[Writing in _Die Woche_ a well-known Baroness, a leader of Berlin society,
discusses the transformation and purification of Berlin conviviality by the
War. Social functions accompanied by eating have altogether ceased and
given way to more refined gatherings--æsthetic afternoon teas and elegant
evening parties--at which the conversation reaches heights of brilliancy
unheard of in the old carnivorous days. Unhappily snobbery still prevails,
"every class pretending to be richer and better than they are--small
officials, officers, landowners, all pretending to be millionaires, and
doing their pretension shabbily."]
One of the leading Prussian social stars
Opines that War, although it makes for leanness,
Not only banishes discordant jars
And purifies Berlin of all uncleanness,
But places her, beatified by Mars,
Upon a pinnacle of mental keenness,
Changing the cult of trencher and of bowl
To feasts of reason and o'erflows of soul.
The gross carnivorous orgies of the past
Have gone, and in their place is something finer;
Emotions of a transcendental cast
Preoccupy the luncher and the diner;
The Hun, in short, by being forced to fast,
Has grown ethereal, more alert, diviner;
And, purged of all incentive to frivolity,
His speech has almost lost its guttural quality.
His talk, of old to stodginess inclined,
Now sparkles with consistent coruscation,
Attaining heights of mirth and wit combined
Unknown to any previous generation,
But always exquisitely pure, refined
And spiritual, as befits the nation
In which the nicer touch was never missing
Down from great FREDERICK to blameless BISSING.
'Tis easy, though the writer does not tell,
To guess the themes which prompt the brightest sallies;
Louvain; the _Lusitania_; Nurse CAVELL--
With these Hun wit most delicately dallies;
The wreck of Reims; the Prussic acid shell;
The desolation of Armenia's valleys;
The toll of Belgian infants slain ere birth--
All these excite Berlin's ecstatic mirth.
And yet a slight _amari aliquid_
Is mingled with this lady's honeyed phrases;
Berlin society is not yet rid
Of one of its less admirable phases;
There is, in other words, one fly amid
The precious ointment of the writer's praises;
In every class are those who ape the airs
Of the superior nobs and millionaires.
But still, when all reserves are duly made
For negligible faults in tact or breeding,
The picture by this noble scribe displayed
Of high-browed Hundom makes impressive reading;
For homage to convivial needs is paid
Without the faintest risk of over-feeding,
And, braced by frugal fare, the Prussian brain
Soars to a perfectly celestial plane.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "I AM THE MAN."
["What is wanted is a moral deed, to free the world ... from the pressure
which weighs upon all. For such a deed it is necessary to find a ruler who
has a conscience.... I have the courage."--_Extract of letter from the
GERMAN KAISER to his Chancellor, dated October 31st, 1916, and recently
published in "The North German Gazette."_]]
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[Illustration: THE ADVANTAGE OF A SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION.
_Drawing Mistress_ (_to member of class that has been told to draw some
object of natural history_). "NOW, JAMES, THAT IS NAUGHTY. WHY HAVEN'T YOU
DONE A NATURAL HISTORY SUBJECT?"
_James_. "BUT I HAVE. I'VE DRAWN THE RED CORPUSCLES IN THE BLOOD OF A
FROG."]
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