ok about German Home
Life," I said to a learned but kindly professor last spring.

"German Home Life," he said, rather aghast at my daring, for we had
only just made each other's acquaintance, and I believe he thought
that this was my first visit to Germany and that I had been there a
week. "It is a wide field," he went on. "However ... if you want to
understand our Home Life ... just look at that...."

We were having tea together in the dining-room in his wife's absence,
and he suddenly got up from table and threw back both doors of an
immense cupboard occupying the longest wall in the room. I gazed at
the sight before me, and my thoughts were too deep for words. It was a
small household, I knew. It comprised, in fact, the professor, his
beautiful young wife, and one small maid-servant; and for their
happiness they possessed all this linen: shelf upon shelf, pile upon
pile of linen, exactly ordered, tied with lemon coloured ribbons,
embroidered beyond doubt with the initials of the lady who brought it
here as a bride. The lady, it may as well be said, is a celebrated
musician who passes a great part of each winter fulfilling engagements
away from home. "But what happens to the linen cupboard when you are
away?" I asked her, later, for it was grievous to think of any
servant, even a "pearl," making hay of those ordered shelves. "I come
home for a few days in between and set things to rights again," she
explained; and then, seeing that I was interested, she admitted that
she had put up and made every blind and curtain, and had even
carpentered and upholstered an empire sofa in her drawing-room. She
showed me each cupboard and corner of the flat, and I saw everywhere
the exquisite order and spotlessness the notable German housewife
knows how to maintain. We even peeped into the professor's
dressing-room.

"He must be a very tidy man," I said, sighing and reflecting that he
could not be as other men are. "Do you never have to set things to
rights here?"

"Every half hour," she said.

These enormous quantities of linen that are still the housewife's
pride used to be necessary when house and table linen were only washed
twice a year. A German friend who entertained a large party of
children and grandchildren every week, pointed out to me that she used
eighteen or twenty dinner napkins each time they came, and that when
washing day arrived at the end of six months even her supply was
nearly exhausted. The soiled linen