ne than classical
drama. That is not a slight on the stage. The vulgarity of English
musical comedies and imported operettas is lacking on the Berlin and
Vienna stage. German pieces of this kind are often extremely charming
and diverting, and they impart that light-heartedness which is a first
condition of a healthy mind. The audience is in no sense "highbrow,"
it is the general level of German humanity. It forgets and responds,
and is ready to sing choruses with the leaders of song and dance.
Three or four evenings spent listening to operetta leave very pleasant
memories, and the last of these was on the occasion of the first night
of "Morgen wieder lustik," a humorous presentation of the time when
Napoleon was splitting up Germany much as the French wish to split her
up now--and there was a King of Westphalia who is still memorable for
that one phrase, "_Morgen wieder lustik!_"--To-morrow we shall be happy
again!

I visited Strasbourg, now outwardly Frenchified, but inwardly German
enough. At the time of the commencement of the armistice and the
German retirement "Simplicimus" published a picture of a "Farewell to
Strasbourg." It was a stormy sunset and late evening, and the black
silhouette of the very memorable cathedral, the stark and ragged
grandeur of that cathedral and its spire which looks as if nothing
exists in Strasbourg but it, stood for the significance of the city.
Some German horse-soldier symbolized the last to go, and lifting his
hat, took one last look at the place, and said, "_Auf wiedersehen_."
And Alsace became French once more.

What a thing to graft two French provinces to the living body of
Germany for fifty years and then dispart, when the blood has learned to
flow strongly from the new flesh to the heart! You feel the break, the
interruption, when you go there now.

And now the same two provinces, heavily Germanized, are re-grafted back
to the original flesh of France. It would be absurd to say that the
circulation of the blood and the spirit have been re-established at
once. There is a great deal of mortification in Alsace and Lorraine.
It will be a long while before French life permeates the whole and
surges through every vein. Meanwhile the new process of
Frenchification proceeds.

We seldom hear that the Germans dare claim to hold Alsace and Lorraine
on any grounds, and yet, in fact, quietly and persistently, they do
dare. It is frequently urged in conversation that if a p