches  in  poor,  rain- 


3IO  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

sodden,  caprice-ridden  England.  (I  am  alluding  to 
the  caprice  of  the  elements,  wrought  on  an  unfortu- 
nate island,  of  which  no  spot  on  an  average  is  farther 
away  from  the  sea  than  eighty  miles — an  island 
swept  continually  by  the  sea-fret,  and  dominated  by 
the  mountain  gloom.) 

"  The  kindly  fruits  of  the  earth,  so  that  in  due 
time  we  may  enjoy  them  " — the  irony  of  it !  How 
not  admire  the  proud  patience  that  finds  in  Shake- 
speare's hnes,  "a  precious  stone,  set  in  a  silver  sea," 
a  panacea  for  Tariff  Ills,  and  a  climate  that  has  no 
equal  for  contrariness.  In  Germany,  too,  there  are 
elemental  reverses,  but  they  are  not  normal.  The 
vine  crop  may  be  ruined  by  the  rain  in  one  dismal 
year  like  1910,  but  a  good  year  coming  once  in  seven 
will  restore  the  balance.  And  191 1  was  more  than 
a  good  year,  it  was  a  superb  year. 

The  cultivation  of  the  vine  depends  more  than  any 
other  avocation  on  the  personal  care  bestowed  on 
it — the  personal  care  of  a  perspicacious  and  experi- 
enced cultivator.  It  is  an  expensive  business  to 
begin  with  ;  good  plants  and  planting  will  cost  any- 
thing up  to  ;^40  an  acre,  and  then,  given  a  fairly 
decent  soil,  the  growth  must  be  nursed  and  tended 
like  a  baby  for  six  or  seven  years  before  it  will  show 
signs  of  bearing  a  paying  crop.  It  must  be  heavily 
manured,  and  the  manure  and  everything  must  be 
carried  as  a  rule  on  men's  backs.  There  is  no  other 
way.  In  some  cases  the  plot  lies  so  steeply  as  to 
be  almost  perpendicular,  and  always  the  ground  is 
so  covered  with  shale  and  loose  rock  that  the 
cultivator  has  difficulty  even  in  keeping  his  foothold. 
Even  the  very  soil  has  often  to  be  carried  up  liter- 


CH.  XXI]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  311 

ally  in  hodsful,  much  in  the  same  way  as,  so  we 
were  told  at  our  mother's  knee,  the  bare  volcanic 
rock  of  Malta  was  prepared  for  human  cultivation. 
As  the  caddie  at  golf  places  a  little  heap  of  sand  for 
the  ball  to  rest  on,  so  the  soil  has  been  laid,  and 
here  and  there  the  absolutely  unplantable  crests  and 
peaks  of  basalt  jut  out  from  the  mat  of  green  that 
seems  to  mount  them  knee-high.  Some  of  these 
peaks  have  been  cleverly  blasted  into  terraces, 
banked  up,  as  it  were,  by  a  naked  wall  of  rock  that 
shines  out  white  as  milk.  The  surface  has  been 
whitewashed  in  order  to  reflect  the  maximum 
of  light  and  heat  for  the  vines.  The  sun — the  poetry 
and  life  of  the  vine  above  ;  and  below  the  manure — 
the  prose.  Manure  ! — well,  though  there  is  not  much 
that  is  creditable  about  it,  yet  there  is  a  great  deal 
that  is  macabre  and  grotesque.  For  the  vine  is  said 
to  prefer  some  very  strange  varieties  of  composts. 
Leather  is  favoured  by  the  capricious  plant ;  an 
old  pair  of  boots  is  very  sov'ran,  and  if  you  want  the 
vine  at  your  door  to  flourish  and  attain  unto  the 
very  roof-tree  you  had  better  ensure  its  growth  by 
first  laying  down  an  old  leather  portmanteau  before 
you  plant  it. 

One  is  driven  to  think  of  an  older  and  more  savage 
form  of  what  may  be,  after  all,  a  mere  superstition, 
though  Joseph  Leopold  swears  that  it  is  a  chemical 
fact.  Did  ever  the  body  of  a  young  child  fructify 
a  vineyard  in  the  olden  days,  or  at  best  the  un- 
considered body  of  a  captive  or  a  slave  ?  And  back 
go  one's  thoughts  to  the  legend  of  Dionysius,  and 
the  sacrificial  knife  seems  to  be  flourished  over  the 
dark  soil  whence  springs  the  dark  twisted  stock; 


312  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

nay,  further  back,  to  the  first  Feast  of  the  Passover, 
when  the  lintels  of  the  doors  were  washed  in  blood. 
In  England  to-day  you  may  hear  the  echo  of  the 
savage  notion  in  the  chant  of  the  hordes  of  the  re- 
generate as  they  roam  through  quiet  country  villages 
on  the  Sabbath  Day  :  "  Washed  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb."  .  .  .  The  officers  of  the  Salvation  Army, 
like  the  priests  of  old,  do  not,  probably,  suffer  from 
too  much  imagination,  as,  all  unconscious  of  the 
terrible  traditional  force  of  the  words,  they  shout 
their  terrible  refrain  for  an  hour  or  so,  and  then  go 
in  to  their  well-earned  teas. 

