ple, and,
indeed, I met with no insult or cold treatment either from the working
class or upper classes in Bavaria--only some surprise as at a rare
visitor. For there are extremely few English people there now. The
famous picture-galleries are still powerless to attract the American
art pilgrim, though that is due more to the difficulty of obtaining
permission to reside than to lack of interest in the collections.
Possibly next year the police may relent. The food shortage is not so
menacing. Moreover, the village of Ober-Ammergau proposes once more to
have its religious fete and stage the "Life of Christ." "Whether we
can have the play depends almost entirely on the Americans," say the
villagers. "The money of visitors alone makes the performance possible
to-day." There is talk, however, of an American film corporation
financing the "Passion-Spiel" if exclusive cinema rights can be
obtained. The war made a dire defeat of village talent, however.
Several sure to have been billed for sacred parts were killed or
crippled. Other prospective saints who served the Fatherland and came
through whole are letting their beards grow now. If the difficulties
are overcome and the play is performed, the sound of English will be no
longer unfamiliar in Bavaria's capital.

Before this possibly Munich will have been for a few weeks Europe's
storm-centre. The storm which broke in Budapest and then broke in
Poland and Silesia will surely break again in Munich. For it is there,
perhaps, that the destiny of Austria will be decided. For Bavaria is
the centre of the intrigue for the unification of Austria and Germany.
Concurrently the French are intriguing for their plan of an independent
Bavaria.

I was at pains to inquire the general opinion of educated people and
there seemed to be no separatism in Bavaria, no sentiment of the kind,
and there was apparently no Roman Catholic propaganda in favour of
Bavarian separatism. It is curious that whilst Slav States are ravaged
by all sorts of local Sinn-Feinism, the for-ourselves-alone-ism of
Slovaks, Croats, Montenegrins, Little Russians, and so forth, the
instinct of all the constituent Germanic nations is to stand together.
Teutonic solidarity is giving witness of itself in these days.

The grievances of the Tyrol were very strongly stated at a Munich
dinner-party, a Bavarian count averring that that part of the Tyrol
which had fallen to the dole of Italy was too strongly affili