rom seventeen cents to $1.15 in the
evening. At the performance I attended the house was crowded and
attentive. I was not enough of an Athenian to attend all three. Even
at the Music Hall in Berlin, where, as in other cities, the thinly
covered salacious is ladled out to the animal man, there was a capital
stage caricature of Oedipus, which atoned for the customary ewig
Legliche, which now rules in these resorts. If for some untoward
reason women ceased to have legs, what would the British and American
theatrical trust managers do!

The German takes his theatre and his music, as from the beginnings of
these it was intended we all should do. They are not a distraction
merely, but an education, an education of the senses, and through the
senses of the whole man. There are music-lovers and serious playgoers
in America; but for the most part our theatres cater to, and are
filled by, a public seeking a soothing and condimented mental
atmosphere, in which to finish digestion. Theatrical salmagundi is
served everywhere, and seems to be the dish best suited to the
American aesthetic palate as thus far educated. We cannot complain,
since other wares would be quickly provided did we but ask for them.

America has suffered because she was overtaken by a great material
prosperity before she had a sufficient spiritual and intellectual
development, and up to now the material side of life has had the upper
hand. We buy the best pictures, the rare books and manuscripts, armor
and silver and porcelain, and it must be said that there is a fine
idealism here, because they are bought almost without exception by
uncultured, often almost unlettered, rich men, who know nothing and
care very little for these things, but who are providing rare
educational opportunities for another generation. In 1910 objects of
art to the value of $22,000,000 were imported, in 1911 $36,000,000
worth, and in 1912 sixty per cent. more than in 1911. In the same way
we hire the best musicians and singers, but our surroundings and the
powerful circumambient ambitions, have not tempted us as yet to live
contentedly and understandingly in any such atmosphere as the Germans
do. It is a striking contrast, perhaps of all the contrasts the most
interesting to the student, this of America growing from industrialism
toward idealism, of Germany growing out of idealism into
industrialism.

Germany floats in music; in America a few, a very few, float on it. In
Germany ever