And  be  sure  the  family  Kramp  did  not  think  of 
these  things  as  we  walked,  Indian  file,  along  the 
narrow  path,  weltering  vineyards  upon  the  one 
hand  and  the  calm  Mosel  on  the  other.  The  son's 
little  button  mouth  was  pinched  in  calculation,  the 
father's  toothless  one  was  roaring  out :  "  Te  Deum 
laudamus."  The  carts  with  winepresses  ready 
poised  in  them  stood  about,  waiting  for  their  loads 
— the  brimming  hodsful  that  peasants  were  all  the 
while  carrying  to  them  down  the  steep  hill-sides. 
When  the  bearers  had  descended  to  the  carts  they 
climbed  up  short  ladders  and  upset  the  hods  into  the 
winepresses,  very  much  as  an  English  dustman 
empties  refuse  into  the  borough  cart,  with  an  "  Ouf !" 
of  relief.  For  hours  they  had  come  stumbling  down 
the  narrow  tracks  which  were  all  the  space  the 
owners  of  the  vineyards  had  been  able  to  spare  for 
transport.  On  these  channel  beds,  like  mere  water- 
courses, where  torrential  rains  seemed  only  yester- 
day to  have  rushed  down,  there  lay  enough  loose 
stones  to  make  a  careless  step  dangerous  to  men 


CH.  XXI]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"   313 

burdened  as  these  porters  were,  with  enormous 
receptacles  filled  by  the  women  pickers-up  among 
the  vines.  They  are  shaped  like  a  dustman's  basket 
and  strapped  on  to  the  back  of  the  porter;  they  are 
sometimes  made  of  osier  work  of  leather,  but  most 
often  of  a  green-painted  metal,  which  has  the  effect 
of  making  the  grape-carriers  appear  like  shard- 
beetles  or  men  in  armour. 

Some  of  them  emptied  their  hods  into  the  carts, 
the  rest  went  straight  down  to  the  ferry-boats  which 
were  waiting  to  take  them  and  their  burdens,  just 
as  they  stood,  to  the  village  on  the  other  side. 
When  half  a  score  men,  backed  by  their  hods, 
packed  into  the  boat,  they  were  nearly  lost  to  sight 
behind  the  enormous  stack  of  metal  they  bore. 
Their  heads  appeared  to  peep  modestly  round  the 
corners  of  the  hods,  and  one  imagined  a  boat  full 
of  armed  warriors  hiding  behind  their  bronze 
shields,  sheltering  from  arrows. 

One  man  sat  like  a  bonze  in  his  cart,  behind  his 
winepress  that  was  full  of  grapes.  He  was  offering 
them  as  samples.  As  we  passed,  Herr  Kramp,  calm, 
suave,  imperturbable,  handled  a  bunch,  tasted  a 
grape,  and  lingered  behind  for  a  few  seconds.  .  .  . 

"Otto,"  said  his  father  complacently,  "is  doing 
business." 

When  Herr  Kramp  rejoined  us  he  had  just  bought 
the  entire  produce  of  that  man's  vineyard — about 
nine  thousand  gallons  of  must.  He  was  as  com- 
posed— nay,  more  so — as  a  stockbroker  who  has 
successfully  beared  some  stock  on  Wall  Street; 
and  we  all  went  quietly  on  to  the  communal  wine- 
press at  Cluserath,  where  these  grapes  would  be 


314  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

tested  and  paid  for,  and  1  should  taste,  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life,  the  foaming  must  of  poetry.  We 
walked  past  the  landlord's  own  vineyard,  to  which  he 
gave  only  a  cursory  glance,  for  he  had  visited  it  the 
day  before  ;  we  went  in,  still  eating  grapes,  through 
the  cobbled  streets  of  villages,  each  bearing  some  one 
of  the  favoured  names  that  one  sees  on  the  labels  of 
bottles  dotted  about  on  London  supper-tables,  till 
we  came  to  a  damp,  dark-looking,  but  not  unclean 
building  whose  stone  courtyard  was  full  of  carts 
disgorging  their  slippery,  shiny  loads.  In  most  of 
these  carts  a  woman  stood,  like  a  goddess,  demeaning 
herself  with  something  like  a  trident.  The  wine- 
press, gaping  for  the  grapes,  was  perched  high  on 
the  cart,  and  she  was  by  way  of  hastening  matters, 
for  there  is  no  time  to  lose.  On  one  cart  the  whole 
family  was  apparently  engaged  in  "  possing,"  as  the 
washerwomen  say  in  the  North  of  England,  pressing, 
bumping  down  wet  masses  of  green  globes  that, 
already  below,  bursting  with  their  own  weight,  ride 
up  in  the  tub  like  a  sea  of  mottled  and  yeasty  green. 
All  those  hearty  girls  and  boys  had  been  helping 
to  gather ;  the  day  was  hot ;  they  had  taken  off 
their  coats  and  their  jackets  and  their  wraps  of  all 
sorts,  and  had  piled  them  on  the  cart.  It  was  a 
pell-mell  of  grapes  —  exquisite,  ethereal  grapes, 
though  beginning  to  look  a  little  the  worse  for 
wear — and  the  gross  material  trappings  of  poor, 
heated  humanity.  And  everyone,  like  Herr  Kramp, 
will  have  you  taste ;  everyone  is  flourishing  a 
sample  bunch  in  your  face,  and  imploring  you  to 
try.  To  refuse  would  be  churlish,  and  one  has  to 
forget "  the  dyer's  hand,  subdued  to  what  it  works  in." 


