to art that
which it needs above all else, time, contemplativeness, freedom.
Nowhere can one so unrestrainedly cultivate one's own style of life as
there. And withal, artistic freedom of life accommodates itself
remarkably well with the political narrowness of the country under
Clerical rule. The Bavarian phlegmatic temperament craves constant
stimulation; the political strife, in which there is no embittered
fanaticism, but which in all good nature sways backward and forward, is
an indispensable condition of the national life. Combativeness and the
lust of vituperation are in the blood of the Bavarian people; it is all
one, whether we look for them in a riotous kirmess or in blunt
ridicule, in the poetic improvisations of which the quick-witted
peasants, being especially gifted in mimicry, are unsurpassed.

Bavaria is accordingly the particular home of German satire. The best
German comic papers are published in Munich, and the most effective
satirist of the present day is a Bavarian of the Bavarians, Ludwig
Thoma. He is the son of a Head Forester and was born in 1867 at that
Oberammergau where all the inhabitants every ten years dismiss the
barber and let their long locks curl about their necks, in order to
perform before the assembled multitude their Passion Play, which is
pleasing in the sight of God and profitable to them. Thoma not only
grew up among peasants; later, as a lawyer in Dachau, he had abundant
opportunity to become acquainted with their fondness for litigation,
their avarice, and their cunning. Now he is merely an author. In winter
he may be seen at Munich in company garb at first performances in the
theatres; in summer, at Tegernsee he appears in the midst of his
beloved peasants dressed in their costume, homespun jacket and leather
breeches. In the same way his writings have two aspects, satire on
society and tales of rustic life. In the comic paper _Simplicissimus_
he has often published political verses over the pseudonym Peter
Schlemihl; some of his dramas also (_The Medal_, 1901, _The Branch
Road_, 1902, _The First-class Compartment_, 1910, _The Baby Farm_,
1913) assail with never-failing pungency the present governmental
system in Bavaria; others (_Morality_, 1909, _Lottie's Birthday_, 1911)
are directed with more general and less delicate ridicule against all
sorts of common place morality and the excrescences of moral reform.
Delicious are his stories of the little town, especially about the