him. In 1879 and '80 the plan to put an end to the reviving miHtary 

 strength of France was an open secret which no one thought of deny- 

 ing. The hatred of England, for it already amounted to that, was de- 

 liberately fomented and propagated by the authorities, though almost 

 always in such a way that the propaganda could be officially denied. 

 I shall never forget the bitter contempt with which a young lady, a 

 typical Junker of the influential circles in Berlin, once spoke to me of 

 the "nation of shopkeepers" (Kriimervolk). I was able to watch the 

 subterranean course of the propaganda, like that of a mole, from small 

 surface indications. But this is anticipating the story by many years. 

 In the summer of 1879 I was made vaguely uneasy and caught a 

 glimpse of something portentous, on learning that the Germans hated 

 the British, because of their too powerful fleet. According to Bismarck, 

 "Envy is a characteristic German vice." 



Our next move was to Dresden, where, through the agency of our 

 landlady, we secured very comfortable quarters in a family that had 

 once been wealthy, but had lost their money. They occupied the whole 

 of a house, set far back from the street in quite a large garden. The 

 bare, painted floors struck me as the acme of discomfort, but that was 

 only because at home the floors were completely covered with carpets 

 and I found the same fashion in England. The family could be taken 

 as representative of the upper middle class, educated and accomplished 

 and agreeable. The head of the house was a good deal of a scholar and 

 was then engaged in translating one of Marlowe's plays, sometimes 

 coming to me for help which I could not give him. The pensions in 

 which we sojourned in Leipsic and Heidelberg kept a table that was 

 more or less adapted to foreign tastes, but in Dresden and, for part of 

 the time in Heidelberg, we had the native cookery unadorned and we 

 didn't like it. Raw fish and raw ham, a superabundance of grease, a 

 paucity of vegetables and complete absence of fruit, were not at all 

 to our liking. 



Acting on Osborn's advice, I engaged a teacher, or rather two. Three 

 times a week, a gymnasial professor came to my rooms and the other 

 three days I went to Blasewitz for a lesson with his wife. Between the 

 two I made rapid progress in the language, especially as I read no 

 English and heard none, except of course from my Mother. Theatre 

 and opera were extremely good and very cheap, so that I went very 

 often, partly for the enjoyment of it, partly as a means of education in 

 the language. The performances began at six o'clock and, in that north- 

 ern latitude, were over before dark. Every day I wrote and received a 



C105] 