CH.  xxi]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  315 

We  all  went  inside.  Herr  Kramp  was  much  too 
busy  to  speak ;  he  was  a  great  man,  and  he  was 
buying  more  grapes.  He  was  buying,  I  under- 
stood, this  particular  man's  grape-juice  straight  off 
the  cart,  and  he  was  having  the  quality  tested, 
hodful  by  hodful,  as  they  were  brought  in  and 
turned  out  into  the  communal  press  placed  over 
a  tub.  There  are  two  wheels  in  the  bottom  of  this 
utensil  that  work  into  each  other,  toothed  and  close- 
fitting,  whilst  the  attendant  turns  the  handle  at  the 
side  with  great  ferocity. 

The  flood  of  juice  gushed  out  with  a  rustling, 
weltering  sound,  and  one  that  was  highly  gratifying 
to  me  who  stood  beside  and  watched.  It  is  delight- 
ful to  see  pressure  applied  and  pressure  yield  so 
much,  though  it  was  not  my  grape-juice  but  Herr 
Kramp's.  One  is  child  enough  to  like  to  see  any- 
thing squeezed  and  to  listen  to  the  handsome  noise 
it  makes.  There  is  a  certain  cruel  pleasure  about 
it ;  one  fancies  that  the  grapes  resent  the  insult, 
feel  pain,  and  cry  out ! 

Then  the  liquor  was  tested.  The  communal 
officer  had  an  exceedingly  simple  and  rudimentary 
testing-tube,  and  only  one,  but  I  dare  say  it  did  its 
work  all  right.  The  long  funnel  of  dull  glass  was 
taken  off  the  window-sill  where  it  lay,  plunged  into 
the  must,  and  examined  by  the  light  of  a  yellow  horn 
window,  the  only  one  in  the  place,  and  just  a  couple 
of  feet  square  at  that. 

The  ingenuous  peasant,  whose  care  had  brought 
this  harvest  to  perfection,  stood  by,  full  of  anxiety 
while  his  grape-juice  was  being  put  to  the  proof. 
His  wife  had  come  in  with  him  to  see  that  he  got 


3i6  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

fair  play,  and  she  was  obviously  his  master.  For 
each  hodful  the  superintendent  called  out  the  result 
of  the  test,  the  price  was  mentioned,  and  a  fresh 
load  was  thrown  in  and  subjected  to  the  great 
indignity  of  pressing.  That  is  what  it  began  to 
seem  to  me,  for  the  poor  green  globes  looked  so 
translucent,  so  innocent,  so  other-worldly. 

Herr  Kramp  bought  the  lot.  He  was,  of  course, 
far  too  busy  to  attend  to  me  and  see  that  I  tasted 
the  must,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  was  no  longer 
very  anxious  to  taste  it.  Although  Joseph  Leopold, 
who  has  seen  a  score  of  vintages  and  who  was  now 
in  an  inner  cell  eating  grapes  with  Herr  Kramp 
Senior,  as  who  should  say,  having  a  drink — although 
Joseph  Leopold  said  that  "  must "  is  most  delicious, 
I  could  hardly  believe  him.  The  squeezed  mass  of 
grapes  as  it  came  out  of  the  small  press  looked  for 
all  the  world  like  the  cheap  dates  that  I  used  to 
buy  in  quarter-pound  wedges  with  my  own  pocket- 
money  on  my  way  home  from  school.  I  was  con- 
sumed for  that  hunger  for  eatable  odds  and  ends 
that  is  the  weakness  of  "  flappers."  That  mess  was 
brown ;  this  mess  was  green — that  was  about  all  the 
difference.  Things  do  not  as  a  rule  look  appetizing 
after  they  have  been  squeezed  and  their  identity 
utterly  destroyed,  and  the  pearly,  opalescent  spheres 
that  I  held  in  my  hand  seemed  to  bear  no  relation 
to  the  squalid -looking  mass  of  ill -digested  food 
rejected  by  the  winepress. 

The  contents  of  the  first  tub  were  at  once  thrown 
into  a  larger  tub  or  vat,  in  which  the  juice  was 
already  beginning  to  ferment,  and  looked  still  more 
unpleasant.    Then  the  mixture  of  squeezed  grapes. 


cH.xxi]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  317 

the  half-dried  residuum,  were  put  into  a  larger 
receptacle  still,  a  press  with  handles  that  it  took 
at  least  four  men  to  turn.  This,  like  the  tubs  that 
now  held  the  first  juice,  was  connected  by  a  pipe 
with  the  cellars  below,  for  these  immense,  final 
presses  had  the  function  of  squeezing  out  the  last 
drop  of  must.  They  squeezed  from  the  dull  green 
and  drooping  skins  of  the  grapes  not  only  the  last 
drop  of  moisture,  but  even  the  very  colour,  so  that 
what  remained  looked  like  nothing  in  the  world 
but  hard  cattle  cake,  for  which  indeed  it  is  not 
seldom  used. 

