I was very glad that I had pa.s.sed those three days at La Trappe, for it gave one a glimpse into a wholly unsuspected world. The impression of the tremendous severity with which the lives of the monks were regulated, remained with me. The excellent monks made the most absurdly small charges for our board and lodging. Years afterwards I spent a night in an Orthodox Monastery in Russia, when I regretfully recalled the scrupulous cleanliness of La Trappe. Never have I shared a couch with so many uninvited guests, and never have I been so ruthlessly devoured as in that Russian Monastery.
With June at Nyons, silkworm time arrived. Three old women, celebrated for their skill in rearing silkworms, came down from the mountains, and the magnanerie, as lofts devoted to silkworm culture are called, was filled with huge trays fashioned with reeds. The old women had a very strenuous fortnight or so, for silkworms demand immense care and attention. The trays have to be perpetually cleaned out, and all stale mulberry leaves removed, for the quality and quant.i.ty of the silk depend on the most scrupulous cleanliness. To preserve an even temperature, charcoal fires were lighted in the magnanerie, until the little black caterpillars, having transformed themselves into repulsive flabby white worms, these worms became obsessed with the desire to increase the world"s supply of silk, and to gratify them, twigs were placed in the trays for them to spin their coc.o.o.ns on. The coc.o.o.ns spun, they were all picked off, and baked in the public ovens of the town, in order to kill the chrysalis inside. Nothing prettier can be imagined than the streets of Nyons, with white sheets laid in front of every house, each sheet heaped high with glittering, shimmering, gleaming piles of silk-coc.o.o.ns, varying in shade from palest straw-colour to deep orange. If pleasant to the eye, they were less grateful to the nose, for freshly baked coc.o.o.ns have the most offensive odour. The silk-buyers from Lyons then made their appearance, and these shining heaps of gold thread were transformed into a more portable form of gold, which found its way into the pockets of the inhabitants.
The peculiarly French capacity for taking infinite pains, of which a good example is this silkworm culture, has its drawbacks, when carried into administrative work. My friend M. David, the post-master of Nyons, showed me his official instructions. They formed a volume as big as a family Bible. It would have taken years to learn all these regulations.
The simplest operations were made enormously complicated. Let any one compare the time required for registering a letter or a parcel in England, with the time a similar operation in France will demand. M.
David showed me the lithographed sheet giving the special forms of numerals, 1, 2, 3, and so on, which French postal officials are required to make. These differ widely from the forms in general use.
I have my own suspicions that similar sheets are issued to the cashiers in French restaurants. Personally, I can never read one single item in the bill, much less the cost, and I can only gaze in hopeless bewilderment at the long-tailed hieroglyphics, recalling a backward child"s first attempts at "pot-hooks."
The infinite capacity of the French for taking trouble, and their minute attention to detail, tend towards unnecessary complications of simple matters. Thus, on English railways we find two main types of signals sufficient for our wants, whereas on French lines there are five different main types of signal. On English lines we have two secondary signals, against eight in France, all differing widely in shape and appearance. Again, on a French locomotive the driver has far more combinations at his command for efficient working under varying conditions, than is the case in England. The trend of the national mind is towards complicating details rather than simplifying them.
Delightful as was the winter climate of Nyons, that sun-scorched little cup amongst the hills became a place of positive torment as the summer advanced. The heat was absolutely unendurable. Day and night, thousands of cicades (the cigales of the French) kept up their incessant "dzig, dzig, dzig," a sound very familiar to those who have sojourned in the tropics. Has Nature given this singular insect the power of dispensing with sleep? What possible object can it hope to attain by keeping up this incessant din? If a love-song, surely the most optimistic cicada must realise that his amorous strains can never reach the ears of his lady-love, since hundreds of his brethren are all keeping up the same perpetual purposeless chirping, which must obviously drown any individual effort. Have the cicadas a double dose of gaiete francaise in their composition, and is this their manner of expressing it? Are they, like some young men we know, always yearning to turn night into day? All these are, and will remain, unsolved problems?
