"Go" And Dash Are The Chief Characteristics Of Their Method; But,
When Needed, They Can Produce From The Battered, Time-
Worn trumpets,
which have been handed down from player to player since the regiment
was first formed, notes as soft
And full and clear as any that could
start from the strings of some old violin.
The German band in Germany has to know its business to be listened
to by a German audience. The Bavarian artisan or shopkeeper
understands and appreciates good music, as he understands and
appreciates good beer. You cannot impose upon him with an inferior
article. A music-hall audience in Munich are very particular as to
how their beloved Wagner is rendered, and the trifles from Mozart
and Haydn that they love to take in with their sausages and salad,
and which, when performed to their satisfaction, they will
thunderously applaud, must not be taken liberties with, or they will
know the reason why.
The German beer-garden should be visited by everyone who would see
the German people as well as their churches and castles. It is here
that the workers of all kinds congregate in the evening. Here,
after the labours of the day, come the tradesman with his wife and
family, the young clerk with his betrothed and - also her mother,
alack and well-a-day! - the soldier with his sweetheart, the students
in twos and threes, the little grisette with her cousin, the shop-
boy and the workman.
Here come grey-haired Darby and Joan, and, over the mug of beer they
share between them, they sit thinking of the children - of little
Lisa, married to clever Karl, who is pushing his way in the far-off
land that lies across the great sea; of laughing Elsie, settled in
Hamburg, who has grandchildren of her own now; of fair-haired Franz,
his mother's pet, who fell in sunny France, fighting for the
fatherland. At the next table sits a blushing, happy little maid,
full of haughty airs and graces, such as may be excused to a little
maid who has just saved a no doubt promising, but at present
somewhat awkward-looking, youth from lifelong misery, if not madness
and suicide (depend upon it, that is the alternative he put before
her), by at last condescending to give him the plump little hand,
that he, thinking nobody sees him, holds so tightly beneath the
table-cloth. Opposite, a family group sit discussing omelettes and
a bottle of white wine. The father contented, good-humoured, and
laughing; the small child grave and solemn, eating and drinking in
business-like fashion; the mother smiling at both, yet not
forgetting to eat.
I think one would learn to love these German women if one lived
among them for long. There is something so sweet, so womanly, so
genuine about them. They seem to shed around them, from their
bright, good-tempered faces, a healthy atmosphere of all that is
homely, and simple, and good.
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