dice against the born English that
she lives amongst them year after year without making a friend. It
would be quite simple to perform the same feat in Paris, or even in
Berlin, although there you would not have such a large foreign colony
to stand between you and the detestable natives.

The real difficulty in writing about German hospitality is to find and
express the ways in which it differs from our own; and certainly these
lie little in qualities of kindness and generosity. Amongst both
nations, if you have a friendly disposition you will find friends
easily, and receive kindness on all sides. Perhaps, as one concrete
instance is worth many assertions, I may describe a visit I paid many
years ago to a family who invited me because a marriage had recently
connected us. I had seen some of the family at the wedding, and had
been surprised to receive a warm invitation, not for a week-end and a
cake of visitors' soap, but for the rest of the winter; six weeks or
two months at least. The family living at home consisted of the
parents, a grown-up son and two grown-up daughters. Some of them met
me at the station, for the German does not breathe who would let a
guest arrive or depart alone. Your friends often give you flowers when
you arrive, and invariably when you go away. I cannot remember about
the flowers on this occasion, but I remember vividly that the day
after my arrival the two married daughters living in the same town
both called on me and brought me flowers. Week after week, too, they
made it their pleasure to entertain me just as kindly as my immediate
hosts, taking me to concerts or the opera, asking me to dinner or
supper, including me on every occasion in the family festivities,
which were numerous and lively. In some ways my hosts found me a
disappointing guest, and said so. The trouble was that I liked plain
rolls and butter for breakfast, while the daughters for days before I
came had baked every size and variety of rich cake for me to eat first
thing in the morning with my coffee. I never could eat enough to
please anyone either. You never can in Germany, try as you may. Yet it
was hungry weather, for the Rhine was frozen hard all the time I was
there, and we used to skate every day in the harbour when the
daughters of the house had finished their morning's work. Two maids
were kept on the flat, but, like most German servants, they were
supposed to require constant supervision, and when a room was turne