The German drama is much cleaner than the French, the family tie is made more of, sentiment is encouraged instead of being ridiculed, as it too often is in America; but the German point of view of Americans is quite as much distorted as the French.  That statement is severe, but true.  For instance, it would be utterly impossible for the American girl to be more exquisitely misunderstood than by French and German men.

Berlin is so full of electric cars that it seemed much more familiar at first sight than Paris.  It is a lovely city, although we ought to have seen it before Paris in order fully to appreciate it.  Its Brandenburg Gate is most impressive, and I wanted to make some demonstration every time we drove under it and realized that the statue above it has been returned.  Their statue of Victory in the Thiergarten is so hideous, however, that I was reminded of General Sherman’s remark when he saw the Pension Office in Washington, “And they tell me the ——­ thing is fireproof!”

The streets are filled with beautiful things, mostly German officers.  The only trouble is that they themselves seem to know it only too well, and as they will not give us any of the sidewalk, we are obliged to admire them from the gutters.  The only way you can keep Germans from knocking you into the middle of the street is to walk sideways and pretend you are examining the shop windows.

In the eyes of men, women are of little account in England compared to the way we are treated in America; of less in France; and of still less in Germany.  We have not got to Russia yet.

Paris seems a city of leisure, Berlin a city of war.  The streets of Paris are quite as full of soldiers as Berlin, but French soldiers look to me like mechanical toys.  I have sent Billy a box of them for Christmas—­of mechanical soldiers, I mean.  The chief difference I noticed was that Billy’s were smaller than the live ones, although French soldiers are small enough.  That portion of the French army which I have seen—­at Longchamps, Chalons-sur-Marne, Saumur, and at various other places—­are, as a rule, undersized, badly dressed, and badly groomed.  They do not look neat, nor even clean, if you want the truth.  The uniform is very ugly, and was evidently designed for men thirteen feet high; so that on those comical little toy Frenchmen it is grotesque in the extreme.

Their trousers are always much too long, and so ample in width that they seem to need only a belt at the ankle to turn them into perfect Russian blouses.  But English and German soldiers not only appear, but are, in perfect condition, as though they could go to war at a moment’s notice, and would be glad of the chance.