As I found the summer heat of Nyons unbearable, I went back to England for a holiday, and, on the morning of my departure, climbed some olive trees and captured fourteen live cicadas, whom I imprisoned in a perforated cardboard box, and took back to London with me. Twelve of them survived the journey, and as soon as I had arrived, I carefully placed the cicadas on the boughs of the trees in our garden in Green Street, Grosvenor Square. Conceive the surprise of these travelled insects at finding themselves on the soot-laden branches of a grimy London tree! The dauntless little creatures at once recommenced their "dzig, dzig, dzig," in their novel environment, and kept it up uninterruptedly for twenty-four hours, in spite of the lack of appreciation of my family, who complained that their night"s rest had been seriously interfered with by the unaccustomed noise. Next evening the cicadas were silent. Possibly they had been choked with soot, or had fallen a prey to London cats; but my own theory is that they succ.u.mbed to the after-effects of a rough Channel pa.s.sage, to which, of course, they would not have been accustomed. Anyhow, for the first time in the history of the world, the purlieus of Grosvenor Square rang with the shrill chirping of cicadas for twenty-four hours on end.
Six months later I regretfully bid farewell to Nyons, and went direct from there to Germany. After studying the Teutonic tongue for two and a half years at Harrow I was master of just two words in it, ja and nein, so unquestionably there were gaps to fill up.
I was excedingly sorry to leave the delightful Ducros family who had treated me so kindly, and I owe a deep debt of grat.i.tude to comely Mme.
Ducros for the careful way in which she taught me history. In teaching history she used what I may call the synoptic method, taking periods of fifty years, and explaining contemporaneous events in France, Italy, Germany, and England during that period.
With the exception of one friendly visit to the Ducros, I have never seen pleasant Nyons again. Of late years I have often meditated a pilgrimage to that sunny little cup in the Dauphine hills, but have hesitated owing to one of the sad penalties advancing years bring with them; every single one of my friends, man or woman, must have pa.s.sed away long since. I can see Nyons, with its encircling fringe of blue hills, just as vividly, perhaps, with my inner eyes as I could if it lay actually before me, and now I can still people it with the noisy, gesticulating inhabitants whom I knew and liked so much.
I may add that in Southern French style Nyons is p.r.o.nounced "Nyonsse,"
just as Carpentras is termed "Carpentra.s.se."
CHAPTER VI
Brunswick--Its beauty--High level of culture--The Brunswick Theatre--Its excellence--Gas vs. electricity--Primitive theatre toilets--Operatic stars in private life--Some operas unknown in London--Dramatic incidents in them--Leva.s.seur"s parody of "Robert"--Some curious details about operas--Two fiery old Pan-Germans--Influence of the teaching profession on modern Germany--The "French and English Clubs"--A meeting of the "English Club"--Some reflections about English reluctance to learn foreign tongues--Mental att.i.tude of non-Prussians in 1875--Concerning various beers--A German sportsman--The silent, quinine-loving youth--The Harz Mountains--A "Kettle-drive" for hares--Dialects of German--The odious "Kaffee-Klatsch"--Universal gossip--Hamburg"s overpowering hospitality--Hamburg"s att.i.tude towards Britain--The city itself--Trip to British Heligoland--The island--Some peculiarities--Migrating birds--Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse--Lady Maxse--The Heligoland Theatre--Winter in Heligoland.
BRUNSWICK had been selected for me as a suitable spot in which to learn German, and to Brunswick I accordingly went. As I was then eighteen years old, I did not care to go to a regular tutor"s, but wished to live in a German family, where I was convinced I could pick up the language in far shorter time. I was exceedingly fortunate in this respect. A well-to-do Managing Director of some jute-spinning mills had recently built himself a large house. Mr. Spiegelberg found not only that his new house was unnecessarily big for his family, but he also discovered that it had cost him a great deal more than he had antic.i.p.ated. He was quite willing, therefore, to enter into an arrangement for our mutual benefit.
