An American Girl in Munich: Impressions of a Music Student

Impressions of a Music Student
By Mabel W. Daniels
Boston Little, Brown, and Company 1905
Copyright, 1905 , By Little, Brown, and Company. All rights reserved
Published March, 1905
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
To Mütterchen


Dear Cecilia :—
Here I am in my Mecca at last after a calm sea and prosperous voyage. Would that you were with me to share my pleasures, and, yes, I am selfish enough to add, my troubles, too, for you have such a magical power of charming away the latter that they seem but trifling vexations. Then I should so enjoy watching your delicious blue eyes open wide at these Germans and their queer customs, and oh! how you would elevate the tip of your aristocratic nose at my box of a study, which, however, I consider the height of cosiness and comfort—from a German standpoint.
Lest by this last remark I've imperilled my reputation for patriotism, let me hasten to assure you that I am as far from adopting a foreign point of view in my contemplation of Man and the Universe as when we used to walk from college down to Harvard Square and have out the discussions kindled by our four o'clock lecture. It's only in the concrete things of life that I've been forced to abandon my Bostonian, and therefore, of course, unimpeachable standards. I have learned how unwise a thing it would be for me to say to a German landlady, Show me an apartment with running water, steam heat, electric lights, and a porcelain bath-tub. The poor bewildered creature would give me over at once into the hands of the omnipotent Polizei on the ground of insanity. But perhaps, after all, the best way of explaining myself is to follow the injunction in your letter: Begin at the beginning and tell me all about it.