after
which comes the fish. This does not mean that the dinners are not
good. I fondly recall a dish of sauerkraut boiled in white wine and
served in a pineapple. I may not give names, but the dinners of Mr.
and Mrs. Fourth of December, of Mrs. Twenty-first of January, of Mr.
and Mrs. Thirtieth of January, and of Mr. and Mrs. February First, and
others rank very high in my gastronomic calendar. Do not imagine from
what I have written that Lucullus has left no disciples in Germany. I
could easily add a page to the list I have mentioned, and because we
look upon some of these customs of the German as absurd is no reason
for forgetting that he often, and from his stand-point rightly, looks
upon us as boors. I like the Germans and I pretend to have learned
very much from them. To sneer at superficial differences is to lose
all profit from intercourse with other peoples. Goethe is right,
"Uberall lernt man nur von dem, den man liebt!" The argument is only
all on our side when we are impervious to impressions and to other
standards of manners and morals than our own.

"Am Ende hangen wir doch ab
Von Kreaturen die wir machten"

are two lines at least from the second part of "Faust" that we can all
understand.

It is sometimes thrown at us Americans that we love a title, and that
we are not averse to the ornamentation of our names with pseudo and
attenuated "Honorables" and "Colonels" and "Judge" and so on; and I am
bound to admit the impeachment, for I blush at some of my
be-colonelled and becaptained friends, and wonder at their rejoicing over
such effeminate honorifics, especially those colonelcies born of
clattering behind a civilian governor, on a badly ridden horse, a
title which may be compared with that most attenuated title of all,
that of a Texan, who when asked why he was called "colonel" replied,
that he had married the widow of a colonel!

I prefer "Esqr." to "Mr." merely because it makes it easier to assort
the daily mail; "Mr.," "Mrs.," and "Miss" are so easily taken for one
another on an envelope, and particularly at Christmas time this more
distinctly legible title avoids, the deplorable misdirection of the
secrets of Santa Claus; aside from that I am happy to be addressed
merely by my name, like any other sovereign.

We are, too, somewhat overexcited when foreign royalties appear among
us. "What wud ye do if ye were a king an' come to this counthry?"
asked Mr. Hennessy.

"Well," said Mr. Dooley, "the