Brunswick is one of the most beautiful old towns in Europe, Its narrow, winding streets are (or, perhaps, were) lined with fifteenth and sixteenth century timbered houses, each storey projecting some two feet further over the street than the one immediately below it, and these wooden house-fronts were one ma.s.s of the most beautiful and elaborate carving. Imagine Staples Inn in Holborn double its present height, and with every structural detail chiselled with patient care into intricate patterns of fruit and foliage, and you will get some idea of a Brunswick street. The town contained four or five splendid old churches, and their mediaeval builders had taken advantage of the dead-flat, featureless plain in which Brunswick stands, to erect such lofty towers as only the architects in the Low Countries ever devised; towers which served as landmarks for miles around, their soaring height silhouetted against the pale northern sky. The irregular streets and open places contained one or two gems of Renaissance architecture, such as the stone-built Town Hall and "Guild House," both very similar in character to buildings of the same date in sleepy old Flemish towns.
The many gushing fountains of mediaeval bronze and iron-work in the streets added to the extraordinary picturesqueness of the place. It was like a scene from an opera in real life. It always puzzled me to think how the water for these fountains can have been provided on that dead-flat plain in pre-steam days. There must have been pumps of some sort. Before 1914, tens of thousands of tourists visited Nuremberg annually, but the guide-books are almost silent about Brunswick, which is fully as picturesque.
The standard of material comfort appeared far higher in Brunswick than in a French provincial town. The manner in which the Spiegelbergs"
house was fitted up seemed very elaborate after the simple appointments of the Ducros" farm-house, though nothing in the world would have induced me to own one single object that this Teutonic residence contained. The Spiegelbergs treated me extremely kindly, and I was fortunate in being quartered on such agreeable people.
At Nyons there was not one single bookseller, but Brunswick bristled with book-shops, and, in addition, there were two of those most excellent lending libraries to be found in every German town. Here almost every book ever published in German or English was to be found, as well as a few very cautiously selected French ones, for German parents were careful then as to what their daughters read.
The great resource of Brunswick was the theatre, such a theatre as does not exist in any French provincial town, and such a theatre as has never even been dreamed of in any British town. It was fully as large as Drury Lane, and was subsidised by the State. I really believe that every opera ever written was given here, and given quite admirably. In this town of 60,000 inhabitants, in addition to the opera company, there was a fine dramatic company, as well as a light opera company, and a corps de ballet. Sunday, Tuesday and Sat.u.r.day were devoted to grand opera, Monday to cla.s.sical drama (Schiller or Shakespeare), Wednesday to modern comedy, Friday to light opera or farce. The bill was constantly changing, and every new piece produced in Berlin or Vienna was duly presented to the Brunswick public. There are certainly some things we can learn from Germany! The mounting of the operas was most excellent, and I have never seen better lighting effects than on the Brunswick stage, and this, too, was all done by gas, incandescent electric light not then being dreamed of even. I had imagined in my simplicity that effects were far easier to produce on the modern stage since the introduction of electric light. Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, than whom there can be no greater authority, tells me that this is not so. To my surprise, he declares that electric light is too crude and white, and that it destroys all illusion. He informs me that it is impossible to obtain a convincing moonlight effect with electricity, or to give a sense of atmosphere. Gas-light was yellow, and colour-effects were obtained by dropping thin screens of coloured silk over the gas-battens in the flies. This diffused the light, which a crude blue or red electric bulb does not do. Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson astonished me by telling me that Henry Irving always refused to have electric light on the stage at the Lyceum, though he had it in the auditorium. All those marvellous and complicated effects, which old playgoers must well recollect in Irving"s Lyceum productions, were obtained with gas. I remember the lovely sunset, with its after-glow fading slowly into night, in the garden scene of the Lyceum version of Faust, and this was all done with gas. The factor of safety is another matter. With rows of flaming gas-battens in the flies, however carefully screened off, and another row of "gas lengths" in the wings, and flaring "ground-rows" in close proximity to highly inflammable painted canvas, the inevitable destiny of a gas-lit theatre is only a question of time. The London theatres of the "sixties" all had a smell of mingled gas and orange-peel, which I thought delicious.