I  was  taken  down  into  the  cellar,  and  gazed 
without  much  interest,  but  with  some  awe,  into  the 
enormous  barrels.  For  the  process  was  now  carried 
on  as  it  were  behind  closed  doors.  The  must  was 
to  remain  there  to  ferment  and  mature  for  quite  a 
long  period,  putting  off  from  its  spirit  all  that  was 
corruptible.  The  next  time  I  should  see  it  would 
be  glowing  and  glancing  into  a  tall  glass  on  a  white 
damask  tablecloth,  poured  out  by  an  indifferent 
footman — some  cold,  callous  creature,  incapable  of 
such  generous  enthusiasm  for  the  liquor  that  was 
not  destined  to  pass  down  his  own  throat  as  inspired 
Herr  Kramp  senior. 

That  I  should  see  that  must  again,  or  some  of  it, 
was  literally  true.  One  of  those  immense  barrels 
was  the  property  of  Herr  Kramp.  Now,  Joseph 
Leopold  and  I  had  given  Herr  Kramp  an  order  for 
twenty-four  dozen — a  barrique — of  this  particular 
vintage,  so  the  possibility,  if  not  the  probability,  is 
that  some  of  the  liquid  that  was  then  beginning  its 
long  sleep  in  that  tun  will  cheer  and  inspire  our  own 


3i8  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

table,  whenever  Joseph  Leopold  shall  decide  that 
our  own  particular  barrels  that  are  new  arrivals  in 
our  own  particular  cellar,  having  only  just  outpassed 
the  perils  of  the  swift  Rhine  and  the  fell  and  stormy 
sea,  shall  be  fit  for  the  tremendous  and  house-shaking 
event  that  is  called  "  bottling."     We  do  the  bottling. 

The  autumn  evening  shadows  were  beginning  to 
settle  on  the  green  meadows,  the  green  hills,  the 
green  vines,  and  to  infuse  into  that  landscape  the 
forlorn  touch  of  greyness  which  warns  loiterers  to 
hurry,  and  over  all  the  fields  of  this  pious  country 
sets  the  beads  clicking  at  the  Angelus.  We  had  to 
walk  through  two  vine  villages  on  our  way  to  the 
horse -ferry  that  was  opposite  Thornich  station. 
The  names  of  these  villages  were  familiar  enough  to 
me.  How  small  and  unimportant  they  seemed  !  And 
yet  they  bore  names  that  reverberate  over  continents 
and  oceans,  and  catch  the  eye  in  every  railway- 
station  in  Germany.  Berncastler  Doctor,  Pies- 
porter,  Ober-Emmeler,  printed  so  big  in  wine  lists, 
stand  for  dear  little  domestic  assemblages  of  white- 
faced,  one-storied  houses,  against  which  lean  pig- 
sties and  cow -byres,  hung  with  squirrels  and 
magpies  in  cages,  the  goats  and  geese  picking  their 
ways  between  the  rough  cobblestones,  the  grey- 
green  household  jugs  hanging  like  tall  hats  upon 
the  palings.  .  .  . 

Still  bearing  our  last  bunches  of  grapes,  we 
entered  the  little  station,  and  there  I  found  that  I 
was  not  the  only  grape  fiend.  Every  other  person 
in  the  waiting-room  of  the  station  reminded  me  of 
the  Bible  pictures  that  tried  to  elevate  my  childish 
mind — each  one  w^as  bearing  his  grapes  of  Eshcol  in 


cH.xxi]  "TAKE  US  THE  LITTLE  FOXES"  319 

one  form  of  package  or  another.  There  were  girls — 
rather  undersized,  these,  and  ill-dressed,  looking 
like  little  London  dressmaker's  hacks ;  but  instead 
of  cardboard  boxes  in  which  "  creations "  were 
packed,  there  depended  from  their  elbows  all  sorts 
of  knobby-checked  bundles,  and  knotted  checked 
handkerchiefs,  from  which  there  slipped  and  fell  on  to 
the  polished  floor  the  current  spheres  of  translucency 
of  which  we  had  thought  all  the  day.  There  were 
widows — they  looked  like  widows? — with  baskets 
and  cruses;  grape-juice  was  running  composedly 
out  of  the  corners  of  them.  There  were  unmistak- 
able pairs  of  lovers  holding  vine-trails  in  their 
disengaged  hands.  Other  unclassable  passengers 
bore  sprays  of  the  holy  plant,  wreathed,  not  in 
their  hair,  but  done  up  in  their  umbrellas.  Little 
wet  dusty  marbles  ran  about  on  the  dusty  floor 
and  were  soon  trodden  into  circles  of  wet  sticki- 
ness ;  a  three-cornered  bundle,  made  of  an  apron 
or  a  handkerchief,  is  an  ineffectual  and  weary 
envelope  for  such  an  exuberant,  polished  entity 
as  the  grape,  full  of  stored-up  spirit  and  sunlight. 

Presently,  however,  we  all  packed  into  our  train 
with  grapes  inside  and  out,  Herr  Kramp  and  his 
father  were  not  with  us.  They  had  slyly  given  us 
the  slip  at  Cluserath,  and  were  staying  behind  to 
celebrate  the  great  feast  of  the  year  in  at  least  three 
inns — so  I  have  since  gathered.  They  would  talk  it 
over  with  every  fresh  Wirth,  and  probably  Herr 
Kramp  would  buy  more  grapes,  for  he  is  a  great 
Weinhandler. 

