a I did nothing. What was the use?
The beautiful German city so full of artistic delight was made to live
in, not to work in. The entire absence of poverty in that city of half
a million inhabitants alone gave it an air of illusion, gave one the
sense of being the guest of a hospitable monarch who only asked to
provide a banquet for all that could appreciate. I look back upon
Munich as the romance of my life, the only place on this globe that
came near to satisfying every want of my nature. And that is the
reason why, in a sort of panic, I abruptly pulled up stakes and left
it for good and all. It is not in the true American idea to be too
content; it means running to seed, a weakening of the will and the
vital force. If I remained too long in that lovely land--so admirably
governed that I could not have lost myself, or my cat, had I possessed
one--I should in no long course yield utterly to a certain resentfully
admitted tendency to dream and drift and live for pure beauty;
finally desert my own country with the comfortable reflection: Why all
this bustle, this desire to excel, to keep in the front rank, to find
pleasure in individual work, when so many artistic achievements are
ready-made for all to enjoy without effort? For--here is the point--an
American, the American of today--accustomed to high speed, constant
energy, nervous tenseness, the uncertainty, and the fight, cannot
cultivate the leisurely German method, the almost scientific and
impersonal spirit that informs every profession and branch of art. It
is our own way or none for us Americans.

Therefore, if loving Germany as I did, and with only the most
enchanting memories of her, I had not immediately permitted the
American spirit to assert itself last August and taken a hostile and
definite stand against the German idea (which includes, by the way,
the permanent subjection of woman) I should have been a traitor, for I
knew out of the menace I had felt to my own future, as bound up with
an assured development under insidious influences, what the future of
my country, which stands for the only true progress in the world
today, and a far higher ideal of mortal happiness than the most
benevolent paternalism can bestow, had in store for it, with Germany
victorious, and America (always profoundly moved by success owing to
her very practicality) disturbed, but compelled to admire.

The Germans living here, destitute as their race seems to be of
psychology when