Mr. Spiegelberg most sensibly suggested that as I was absolutely ignorant of German, the easiest manner in which I could accustom my ears to the sound of the language would be to take an abonnement at the theatre, and to go there nightly. So for the modest sum of thirty shillings per month, I found myself ent.i.tled to a stall in the second row, with the right of seeing thirty performances a month. I went every night to the theatre, and there was no monotony about it, for the same performance was never repeated twice in one month. I have seen, I think, every opera ever written, and every single one of Shakespeare"s tragedies. A curious trait in the German character is petty vindictiveness. A certain Herr Behrens had signed a contract as princ.i.p.al ba.s.s with the Brunswick management. Getting a far more lucrative offer from Vienna, the prudent Behrens had paid a fine, and thrown over the Brunswick theatre. For eighteen months the unfortunate man was pilloried every night on the theatre programmes. Every play-bill had printed on it in large letters, "Kontrakt-bruchig Herr Behrens," never allowing the audience to forget that poor Behrens was a convicted "contract-breaker."
Half Brunswick went to the theatre every night of its life. The ladies made no pretence of elaborate toilets, but contented themselves with putting two tacks into the necks of their day gowns so as to make a V-shaped opening. (With present fashions this would not be necessary.) Over this they placed one of those appalling little arrangements of imitation lace and blue or pink bows, to be seen in the shop windows of every German town, and known, I think, as Theater-Garnitures. They then drew on a pair of dark plum-coloured gloves, and their toilet was complete. The contrast between the handsome white-and-gold theatre and the rows of portly, dowdy matrons, each one with her ample bosom swathed in a piece of antimaca.s.sar, was very comical. Every abonne had his own peg for hanging his coat and hat on, and this, and the fact that one"s neighbours in the stalls were invariably the same, gave quite a family atmosphere to the Brunswick theatre.
The conductor was Franz Abt the composer, and the musical standard of the operatic performances was very high indeed. The mounting was always excellent, but going to the theatre night after night, some of the scenery became very familiar. There was a certain Gothic hall which seemed to share the mobile facilities of Aladdin"s palace. This hall was ubiquitous, whether the action of the piece lay in Germany, Italy, France, or England, Mary Queen of Scots sobbed in this hall; Wallenstein in Schiller"s tragedy ranted in it; Rigoletto reproved his flighty daughter in it. It seemed curious that personages so widely different should all have selected the same firm of upholsterers to fit up their sanctums.
The Spiegelbergs had many friends in the theatrical world, and I was immensely thrilled one evening at learning that after the performance of Lohengrin, Elsa and the Knight of the Swan were coming home to supper with us. When Elsa appeared on the balcony in the second act, and the moon most obligingly immediately appeared to light up her ethereal white draperies, I was much excited at reflecting that in two hours" time I might be handing this lovely maiden the mustard, and it seemed hardly credible that the resplendent Lohengrin would so soon abandon his swan in favour of the homely goose that was awaiting him at the Spiegelbergs", although the latter would enjoy the advantage of being roasted.
