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In various towns of Germany I found myself admiring the cheerful, bustling gemutlichkeit of the people, the splendid organization of their civic life, their industry and national spirit. Walking among them sometimes, I used to ponder over the possibility of that unvermeidliche krieg that "unavoidable war" which was being discussed in all the newspapers.
For them, are no souvenirs of happy evening hours that sing always in the heart of a Berlin they can never know. For them, shall be no memory of that vast and insuperable gemütlichkeit, that superb and pacific democracy, that dwells and shall dwell forever by night in the spirit of the German people.
Since I have lived in this pretty town I have become a worshiper of the goddess Gemutlichkeit. Perhaps I shan't find another home as dear to my heart as this has been, but at least I shan't have to sleep on a park bench, and any one can tell you that park benches have long been the favored resting place of genius. There is Frau Nirlanger beckoning us. Now do stop scowling, and smile for the lady.
Such impressions as he received, bore the stamp of his own mood. He was sensible, for instance, in face of the picturesque houses that clustered together in the centre of the town, of the spiritual GEMUTLICHKEIT, the absence of any pomp or pride in their romantic past, which characterises the old buildings of a German town.
A five-pfennig tip for Frau Dickleibig, and she brings you the Fliegende Blätter, Le Rire, the Munich or Berlin papers, whatever you want. A drowsy, hedonistic, easy-going place. Not much talk, not much rattling of crockery, not much card playing. The mountain, one guesses, of Munich meditation. The incubator of Munich gemütlichkeit.
Yes, it is all here, along with the forty-two-centimetre shells good music and good beer and good love of both; simplicity, homely kindness, and Gemutlichkeit. Mere talk about plays would not be much encouraged in Germany nowadays.
But, be that as it may, Ireland played Cleopatra to the Antony of the invaders. Some of them, indeed, the "garrison" pure and simple, had all their interests centred not only in resisting but in calumniating her. But the majority yielded gaily to her music, her poetry, her sociability, that magical quality of hers which the Germans call Gemütlichkeit.