They use more judgment about applause than the French.
They never interrupt a scene or even a musical phrase with misplaced
applause because the soprano has executed a flamboyant cadenza or the
tenor has reached a higher note than usual. Their appreciation is slow
but hearty and always worthily disposed. The French are given to
exaggerating an emotion and to applauding an eccentricity. Even their
subtlety is overdone.
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.
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