I was on the tip-toe of expectation until the singers arrived. Fraulein Scheuerlein, the soprano, was fat, fair, and forty, all of them perhaps on the liberal side. As she burst into the room, the first words I heard from the romantic Elsa, whom I had last seen sobbing over her matrimonial difficulties, were: "Dear Frau Spiegelberg, my..." (Elsa here used a blunt dissyllable to indicate her receptacle for food) "is hanging positively crooked with hunger. Quick! For the love of Heaven, some bread and b.u.t.ter and sausage, or I shall faint;" so the first words the heroine of the evening addressed to me were somewhat blurred owing to her mouth being full of sausage, which destroyed most of the glamour of the situation. Hedwig Scheuerlein was a big, jolly, cheery South-German, and she was a consummate artist in spite of her large appet.i.te, as was the tenor Schrotter too. Schrotter was a fair-bearded giant, who was certainly well equipped physically for playing "heroic"
parts. He had one of those penetrating virile German tenor voices that appeal to me. These good-natured artists would sing us anything we wanted, but it was from them that I first got an inkling of those petty jealousies that are such a disagreeable feature of the theatrical world in every country. Buxom Scheuerlein was a very good sort, and I used to feel immensely elated at receiving in my stall a friendly nod over the footlights from Isolde, Aida, Marguerite, or Lucia, as the case might be.
I wonder why none of Meyerbeer"s operas are ever given in London. The "books," being by Scribe, are all very dramatic, and lend themselves to great spectacular display; Meyerbeer"s music is always melodious, and has a certain obvious character about it that would appeal to an average London audience. This is particularly true with regard to the Prophete. The Coronation scene can be made as gorgeous as a Drury Lane pantomime, and the finale of the opera is thrilling, though the three Anabaptists are frankly terrible bores. As given at Brunswick, in the last scene the Prophet, John of Leyden, is discovered at supper with some boon companions in rather doubtful female society. In the middle of his drinking-song the palace is blown up. There is a loud crash; the stage grows dark; hall, supper-table, and revellers all disappear; and the curtain comes down slowly on moonlight shining over some ruins, and the open country beyond. A splendid climax! Again, the third act of Robert le Diable is magnificently dramatic. Bertram, the Evil One in person, leads Robert to a deserted convent whose nuns, having broken the most important of their vows, have all been put to death. The curtain goes up on the dim cloisters of the convent, the cloister-garth, visible through the Gothic arches of the arcade, bathed in bright moonlight beyond. Bertram begins his incantations, recalling the erring nuns from the dead. Very slowly the tombs in the cloister open, and dim grey figures, barely visible in the darkness, creep silently out from the graves. Bertram waves his arms over the cloister-garth, and there, too, the tombs gape apart, and more shadowy spectres emerge. Soon the stage is full of these faint grey spectral forms. Bertram lifts his arms. The wicked nuns throw off their grey wrappers, and appear glittering in scarlet and gold; the stage blazes with light, and the ballet, the famous "Pas de Fascination," begins.
When really well done, this scene is tremendously impressive.
I once heard in Paris, Leva.s.seur, the French counterpart of our own Corney Grain, giving a skit on Robert le Diable, ill.u.s.trating various stage conventions. Leva.s.seur, seated at his piano, and keeping up an incessant ripple of melody, talked something like this, in French, of course:--
"The stage represents Isabelle"s bedroom. As is usual with stage bedrooms, Isabelle"s bower is about the size of an average cathedral.
It is very spa.r.s.ely furnished, but near the footlights is a large gilt couch, on which Isabelle is lying fast asleep. Robert enters on tip-toe very very gently, so as not to disturb his beloved, and sings in a voice that you could hear two miles off, "Isa-belle!" dropping a full octave on the last note. Isabelle half awakes, and murmurs, "I do believe I heard something. I feel so nervous!" Robert advances a yard, and sings again, if anything rather louder, "Isa-belle!" Isabelle says: "Really, my nerves do play me such tricks! I can"t help fancying that there is some one in the room, and I am so terribly afraid of burglars.
Perhaps it is only a mouse." Robert advances right up to Isabelle"s bed, and shouts for the third time in a voice that makes the chandelier ring again, "Isa-belle!" Isabelle says, "I don"t think that I can have imagined that. There really is some one in the room. I"m terribly frightened, and don"t quite know what to do," so she gets out of bed, and anxiously scans the stalls and boxes over the footlights for signs of an intruder. Finding no one there but the audience, she then searches the gallery fruitlessly, and getting a sudden inspiration, she looks behind her, and, to her immense astonishment, finds her lover standing within a foot of her." This, as told with Leva.s.seur"s inimitable drollery, was excruciatingly funny.