But  this  thing  is  sure— for  the  next  fortnight  on 
the  Mosel,  no  man,  woman,  or  child  will  talk  except 


320  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN      [ch.  xxi 

in  terms  of  the  grape.  The  talk  will  be  gay  and 
cheerful  as  the  minds  that  inspire  it,  for  this  year  no 
South  German  will  even  entertain  painful  thoughts. 
Old  quarrels  will  be  made  up,  bad  debts  paid  off, 
heirlooms  will  be  bought  in  again,  and  the  back  year 
of  mourning  forgotten.  In  that  year,  when  the  vine 
suffered  so  terribly  the  cattle  prospered  and  waxed 
fat.  The  year  after  the  cruel  sun,  murderer  of  the 
horned  beasts  that  wandered  spiritlessly  about  the 
brown  fields  where  the  grass  had  died,  and  lowed 
and  yearned  for  a  lush  pasture,  and  whose  lean, 
nervous  bodies  were  eaten  by  us  en  maugreant — the 
sun  gave  the  juice  of  the  grape  to  wash  down  the 
indifferent  repast.  The  pestilential  heat  which 
drove  men  wild  till  they  murdered  their  wives 
and  children,  which  maddened  strike  committees 
and  filled  the  Courts  of  Justice,  which  nearly  forced 
three  nations  into  war — one  week  of  rain,  that  year, 
it  was  patent  to  the  world,  would  have  sent  the 
English  rioters  slouching  home,  and  would  have 
brought  the  tetchy  and  absurdly  protracted  negotia- 
tions of  German  and  English  courts  alike  to  a  good- 
humoured  and  speedy  conclusion — the  sun,  that 
worked  all  this  mischief,  also  provided  the  antidote, 
and  was  all  the  while  fostering  the  peace-dealing 
grape.     "  Glory  be  !"  I  cry,  with  old  Herr  Kramp. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

ENVOI 

On  New  Year's  Day  I  heard  Mass  in  Aix-la- 
Chapelle — Aachen — over  the  tomb  of  Charlemagne, 
Joseph  Leopold's  hero.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  we 
were  staying  in  Belgium,  within  a  motor-ride,  a 
walk,  a  stroll  of  Germany.  And  it  seemed,  oddly 
enough,  as  if  Germany,  the  country  which,  like  Sir 
James  Barrie's  sweet  Scotch  heroine,  boasts  "  no 
charm,"  still  contrived  to  draw  us.  We  could  not 
keep  away  from  it.  And  I  had  a  strong  desire  to 
savourer  the  sensation  of  actually  crossing  a  frontier 
on  my  two  legs.  To  cross  a  frontier  in  a  train — one 
has  done  it  scores  of  times — can  give  no  particular 
thrill;  the  great  station  at  Herbestal  is  like  any 
other  station,  except  that  the  station-master  looks 
like  a  gentlemanly  chasseur,  and  the  evidence  of  its 
international  character  consists  in  the  tiresome 
business  of  having  one's  luggage  examined.  No, 
the  thrill  lies  in  doing  it  on  foot.  Then  one  can 
picture  vedettes  and  soldiers  of  both  sides,  good, 
decent  fellows  who  have  no  desire  to  be  at  each 
other's  throats,  fraternizing  over  their  drinks,  stand- 
ing, as  they  exchange  amenities,  with  a  leg  on  each 
side  of  the  imaginary  line  of  demarcation.     I  am 

321  SI 


322  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xxii 

told  they  actually  did  this  during  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War.  I  don't  know  how  they  behaved 
in  Belgium,  that  poor  little  buffer  State,  guaranteed 
immune  by  all  the  Powers  and  perfectly  safe — to  be 
constituted  the  lists  for  this  combat  when  it  does 
come.  France  is  ready.  France  is  belligerent. 
The  posters  are  up  as  I  write. 

And  that  autumn  we  rolled  along  the  smooth,  dull 
roads  towards  Germany;  the  two  delightful  G's — 
Belgians — Joseph  Leopold  and  I,  a  fair  Spadoise, 
and  two  samples  of  those  charming  people  who  are 
of  no  nation  but  who  inhabit  Belgium.  Warlike 
images  were  constantly  in  our  minds,  for  it  was  the 
year  of  the  first  war  scare.  Everybody,  for  every 
sort  of  reason,  was  so  very  anxious  that  the  Pax 
Britannica,  the  Pax  Germanica,  and  all  possible 
Paxes  should  be  preserved.  And  to  Joseph  Leo- 
pold, the  German  who  really  knew,  all  sorts  of  little 
curious  searching  questions  were  addressed.  And 
out  of  the  serene  depths  of  his  German  conscious- 
ness Joseph  Leopold  assured  us :  "  There  will  be 
no  war !" 

But  as  we  passed  and  approached  the  frontier  I 
shed  my  wrappings  and  stood  up  in  the  car  now 
and  then,  to  look  at  and  consider  certain  strange 
geographical  features  before  me  that  reminded  me 
of  English  north-country  slag-heaps,  ending  in  an 
overturned  wheelbarrow.  This  gave  the  usual  wild 
air  of  unfinishedness,  and  it  was  aided  by  the  trun- 
cated rails  that  lay  along  the  top  of  the  long,  low 
earthwork,  and  were  cut  off  sharply  too.  .  .  . 

••  What  are  those  ?"  I  said. 

'•  German  railway-lines,"  said  Joseph  Leopold. 


