The Frau Directorin, with hundreds of other guests, had been met at the railroad station by carriages, this being one of the few places left upon earth where the automobile is excluded.
The Herr Director was not climbing as easily as he climbed thirty years ago, and neither was I, although I made a brave show and led the way, frequently leaving him in the rear, much to his disgust.
"Yes," he said, mopping his brow and looking about critically, "this is somewhat like the Hartz," and my heart gave a joyous leap at his admission; "but several things are missing: Good company, merry songs and, above all, places of refreshment."
Of course I could offer him no better company than I was, as there are not many people in America who climb when they can ride for nothing; and the only refreshment available was clear water from a shaded spring. As we drank he recalled laughingly how, when we stopped at one of those nature's fountains in the Hartz, a man who had watched us, came running out of his house and warned us that we might catch cold in our stomachs, at the same time politely offering to guide us to a place where we would get something not so dangerously cold, and with tempting foam at the top.
I have long ago been weaned from the German custom of mixing refreshments and scenery; but one does miss the boys and girls, the merry, happy throngs, their sentimental songs and their fervent, poetic patriotism. Involuntarily my mind reverted to a scene the Herr Director and I witnessed after we had finally reached the summit of our mountain in the Hartz. It was nearly evening, and we could look far and wide above the forest into the happy and beautiful country. On the very topmost peak stood a corpulent German, surrounded by his genial group. He was reciting with fervor and genuine passion, in the broadest Berlinese dialect, one of their treasured poems which begins with these lines:
"High upon the hilltops of thy mountains stand I, Thou beautiful and mighty Fatherland."
If this should happen over here, of which there is no danger, he would be laughed at, if noticed at all; over there he was treated like a high priest who called the faithful to prayer.
As a people we lack not only poetic imagination, we lack also this identification of our country with the best in nature. Our youth may be to blame for that, or perhaps we have so much of nature and so much which is beautiful that we have not been able to encompass it. Yet there must be something very important lacking in such Americans as the one whom I met very recently. He had just returned from a "Seeing America First" tour, and had seen everything from Niagara to the Big Tree groves of California. When I asked him what he thought of it all he said, coolly, "Oh! it's a big country." Naturally I did not tell this nor the following to the Herr Director.