Robert is an expensive opera to put on, for, owing to hideous jealousies at the Paris Opera, Meyerbeer was compelled to write two prima-donna parts which afforded the rival ladies exactly equal opportunities. In the same way Halevy, the composer of La Juive, had to re-arrange and transpose his score, for Adolphe Nourrit, the great Paris tenor, in 1835, when the opera was first produced, was jealous of the splendid part the ba.s.s had been given, the tenor"s role being quite insignificant. So it came about that La Juive is the only opera in which the grey-bearded old father is played by the princ.i.p.al tenor, whilst the lover is the light tenor. Mehul"s Biblical Joseph and his Brethren is the one opera in which there are no female characters, though "Benjamin" is played by the leading soprano. In both the Prophete and Favorita the contralto plays the princ.i.p.al part, the soprano having a very subsidiary role. Meyerbeer wrote the part of the Prophet himself specially for Roger, the great tenor, and that of "Fides" for Mme. Viardot. By the way, the famous skating scene in the Prophete was part of the original production in Paris of 1849, and yet we think roller-skating an invention of yesterday.
I had German lessons from a Professor Hentze. This old man was the first example of a militant German that I had come across. He was always talking of Germany"s inevitable and splendid destiny. Although a Hanoverian by birth, he was a pa.s.sionate admirer of Bismarck and Bismarck"s policy, and was a furious Pan-German in sentiment. "Where the German tongue is heard, there will be the German Fatherland," he was fond of quoting in the original. As he declared that both Dutch and Flemish were but variants of Low German, he included Holland and Belgium in the Greater Germany of the future, as well as the German-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, and Upper and Lower Austria.
Mentally, he possibly included a certain island lying between the North Sea and the Atlantic as well, though, out of regard for my feelings, he never mentioned it. Hentze taught English and French in half a dozen boys" and girls" schools in Brunswick, and his brother taught history in the "Gymnasium." These two mild-mannered be-spectacled old bachelors, who in their leisure moments took snuff and played with their poodle, were tremendous fire-eaters. They were both enormously proud of the exploits of a cousin of theirs who, under the guise of a harmless commercial traveller in wines, had been engaged in spying and map-making for five years in Eastern France prior to 1870. It was, they averred (no doubt truthfully enough), owing to the labours of their cousin and of countless others like him, that the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 had been such an overwhelming success for Germany. Where German interests were concerned, these two old brothers could see nothing under a white light. And remember that they were teachers and trainers of youth; it was they who had the moulding of the minds of the young generation. I think that any one who knows Germany well will agree with me that it is the influence of the teaching cla.s.s, whether in school or university, that has transformed the German mentality so greatly during the last forty years. These two mild-mannered old Hentzes must have infected scores and hundreds of lads with their own aggressively militant views. By perpetually holding up to them their own dream of a Germany covering half Europe, they must have transmitted some of their own enthusiasm to their pupils, and underlying that enthusiasm was a tacit a.s.sumption that the end justified any means; that provided the goal were attained, the manner in which it had been arrived at was a matter of quite secondary importance. I maintain that the d.a.m.nable spirit of modern Germany is mainly due to the teaching profession, and to the doctrines it consistently instilled into German youth.
The Hentzes took in eight resident German pupils who attended the various schools in the town, mostly sons of wealthy Hamburg business-people. Hentze was always urging me to a.s.sociate more with these lads, three of whom were of my own age, but I could discover no common ground whatever on which to meet them. The things that interested me did not appeal to them, and vice versa. They seemed to me dull youths, heavy alike in mind and body. From lack of sufficient fresh air and exercise they had all dull eyes, and flabby, white faces that quivered like blancmanges when they walked. In addition, they obstinately refused to talk German with me, looking on me as affording an excellent opportunity for obtaining a gratuitous lesson in English.
