That they lack freedom, in our sense, is true, but
freedom is for the few. The worldwide complaint of the hardship of
constant work is rather silly, for most of us would die of monotony if
we were not forced to work to keep alive, and to make a living.

The city, with its broad, clean streets, its beautiful race-course,
shaded walks, its forests and lakes, toward Potsdam, or at Tegel, or
Werder, when the blossoms are out, with its well-kept gardens, its
profusion of flowers and shrubs and trees, is physically the most
wholesome great city in the world; but Hans bleibt immer Hans! Goethe,
after a visit to Berlin, wrote: "There are no more ungodly communities
than in Berlin." [1]

[1] "Est giebt keine gottlosere Voelker als in Berlin."

No one knows his Berlin better than that prince of German literary
Bohemians, Paul Lindau, and he makes a character in one of his novels
say of it: "untidy and orderly, so boisterous and so regulated, so
boorish and so kindly, so indescribable--so Berlinish--just that!" [1]

[1] "Staubig und ordentlich, so Taut und geregelt, so grob und
gemuetlich, so unbeschreiblich, so berlinerisch, gerade so!"

In another place the same author writes: "Berlin as the Capital of the
German Empire! There are many respects in which it nevertheless hasn't
yet succeeded in taking on the character of a cosmopolitan city." [2]
Not even literature finds material for a city novel. There is no
Balzac, no Thackeray. Germany is still dominated by the village and
the town. Goethe, Auerbach, Spielhagen, Heyse, Gottfried Keller,
Freytag, my unread favorite "Fritz" Reuter, deal not with the life of
cities. There is as yet no drama, no novel, no art, no politics born
of the city. There is no domineering Paris or London or New York as
yet.

[2] "Berlin als Haupstadt des deutchen Reiches: in mancher Beziehung
hatte es sich dem weltstaedtischen Charakter doch noch nicht aneignen
koennen."

After some years of acquaintance with Germany as school-boy, as
student at the universities, and lately as a most hospitably received
guest by all sorts and conditions of men, I do not remember meeting a
fop. A German Beau Brummel is as impossible as a French Luther, an
American Goethe, or an English Wagner. We have had attempts at foppery
in America, but no real fops. A genuine fop, whether in art, in
literature, or in costumes, must have brains, ours have been merely
effigies, foppery taking the dull commercial form of a great v