Sarcey wrote that, having attained her sixteenth year, there she made
the long-stop, never oldening with others. _L'Ami Fritz_ is, in reality,
a German bucolic, the scene being laid in Bavaria. But it has long been
accepted as a classic, and on the stage it becomes thoroughly French.
This delightful story was written in 1864, that is to say, before any
war-cloud had arisen over the eastern frontier, and before the evocation
of a fiend as terrible, the anti-Jewish crusade culminating in the
Dreyfus crime.

It is painful to reflect that whilst twenty years ago the engaging old
Jew of this piece was vociferously acclaimed on the first French stage,
the drama of a gifted Jewish writer has this year been banned in Paris!

Edmond About and Erckmann and Chatrian belong to the same period as
another native, and more famous, genius, the precocious, superabundantly
endowed Gustave Dore. Of this "admirable Crichton" I give a sketch.

For mere holiday-makers in search of exhilaration and beauty, Alsace
offers attractions innumerable, sites grandiose and idyllic, picturesque
ruins, superb forests, old churches of rare interest and many a splendid
historic pile.

There are naturally drawbacks to intense lovers of France. Throughout M.
Hallays' volume he acknowledges the courtesy of German officials, a fact
to which I had borne testimony when first journalizing my own
experiences. Certain aspects of enforced Germanization can but afflict
all outsiders. There is firstly that obtrusive militarism from which we
cannot for a moment escape. Again, a no less false note strikes us in
matters aesthetic. Modern German taste in art, architecture and
decoration do not harmonize with the ancientness and historic severity of