You, a world traveller, have at last become a really narrow provincial, I should say a very happy one, as provincials always are. You wanted me to see your country through the June atmosphere of your Commencement; a democratic, peaceful, rose-laden America. I saw it through the smoke and grime of Chicago, the crowded tenements of New York, the injustice of your courts and the corruption of your politics.
Yet I am glad I saw _your_ America, and I want to thank you for your ardent endeavor to show it to me as you want it to be, and not as it is.
My wife sends her thanks and greetings. She received more benefit out of her visit than I. I have had to promise to remodel the house, and put in another bathroom which is to be between our bedrooms. The new bathtub must be porcelain and we are to have an instantaneous heater. She still talks a good deal of the "_gute_ cornflecks" and "grep frut" which we both enjoyed so much. Above all she remembers the courtesy of the men, and if the servant did not place her chair for her at table, I fear I should now have to do it.
America certainly is a Paradise for women, but it is "_Die Hoelle_" for men.
Remember that when you and any of your family come to Berlin you are to be our guests. I trust you will come soon, for conditions over here look dubious, and the war, "_der grosse Krieg_," may come before we know it.
_Herzliche Gruesse von Haus zu Haus._ _Auf Wiedersehen._
I am sure the Herr Director will not object if I have the last word; for while he was with me that privilege was seldom mine and obtained only by dint of strategy.
Since his departure, the great war which he prophesied has moved over Europe and hides every bit of fair and peaceful sky like a storm-cloud; its thunder and destructive lightning fill the air, leaving scarcely a place safe and undisturbed.
Not a soul is unafraid, not a heart is without pain and sorrow, and the Herr Director himself, although past middle age, has volunteered to serve in the trenches, slippery from oozing blood and foul from the spattered brains of men. The "fiddling, twiddling diplomats, the haggling, calculating merchants of Babylon, the sleek lords with their plumes and spurs" have had their way, and the poor, blind, ignorant millions, made mad by hate, do their brutal bidding.