Germany had reared a magnificent economic structure. Her prosperity was
great--too great, in fact.
The country had a _nouveau-riche_ aspect, as will happen when upon a
people that has been content with little in the past is suddenly thrust
more than it can assimilate gracefully. The Germany I was familiar with
from travel and literature was a country in which men and women managed
to get along comfortably by the application of thoroughness and
industry--a country in which much time was given to the cultivation of
the mind and the enjoyment of the fruits that come from this
praiseworthy habit.
Those were the things which I had grouped under the heading, _Kultur_.
Those also were the things, as I was soon to learn from the earnest men
and women of the country, for which the word still stood with most. But
the spirit of the _parvenu_--_Protzentum_--was become rampant. The
industrial classes reeked with it.
From the villages and small towns, still the very embodiment of thrift
and orderliness, I saw rise the large brick barracks of industry, topped
off with huge chimneys belching forth black clouds of smoke. The
outskirts of the larger towns and cities were veritable forests of
smoke-stacks--palisades that surrounded the interests of the thousands
of captains of industry that dwelt within the city when not frequenting
the international summer and winter resorts and making themselves
loathed by their extremely bad manners--the trade-mark of all
_parvenus_.