would have to
accept, and walk them if you choose in tennis shoes. Indeed, you would
forget the road and eat the dinner unattending; for all that's made
would be a green thought in a green shade for you by the end of the
day, and as you shut your eyes at night you would see forest, forest
with the sunlight on the young tips of the pines, forest unfolding
itself from earth to sky as you climbed hour after hour close to the
ferns and boulders of the foaming mountain stream your pathway
followed, forest too on the opposite side of the valley, with wastes
of golden broom here and there, and fields of rye and barley swept
gently by the breeze. You may walk day by day in Germany through such
a paradise as this, and meet no one but a couple of children gathering
wild strawberries, or an old peasant carrying faggots, or the
goose-girl herding her fussy flock. You may even spend your summer
holiday in a crowded watering-place, and yet escape quite easily into
the heart of the forest where the crowd never comes. The crowd sits
about on benches planted by a _Verschoenerungsverein_ within a mile of
their hotel, or on the verandah of the hotel itself. Some of the
benches will command a view, and these will be most in demand. Those
that are nearly a mile away will be reached by energetic elderly
ladies, and at dinner you will hear that they have been to the
Rabenstein this morning, and that the _Aussicht_ was _prachtvoll_ and
the _Luft herrlich_, but that they must decline to go farther afield
this afternoon as the morning's exertions have tired them. But some of
_die Herren_ say they are ready for anything, and even propose to
scale the mountain behind the hotel and drink a glass of beer at the
top. You readily agree to go with them, for by this time you know that
even if you are a poor walker you can toddle half way up a German hill
and down again; and the hotel itself has been built high above the
valley. But after dinner you find that nearly everyone disappears for
a siesta, while the few who keep outside are asleep over their coffee
and cigar. Even _Skat_ hardly keeps awake the three _Herren_ who
proposed a walk; and your friend the Frau Geheimrath Schultze warns
you solemnly against the insanity of stirring a step before sundown;
for summer in South Germany is summer indeed. The sun comes suddenly
with power and glory, bursting every sheathed bud and ripening crops
in such a hurry that you walk through new mown hayfields while y