One of Hentze"s pupils was a great contrast, physically, to the rest, for he was very spare and thin, and seldom opened his mouth. I was to see a great deal of this silent, slim lad later on.
Mr. Spiegelberg was a prominent member of the so-called English and French Club in Brunswick. This was not in the least what its name would seem to indicate; the members of the Club were not bursting with overwhelming love for our language and inst.i.tutions, nor were they consumed with enthusiastic admiration for French art and literature.
They were merely some fifteen very practical Brunswick commercial men, who, realising that a good working knowledge of English and French would prove extremely useful to them in their business relations, met at each other"s houses in rotation on one night a week during the winter months, when the host of the evening provided copious supplies of wine, beer and cigars. For one hour and a half the members of the Club had to talk English or French as the case might be, under a penalty of a fine of one thaler (three shillings) for every lapse into their native German. Mr. Spiegelberg informed me that I had been elected an honorary member of the English and French Club, which flattered my vanity enormously at the time. In the light of more mature experience I quite understand that the presence of a youth to whom knotty points in both languages could be submitted would be a considerable a.s.set to the Club, but I then attributed my election solely to my engaging personality. These Club evenings amused me enormously, though incidentally they resulted in my acquiring a precocious love of strong, rank Hamburg cigars. Let us imagine fifteen portly, be-spectacled, middle-aged or elderly men seated around a table groaning under a collection of bottles of all shapes and sizes, addressing each other in laboured inverted English. The German love of t.i.tles is a matter of common knowledge. All these business men had honorific appellations which they translated into English and introduced scrupulously into every sentence. The conversation was something like this:
"But, Mr. Over-Inspector of Railways, I do not think that you understand rightly what Mr. Factory Director Spiegelberg says. Mr.
Factory Director also spins jute. To make concurrenz with Dundee in Schottland, he must produce cheaply. To produce cheaply he must become...no, obtain new machinery from Leeds in England. If that machinery is duty-payable, Mr. Factory Director cannot produce so cheaply. That seems to me clear. Once our German industries established are, then we will see. That is another matter."
"I take the liberty to differ, Mr. Councillor of Commerce. How then shall our German industries flourish, if they not protected be? What for a doctrine is that? Mr. Factory Director Spiegelberg thinks only of jute. Outside jute, the German world of commerce is greater, and with in-the-near-future-to-be-given railways facilities, vast and imposing shortly shall be."
"What Mr. Councillor of Commerce just has said, is true. You, Mr.
Over-Inspector of Railways, and also you, Mr. Ducal Supervisor of Forests, are not merchants like us, but much-skilled specialists; so is the point of view different, Mr. Town Councillor Balhorn, you have given us most brilliant beer to-night. This is no beer of here, it must be real Munich. It tastes famous. Prosit!"
"I thank you, Mr. Court Councillor. In the place, gentlemen, of with-anger-discussing Free Trade, let us all drink some Munich beer.
Discussion is good, but beer with content is better."
Now I put it to you--could any one picture fifteen English business men in Manchester, Liverpool, or Leeds doing anything so sensible as to meet once a week amongst themselves, to acquire proficiency and fluency in French, Spanish, or German, all of which languages they must presumably require at times for the purposes of their business. Every one knows that it is unthinkable. No Englishman could be bothered to take the trouble. Why is it that English people have this extraordinary reluctance to learn any foreign language? It is certainly not from want of natural ability to do so, though this natural apt.i.tude may be discounted by the difficulty most English people experience in keeping their minds concentrated. I venture to a.s.sert unhesitatingly that, with the exception of Dutch and Russian people, English folk learn foreign languages with greater ease than any other nationality. This is notably true with regard to Russian and Spanish. The English throat is more flexible than that of the Frenchman or German, and, with the one exception of French, there are no unwonted sounds in any European language that an Englishman cannot reproduce fairly accurately. We have something like the hard Russian "l" in the last syllable of "impossible," and to the Scottish or Irish throat the Dutch hard initial guttural, and the Spanish soft guttural offer but little difficulty. "Jorje," which looks like "George" spelt phonetically, but is p.r.o.nounced so very differently, can easily be mastered, and that real teaser "gracht," the Dutch for "ca.n.a.l," with a strong guttural at either end of it, comes easily out of a Scottish throat. The power to acquire these tongues is there, but the inclination is woefully lacking.
