MOTTO OF MODERN GERMANY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 434, 27 January 1912, Page 2

MOTTO OF MODERN GERMANY.

WINE, WOMAN, AND LAUGHTER,

"Wine, woman,-and song," the device of Luther, is still the motto of modern Germany. Well, song is cer tainly a German virtue. What people so truly musical as the Germans —what music so profound or eloquent How strange it is for us to enter a German house and see husband anc wife sit down to the piano and plaj duets together as well and naturally as we might play tennis or golf ; tc ind in every restaurant, becr-garden, in every pleasure-boat, in every public square, park, or pla.ee of entertainment, a band that can play without public offence ; to learn that the German who cannot play some instrument is as rare as the Englishman who can. And the good song,, svhich conduces to mirth and levity, leads also to good wine.

The good wine of Germany —quafl Lt and you will know ! Go into s public garden in the summer, anywhere on the merry banks of the Rhine. All around you jovial burly Germans sit drinking the good white liquid of the Mosel and the Rhine, They drink ancl sing ; not drunken songs either, but of Schumann and Schubert, and catches of old time. Bottle after battle is emptied ; 'Die Nacht am Rhein" is always sung with pious fervour ; and the songs of Father Rhine are as innumerable as the stars. Or descend in some castellated mediaeval town in Bavaria, down •icke-ty steps, and. through an atmosphere blue with, smoke into a wine 'Keller," and you may see the German just as le was when Mephis;opheles spread confusion among the wine-bibbers. The sight is unique in Europe. Symposiums everywhere. There enthusiastic youths sit listening ardently to the teaching of a grey-haired professor. Here a So;ialist in his cups. To the right a political group conquering all Europe in their pan-German wines. Fai back a solitary spirit, deep, in meditation and philosophy. A table oi students debating Schopenhauer oi Beethoven. A statesman pensive ; officers eagerly discussing the French artillery ; musicians, artists, poets, journalists, all talking, drinking, living, thinking. In those "Kellers" the soul of Germany palpitates. You sec the Germans as they are ; you realise wlial they may be. —"Pall Mall Magazine."