CH.  xxii]  ENVOI  333 

"  But  why  are  they  left  like  that — unfinished  ?" 

"They  can't  carry  them  any  farther  than  the 
frontier — as  yet.     But  they  are  ready." 

The  sinister  significance  of  his  speech  smote  the 
whole  earful  of  aliens.  The  courteous  Belgians 
were  silent. 

I  confess  that  from  that  moment  the  possibilities 
of  war  became  more  real  to  me,  and  I  remembered 
what  had  happened  the  month  before.  Germany  had 
called  in  all  her  gold,  and  in  the  town  where  I  was 
staying — Trier,  a  frontier  town — there  was  not  an 
ounce  of  it  to  be  had.  I  remembered  the  sudden 
sound  of  rub-a-dub  that  used  to  come  up  out  of  the 
valleys  to  us  strolling  on  the  heights.  I  remembered 
the  conversations  that  I  used  to  hear  in  drawing- 
rooms,  the  sly  talk  of  the  Reserves — would  they  be 
allowed  to  go  home  ? — the  terror  of  the  Socialist 
menace  that  this  scare  neutralized,  and  the  congratu- 
lations on  the  victory  of  the  Government.  It  passed 
off  then;  Herr  Kidderlen- Waechter's  diplomacy 
was  successful,  and  the  little  recruits  crowded  the 
great  stations  of  France  and  Germany  in  their 
thousands.  I  myself  had  watched  them  that  year  in 
Paris,  coming  in  late  by  the  Gare  de  I'Est.  I  stood 
with  the  wives  and  mothers  on  trucks  and  carts  in 
the  entry  to  that  outlandish  station,  and  with  dif- 
ficulty picked  out  my  own  man,  who  happened  to  be 
travelling  on  that  line,  from  the  hordes  disgorged  by 
the  last  train. 

This  was  real,  then,  a  veritable  menace.  The 
frontier  at  once  assumed  terrific  proportions  in  my 
mind.  All  this  innocent,  dull,  and  smiling  country 
seemed  to  my  eyes  now  covered  with  men  marching, 


324  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xxii 

men  detrained  from  those  truncated  conductors  of 
ruin  and  strife,  placed  there  like  blunted  ends  of 
swords — yet  terribly  significant.  .  .  .  Thus  far  and 
no  farther — as  yet  !  .  .  . 

We  were  bowling  along  on  open  heath-fringed 
roads,  up  ascents,  down  declivities  of  low  heath- 
covered  hills,  blue  on  the  horizon  that  was 
Germany.  ...  It  all  looked  alike,  but  I  felt  the 
sense  of  imminence  so  strongly  that  I  almost 
jumped  as  Joseph  Leopold  said  composedly  : 

"  Germany  down  there,  just  before  we  begin  to 
go  up  again !  You'll  see  the  squashed  crow  in  a 
minute." 

In  the  turn  of  the  valley  there  was  an  ordinary  tiled 
cottage,  set  bare  and  gardenless  on  the  side  of  the 
ascending  road.  The  eagle  of  Prussia  was  spread 
in  the  usual  spatch-cocked  way  on  an  unpretending 
signboard  beside  it.  The  douane  !  Had  we  anything 
to  declare  ? 

We  had  descended.  The  chauffeur  shook  his 
head.  Some  paper  was  given  us  by  the  burly 
Prussian  officer  who  sat  behind  a  grille  inside  this 
cottage  on  the  heathery  waste,  and  who  came  out 
politely  to  see  what  we  were  like;  then  mutely 
passed  us  on.     We  were  free  of  Germany ! 

The  country  looked  just  the  same — the  villages 
too.  German  characteristics  did  not  appear  so 
early.  But  a  few  miles  farther  on  the  familiar  rows 
of  grey  pots  appeared,  hat-like,  stuck  on  the  gate- 
posts, and  then  some  geese — more  geese — and  a 
whitewashed  house  with  broad,  blue-painted  rafters. 
I  was  at  home.  The  rub-a-dub,  too.  Military 
manoeuvres  were  being  carried  on  somewhere  not 


CH.  xxii]  ENVOI  325 

very  far  off  on  the  broad  park-like  plateau  we  had 
now  attained. 

The  place  we  were  bound  to,  Montjoie,  so  the 
Spadoise  lady  frequently  told  us,  was  supposed  to 
be  a  gem  of  a  town,  lying  very  low  in  a  kind  of 
kessel,  but  possessing  a  fine  old  castle,  which  was 
throned  on  the  rock  high  above  the  town.  We  should 
see  a  curiously  and  wildly  picturesque  place,  the 
physical  features  contributing,  and  all  in  a  ridicu- 
lously small  compass.     Also   it  was,  according  to 

another  member  of  our  party,  Mr.   C ,  a  very 

happy  hunting-ground  for  old  furniture. 

