ought to remember the deadly pie and the corroding
whisky of my native land. The restaurant life of the people is,
of course, different from their home life, and perhaps an evening
entertainment here is no more formidable than one in America, but it
is different. Let me give you the outlines of a supper to which we were
invited the other night: it certainly cannot hurt you to read about it.
We sat down at eight. There were first courses of three sorts of cold
meat, accompanied with two sorts of salad; the one, a composite, with
a potato basis, of all imaginable things that are eaten. Beer and bread
were unlimited. There was then roast hare, with some supporting dish,
followed by jellies of various sorts, and ornamented plates of something
that seemed unable to decide whether it would be jelly or cream; and
then came assorted cake and the white wine of the Rhine and the red of
Hungary. We were then surprised with a dish of fried eels, with a sauce.
Then came cheese; and, to crown all, enormous, triumphal-looking loaves
of cake, works of art in appearance, and delicious to the taste. We
sat at the table till twelve o'clock; but you must not imagine that
everybody sat still all the time, or that, appearances to the contrary
notwithstanding, the principal object of the entertainment was eating.
The songs that were sung in Hungarian as well as German, the poems that
were recited, the burlesques of actors and acting, the imitations
that were inimitable, the take-off of table-tipping and of prominent
musicians, the wit and constant flow of fun, as constant as the
good-humor and free hospitality, the unconstrained ease of the whole
evening, these things made the real supper which one remembers when the
grosser meal has vanished, as all substantial things do vanish.

CHRISTMAS TIME-MUSIC

For a month Munich has been preparing for Christmas. The shop windows
have had a holiday look all December. I see one every day in which are
displayed all the varieties of fruits, vegetables, and confectionery
possible to be desired for a feast, done in wax,--a most dismal
exhibition, and calculated to make the adjoining window, which has a
little fountain and some green plants waving amidst enormous pendent
sausages and pigs' heads and various disagreeable hashes of pressed
meat, positively enticing. And yet there are some vegetables here that I
should prefer to have in wax,--for instance, sauerkraut. The toy windows
are worthy of study