own that in everyday
life _Maedchen_ without an adjective usually means a servant. She had
heard of _Das Maedchen aus der Fremde_ and _Der Tod und das Maedchen_,
and blundered.

I once made a German exceedingly angry by saying that the standard of
comfort was higher in England than in Germany. She said it was lower.
When you have lived in both countries and with both peoples you arrive
in the end at having your opinions, and knowing that each one you hold
will be disputed on one side or the other. "Find out what means
_Gemuetlichkeit_, and do it without fail," says Hans Breitmann, but
_Gemuetlichkeit_ and comfort are not quite interchangeable words. Our
word is more material. When we talk of English comfort we are thinking
of our open fires, our solid food, our thick carpets, and our
well-drilled smart-looking servants. The German is thinking of the
spiritual atmosphere in his own house, the absence, as he says, of
ceremony and the freedom of ideas. He talks of a man being _gemuetlich_
in his disposition, kindly, that is, and easy going. We talk of a
house being comfortable, and when we do use the word for a person
usually mean that she is rather stout. When both you and the German
have decided that "comfort" for the moment shall mean material
comfort, you will disagree about what is necessary to yours. You must
have your bathroom, your bacon for breakfast, your table laid
precisely, your meals served to the moment, your young women in black
or your staid men to give them to you, and your glowing fires in as
many rooms as possible. The German cares for none of these things. He
would rather have his half-pound of odds and ends from the provision
shop than your boiled cod, roast mutton, and apple-tart; he wants his
stove, his double windows, his good coffee, his _kraeftige Kost_, and
freedom to smoke in every corner of his house. He is never tired of
telling you that, though you have more political freedom in England,
you are groaning under a degree of social tyranny that he could not
endure for a day. The Idealist, quoted in a former chapter, is for
ever talking of the "hypocrisy" of English life, and her burning
anxiety is to save the children of certain Russian and German exiles
from contact with it. Another German tells you that our system of
collegiate life for women would not suit her countryfolk, because
they are more "individual." Each one likes to choose her own rooms,
and live as she pleases. The next German ha