And  we  ascended  hills  and  descended  mountain 
gorges,  like  those  in  the  Ardennes  country,  clothed 
with  heavy  pines  and  firs,  luxuriant  and  well  watered. 
And  by-and-by  we  came  to  Montjoie.  Itwas  perched 
on  a  set  of  granite  cliffs,  whose  height  equalled  the 
hills  we  had  descended  to  get  down  into  the  valley. 
The  river  wound  stilly,  smugly,  in  among  the  cliffs. 
The  houses  of  the  little  town,  creeping  about  on  its 
banks,  were  entirely  dominated  by  the  castled  steep 
and  hidden  until  the  road,  wandering  among  the 
gorges  of  the  cliff,  led  us  into  the  kernel  of  the 
valley  where  it  lies.  I  have  seldom  seen  a  more 
spectacular  place,  and  as  we  penetrated  farther  I 
could  not  help  thinking  of  the  last  chromo-lithograph 
I  had  seen  of  some  impossible  piece  of  place  por- 
traiture prepared  for  the  outside  of  a  chocolate-box. 
Down  these  sheer  steeps,  from  the  ruined  chocolate- 
box  castle,  as  on  the  back  sheet  of  the  stage  in  my 
first  pantomime,  I  could  have  imagined  that  I  saw 
fairies,  slung  in  paper  festoons,  come  sliding,  glissad- 
ing down  to  Pantaloon  in  front  of  the  stage,  fluffing 


326  THE  DESIRABLE  ALIEN     [ch.  xxii 

out  their  skirts  and  beginning  their  pointed-toe 
dance.  For  here  there  are  bridges  over  the  foaming 
stream,  and  stage-houses  with  balconies  hanging 
over  the  torrent — every  sort  of  papier  mache  efifect 
crowded  into  a  small  space.  The  great  shale  cliffs 
of  an  inky  blackness  overhang  the  little  streets  lying 
in  the  shadow,  sunless  as  Victoria  Street  at  noon- 
day, but  shot  through  by  shafts  of  sunlight  from 
above.  Small  fir-trees,  planted  all  along  both  sides 
of  the  street,  lining  them  with  green,  as  it  were  a 
box  for  packing  fruit  or  sweets,  brushed  the  wheels 
of  our  car  and  added  to  the  strange  stagey  effect. 
It  was  an  accidental  one,  and  only  for  the  day  we 
were  here.  These  trees  were  staged,  not  planted, 
for  the  Kaiser  had  just  visited  Montjoie.  The 
yellow  paper  roses  that  festooned  the  pink  house  of 

Commercienrath  S had  not  yet  faded  after  their 

manner,  for  it  had  not  rained  since.    A  very  tall 

magnificent  house  was  that  of  Herr  S ,  with 

ogival  windows  and  a  double  perron,  and  a  fine 
Renaissance  door.  Inside  there  was  a  set  of 
beautiful  furniture  which  we  were  permitted  to  see, 

as  Herr  S had  gone  away  at  once  after  the 

auspicious  visit.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  always 
permitted  his  concierge  to  make  an  honest  penny 
by  showing  his  possessions.  And  his  house  was 
only  the  ordinary  plain  house  of  a  German  gentle- 
man of  rank  and  family — tres  digne,  tres  comfortable, 
full  of  objects  which  to  him  were  family  heirlooms. 

Then  we  all  lunched  at  the  hotel  and  drank  healths 
all  round  in  good,  cheapish  Rhine  wine.  The 
healths  of  several  nationalities,  for  Belgian,  English, 
German,  and   French — all  these  nationalities  were 


CH.  xxii]  ENVOI  327 

represented  round  the  table  in  the  little  saal.  The 
ceiling,  after  the  good  old  German  fashion,  was 
stuck  full  of  corks  that  had  been  precipitated  from 
bottles  of  mine  host's  honest  cellar.  The  hotel  was 
an  old  mansion,  and  the  stairs  were  worth  seeing — 
carved,  oldish,  fairly  good.  Montjoie  is  like  a  freak 
of  Germany,  queer,  wonderful,  and  uncanny.  Yes, 
it  reminded  me  of  a  Conte  d'Hoffmann,  and  it 
"  came "  wonderfully  on  a  picture  postcard.  We 
bought  some,  and  some  old  furniture,  to  please  the 
Spadoise  lady  who  had  brought  us,  and  then  we 
motored  back  into  Belgium — for  the  time.  .  .  . 


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BIBUOTHECA       ROMANICA  = 

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sary.  Notes.  Small  8vo,  single  parts,  8ii. 
net  per  vol. ;  cloth,  single  parts,  is.  net  pei* 
vol.  Where  two  or  more  units  are  bound: 
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I.  Moliere:  Le  Misanthrope.  \ 

3.  Mollere:  Les  Kemmes  savantes. 

3.  CornelUe :  Le  Cid.  [tbodc, ; 

4.  Descartes:     Discours  de  la  m«— < 
5-6.  Dante :    Divina    Commedia     I.  - 

Inferno. 

7.  Boccaccio:    Decameron:    Priiua( 

giornata. 

8.  Calderon :  La  vida  es  sueiio. 

Q.  Restif  de  la  Bretonne :   L'aix 
2000. 

10.  Camoes :  Os  Lusi'adas :  Canto  \.,\\A 

11.  Racine:  Athalie. 

12-15.  Petraroa  :  Rerum  vulgarinm-i 
fragmenta.  [Purgatorio.  ' 

16-17.  Dante:    Divina    Commedia    II.  3' 

18-20.  Tilller:  Mon  oncle  Benjamin. 

