gance. He attributed the change in the spirit of the
German people to the hardness of their Prussian taskmasters, whose
yoke was submissively borne because of the glamour of the military
victories achieved since 1866, and the rapid growth in wealth that had
followed the attainment of German unity. He read and spoke German and
was familiar with the literature and history of the country. Two great
Germans, Goethe and Wagner, he intensely admired. It so happened that
we were at Frankfort on the centenary of Goethe's death. Paul visited
the Goethe house and spent a couple of hours examining its souvenirs
with loving interest. He liked to see the places and the houses
associated with the names or lives of great men. On our homeward
journey down the Rhine he left us at Bonn to visit the house where
Beethoven was born, joining-us subsequently at Cologne.

This holiday in the Rhineland and the Black Forest brought deep
enjoyment to him. His enthusiasm at his first sight of the Rhine was
unrestrained, and the morning after our arrival he plunged into its
waters for a swim. Professor Cramb, writing of the love of Germans for
the Rhine, quotes a letter from Treitschke, in which that fire-eating
historian said on the eve of his leaving Bonn: "To-morrow I shall see
the Rhine for the last time. The memory of that noble river will keep
my heart pure and save me from sad or evil thoughts throughout all the
days of my life." Paul in a marginal note writes: "Wonderful
attraction of the Rhine. I have felt it myself, though not a German."

He got on excellently with the German people. One Sunday afternoon,
doing the famous walk from Triberg to Hornberg, he had a long and
friendly talk with a German reservist in the latter's native tongue,
about the relations of Germany and England. Both agreed that war
between the two nations would be madness, and both dismissed it as to
the last degree improbable, but the German said significantly that he
feared the Crown Prince was a menace to peace.

In the spring of the following year (1914) Paul spent Easter week with
me in Paris. Never had I seen the French capital more beautiful or
happier-seeming than in that bright and joyous springtime. Who could
have dreamt then that war was only three months distant? Paris was a
revelation to Paul. He crowded a lot of sight-seeing into half a dozen
busy days. All that was noble or beautiful in Art as in Nature
appealed instinctively to him. I can see him now