Some ten years ago I went out to Panama to have a look at the ca.n.a.l works. On board the mail-steamer there were twelve commercial travellers representing British firms, bound for the West Coast of South America. Ten of these twelve were Germans, all speaking English and Spanish fluently in addition to their native German. The other two were English, not knowing one word of any language but their own. I had a long talk with these two Englishmen, and asked them whether they were familiar with the varying monetary standards of the countries they were going to visit; for the nominal dollar represents a widely different value in each South American State. No, they knew nothing whatever about this, and were quite ignorant of Spanish-American weights and measures. Now what possible object did the firms sending out these ill-equipped representatives hope to attain? Could they in their wildest moments have supposed that they would get one single order through their agency? And how came it about that these young men were so ignorant of the language and customs of the countries they were proposing to travel? During the voyage I noticed the German travellers constantly conversing with South Americans from the Pacific Coast, in an endeavour to improve their working knowledge of Spanish; meanwhile the young Englishmen played deck-quoits and talked English. That in itself is quite sufficiently characteristic. In Manchester there is a firm who do a large business in manufacturing brightly coloured horse-trappings for the South American market. I speak with some confidence about this, for I have myself watched those trappings being made. Most of the "ponchos" used in the Argentine are woven in Glasgow.
Why is it that in these two great industrial centres no one seems to have thought of establishing a special cla.s.s in any of the numerous schools and colleges for training youths as commercial travellers in foreign countries? They would have, in addition to learning two or three languages, to get used to making quick calculations in dollars and cents, and in dollars of very varying values; they would also have to learn to THINK quickly in weights and measures different to those to which they had been accustomed. Why should British firms be compelled to use German travellers, owing to the inept.i.tude of their own countrymen? The power to learn is there; it is only the will that is lacking, and in justice I must add, perhaps the necessary facilities.
People who do not mind taking trouble will always in the end get a pull over people who hate all trouble. I think that our present King once cried, "Buck up, England!" and his Majesty spoke true; very few things can be done in this world without taking a little trouble.
To return, after this long digression, to the portly German middle-aged business men who met weekly in Brunswick to improve their working knowledge of French and English, I must candidly say that I never detected the faintest shadow of animosity to Great Britain in them.
They were not Prussians--they were Hanoverians and Brunswickers. They felt proud, I think, that the throne of Britain was then occupied by a branch of their own ancient House of Guelph; they remembered the hundred years" connection between Britain and Hanover; as business men they acknowledged Britain"s then unquestioned industrial supremacy, and they recognised that men of their cla.s.s enjoyed in England a position and a power which was not accorded to them in Germany. Certainly they never lost an opportunity of pointing out that Britain was neither a military nor a fighting nation, and would never venture again to conduct a campaign on the Continent. Recent events will show how correct they were in their forecasts.
I liked the society of these shrewd, practical men, for from being so much with the French judges, I had become accustomed to a.s.sociating with men double or treble my own age. There was nothing corresponding to the gaiete francaise about them, though at times a ponderous playfulness marked their lighter moments, and flashes of elephantine jocularity enlivened the proceedings of the Club. I picked up some useful items of knowledge from them, for I regret to admit that up to that time I had no idea what a bill of lading was, or a ship"s manifest; after a while, even such cryptic expressions, too, as f.o.b.