31-  22.  Boooaccio :  Decameron  :  Seconda(.| 
giornata.  , 

13-24.  Beaumarchais:  Le  Garbier  del 
Seville.  I( 


BIBLIOTHECA  ItOtAXmCK-contivtud 
25.  Camoes:  OsLusiadas  :  III.,  IV. 
26-28.  Alfred  de  Musset:  Comddies  et 
Proverbes 
29-  CornelUe:  Horace, 
30-31.  Dante:    Divina   Commedia    III.: 

Paradiso. 
32-34.  Prevost:  Manon  Lescaut. 
35-36.  CBuvres  de  Pranpois  YilKyn, 
37-';9.  OuUlem  de  Castro:  Las  Mocc- 
dades  del  Cid,  I.,  II. 
40.  Dante :  La  Vita  Nuova. 
41-44.  Cervantes:  5 Novelas ejemplares. 

45.  Camoes:  Os  Lusiadas:V.VI.,  VII. 

46.  Molifere:  L'Avare. 

47.  Petraroa:  I  Trionfi.       [giornata 
48-49.  Boccaccio :    Decameron  :    Terza 

50.  CornelUe:  Cinna. 
51-52  Camoes  :  Os  Lusiadas  :  VIII., IX.,  X. 
53-54  La  Chanson  de  Roland. 
55-58  Alfred    de    Mttdset :    Premieres 
Poesies. 
59.  Boccaccio :  I>ecameron  :  Quarta 
giornata. 
60-61.  Malstre    Pt^ft*     Pathelln  : 

Farce  du  XV«  siecle. 
62-63.  Glacomo  Leopard! :  Canti. 
C4-65.  Chateaubriand:  Ataia. 

66.  Boccaccio  :    Decameron,    Quinta 
giornkt.T. 
67-70.  Blaise  Pascal:  Les  Provinciales. 


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Vohn/iis  now  in  course  of  fuhlication  : 

35.  ^ITine,  Women,  and  Song: 
Medieval  Latin  Students'  Songs.  Trans- 
lated into  English,  with  an  Introduction, 
by  John  Addington  Sy.moxds. 

36,  37.  George  Fettle's  Petite  Pal- 
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<2.    Swift's  Battle  of  the  Books. 

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A.  GUTHKELCH. 

43.  Sir  W^llliam  Temple  upon  the 
Gardens  of  Epicurus,  with 
other  17th  Century  Garden 
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duction, by  A.  FORisES  SlEVEKING,  F.S.A. 

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51,  52.  King's  Letters.  Volumes  III. 
;ind  IV.  Newlv  edited  trom  thenriginais 
by  Robert  Steele,  F.S.a.     [Pr^faring 

53.  The  English  Correspondence 
of  Saint  Boniface.  Translated  and 
edited, with  an  Introductory  Sketch  of  ths; 
Li'eof  St.  Boniface,  by  Ed\v.  Kvlik,M..\. 

56.  The   Cavalier   to    his    Liady : 

Seventeenth      Centurv      Love      aongs. 
Edited  by  F.  Sidgwick. 
67.  Asser's  Iiife  of  King  Alfred. 

Edited  by  L.  C.  jANE,  ISl.A. 

58.  Translations  from  the  Ice- 
landic.   By  Rev.  W.  C.  Green.  M.A. 

59.  The    Rule    of    St.    Benedict. 

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60.  Daniel's '  Delia '  and  Drayton'a 
'Idea.'   Edited  by  Arundhll  Esdaile. 

61.  The  Book  of  the  Duke  of 
True  liovers.  By  Christine  de 
PiSAN.  Translated,  with  Notes  and 
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63.  The  Chatelaine  of  Yergi.  A 
Romance  of  the  Court,  translated  from 
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Welch,  with  Introduction  bv  L. 
Brandin,  Ph.D.,  and  with  the  original 
Text,  Edition  Raynaud. 

Earlier  Volumes  ivi  the  Series  are — 
].  The  Love  of  Books  (The  Philobibloii). 
r.  *3ii   Dramas    of     Calderon   (FiizGerald* 

Translation).    (Double  vol. 1 
3.  Chronicle  olJocelin  of  Bmkelond. 
*.  The  Life  of  Sir  Thomas  More. 
5.  Eikon  Baailike. 
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Edited  by  FrAsK  Sidgwick. 

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Henry  Y.' 

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of  Shakespeare's  'Comedy  of 
Errors.'  Latin  text,  with  the  Eliza- 
bethan Translation.  Edited  by  W,  H.  D. 
Rouse  Litt.D. 

12.  'Promos  and  Cassandra': 
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Measure.' 

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iiource  of  Twelfth  Night.'  Edited  by 
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tion betwixt  the  two  fajnous 
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ter,' and  '  The  True  Tragedy  of 
Richard,  Duke  of  York':  the 
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•King  Henry  VI.' 

15.  The  Sources  of '  The  Tempest.' 

16.  The  Sources  of  'Cymbeline.' 

17.  The  Sources  and  Analogues 
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Edited  by  Piofessur  I.  Gollancz. 

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'  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,'  '  Merry 
Wives,'  'Jluch  Ado  about  Nothing,' 
'  All's  W^ell  that  End*  Well.' 

19,20.  Shakespeare's  Plutarch:  the 
.sources  of  '  Julius  Casar,'  'Antony  and 
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27 


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V.  The  Winter's  Tale. 

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Vll.  Cymbeline. 
VIII.  Romeo  and  Juliet. 
IX.  Macbeth. 
X.  Much  Ado  About  Nothing. 


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