Villa Elsa A Story of German Family Life

The German text books that came in Gard's way proved the national craze for what was Deutsch, _echt Deutsch_, to the exclusion of what was not. It was almost a ferocity of inbre...

At Eisenach, bound for Frankfort, the train guard punched Kirtley's ticket and showed him into a compartment that was empty save for a military figure engaged in reading a large...

The German, in all this physical aspect, is not a little like an unabashed ape. Accordingly the foreigner in Deutschland is impressed by the popular worship of the wide-hipped f...

"Why is it that this seems to be a nation of professionals while ours seems to be a nation of amateurs? I suppose it is, of course, because of the more general spread here of th...

The scene was now transferred to a third chamber which looked somewhat like an august tribunal of state. It was an imposing room divided by a long high rostrum upon which sat a...

Often when he peeked down from his attic window he spied the shining bald head of the very elderly Herr Bucher surrounded by the mass of lively colors of his rose garden. He lov...

Once during the winter he tried on her a course of flirtation which he had learned very well in his Sophomore year. But German girls do not flirt. His arrows sank in feebly, imp...

Anderson did not care for the Buchers and only came two or three times to Villa Elsa. So Gard did the calling. The elder would invariably bring out from his table drawer his "ba...

In a few minutes the two travelers reached the side portal of the hoary temple. It represented the seat of Charlemagne's political and ecclesiastical power--the capitol of the a...

"I have given this a great deal of thought. I have read a great deal and I believe I have never known of a writer who furnished what I should call an answer. And that is the mos...

In England, when war came, the confusion was unbelievable. All that Gard had seen, heard, gone through in Deutschland proved the awfulness of the Force flung against Europe whic...

Such in brief was the scene that stretched out around him and enveloped his attention and interest. There was not majesty that would offend, but rather a cosy formality that is...

One morning early in June when Kirtley, who had been away the afternoon and evening before, came down to breakfast, he found the household upset. Something bad had happened. Tek...

The sudden drop in the life in Villa Elsa occasioned by meteoric Jim Deming's disappearance, was terrific. Frau Bucher gasped, caught her breath and sank voluminously beneath th...

Gard now descended unwittingly into one of the darkest regions of German life, and one which foreign publics had persistently missed or voluntarily overlooked in their chorus of...

In the vernal season the lectures and theaters were dropped for neighborhood excursions of which the Buchers, like all German families, were extremely fond. A rendezvous would b...

He went on and on through the firs and hemlocks, on the right bank of the Elbe, then down toward the city. A multitude of convictions, reflections, impressions, flocked in his b...

Balls and dancing are a notable expression of life and character in Germany. The Teuton has a passion for them. In what country are they so institutional? The German dance music...

Fräulein Elsa was a blooming, almost blue-eyed young woman of twenty. Such a fresh, strawberry and cream complexion under a plenteous harvest of flaxen hair would not be associa...

A dash of adventure was to crown Gard Kirtley's farewell to Germany as it had crowned Jim Deming's, but with an ominous wreath of the tragic instead of garlands of the comic. Wa...

"You'll find they hate you. Hate is the German religion. The Germans can hate people they've never known, never seen. They hate on principle and without principle. Of course it'...

When Jim Deming returned he resumed sway over Villa Elsa, though with less vehemence. The Buchers fell promptly again under his spell, the duos were dropped, and Gard retired in...

Concurrent with all these lively happenings Kirtley had cultivated the acquaintance of Miles Anderson. The two became very friendly. Gard had been so rudely treated by the great...

In spite of Anderson, Gard could not make up his mind that Rudolph was anything more than a young braggadocio. The idea of an ordinary family living comfortably along with a spy...

Gard's attentions to Elsa continued intermittently, and as if detached, on their unadvancing course. He had, however, reached the stage of playing piano duets with her. This is...

Deming's campaign against the terrible German language was unable to advance perceptibly beyond the stage of preparations. These were somewhat elaborate, especially from the sta...

The Americanization of the Bucher home Kirtley naturally thought beyond all attempts. Its detestation of the low-born Yankee, with only his sorry millions, seemed too deeply pla...

... Is not my old friend Anderson's plan the only natural, practical, efficient method by which to humanize their barbarous instincts? Assuming that they will be defeated, as th...

Into this Triumphant Germany young Kirtley had come to recuperate from the sadness over the loss, the previous year, of his parents and from a siege of sickness. Still somewhat...

A day or two afterward, another little tragedy visited Villa Elsa, following on the heels of the unfortunate departure of Tekla. Ernst came home at lunch time with his head swol...

"These bolsters are for the gingerbread effect that the German likes everywhere," explained the visitor. They examined the remaining construction. It was narrow and short. It su...

The matter of much eating and drinking had first to be, if possible, disposed of. It was exacting and the most important affair. Kirtley did not want to be discourteous or appea...

After New Year he had organized a little informal dancing club among the Americans. He called it the Cinderella Cotillion Coterie, in alliterative compliment to the daintiness o...

This astonishing outbreak in Villa Elsa was followed by something still more singular to Kirtley, or at least out of his reckoning. It was to stir the depths of his contemplatio...

At midnight Kirtley saw a remarkable sight. On the stroke of twelve, loud toasts to Der Tag were suddenly lifted high in air as the orchestra broke forth with the Wacht am Rhein...

It was an instinctive move to get out of Deutschland--raucous, hostile Deutschland, lying athwart his soul. But his grip? his overcoat? his umbrella? He faced back toward the to...

Gard's experience in perfecting himself in German met with another rebuff. Under the prompting of his parental friends in Villa Elsa he concluded at length to attend a course of...

She was in the act of giving him a potion for a raging fever. Once he realized that Herr Bucher sat silently poring over a book by the bed, chucking him back into it when he tos...

The two sat the night out in the box. The reader is familiar with Thackeray's amusing references to the stuffy German Court balls. After his day and under the sway of the Empire...

The short German had worked himself up into an irritable state. He led the way about the arrangements for dining, his tall friend all the while mildly attempting to soothe his r...

Thus the Germans, in 1913, felt how supreme their country was or was speedily becoming. Not only their newspapers but their educators, their pastors and, more than all, their mi...

Gard discovered that such mockery or berating of military officials, with whom the ordinary public came in servile contact, was rather common in Germany in spite of the universa...

In the late summer of 1913 a quiet American college man of twenty-three, tall, lean, somewhat listless in bearing, who had been idling on a trip in Germany without a thought of...