Calamity¹, like those far-off locomotives on the Rhine, has again rolled out of Germany on her neighbors. Yet this very Calamity it is that has given me back my faith in my own country. It was Germany at peace which shook my faith; and I must tell you of that peaceful, beautiful Germany in which I rejoiced for so many days, and of how I envied it. Then, perhaps, among some other things I hope you will see, you will see that it is Germany who is, in truth, the deepest tragedy of this war.  
The Germany at peace that I saw during May and June, 1914, was, in the first place, a constant pleasure to the eye, a constant repose² to the body and mind. Look where you might, beauty was in some form to be seen, given its chance by the intelligence of man—not defaced, but made the most of; and, whether in towns or in the country, a harmonious³ spectacle was the rule. I thought of our landscape, littered with rubbish and careless fences and stumps⁴ of trees, hideous⁵ with glaring advertisements; of the rusty⁶ junk lying about our farms and towns and wayside stations; and of the disfigured Palisades along the Hudson River. America was ugly and shabby—made so by Americans; Germany was swept and garnished—made so by Germans.
 
In Nauheim the admirable courtyard of the bathhouses was matched by the admirable system within. The convenience and the architecture were equally good. For every hour of the invalid⁷'s day the secret of his well-being⁸ seemed to have been thought out. On one side of the group and court of baths ran the chief street, shady and well-kempt, with its hotels and its very entertaining shops; on the other side spread a park. This was a truly gracious little region, embowered in trees, with spaces and walks and flowers all near at hand, yet nothing crowded. The park sloped upward to a terrace and casino, with tables for sitting out to eat and drink and hear the band, and with a concert hall and theater for the evening. Herein comedies and little operas and music, both serious and light, were played.
 
Nothing was far from anything; the baths, the doctors, the hotels, the music, the tennis courts, the lake, the golf links—all were fitted into a scheme laid out with marvelous

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