fortune made me, for a time, an inmate, and the room which had once been occupied for many weeks by Goethe became mine. The long windows opened on a deep balcony, lined and roofed with thick growths of vines ; a sofa and little table were here, and the still, green spot knew no sound save the twitter of a swallow darting suddenly across, or the soft note of a brooding bird. The busy town, with all its life, its throng of students, its workmen in many crafts, seemed far away, yet the opening of a door brought it all before one. The house shared in the quiet of the old room. In the great drawing-room, arranged in German fashion, — the sofa the post of honor, and a circle of chairs about it, — rows of family portraits looked down on their descendants, and in the dining-room were more, bewigged and powdered, serious and decorous, but all well fed and comfortable. Why not, when the Hatisfrau had made it the business of her life to keep them so, and they had co- operated with her, to any extent, hardly possible to their descendants, although the average German stomach has possibilities beyond that of any other people ? 54 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. The Continental breakfast simplifies work for all housekeepers, since it is invariable in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Farther north it takes on certain American or English characteristics, and becomes the substantial meal that the North demands. But for the countries mentioned, coffee and bread, or rolls, begin the day, the coffee kept hot over a spirit-lamp, and taken when wanted by the various members of the family. The Frau Rath had hers served punctually at eight, but did not appear to her family till noon. Butter was allowed as a. concession to English prejudices, but regarded as an innovation, and on this hint of what an American calls breakfast, the morning's work was done. "It is the shadow, the sham, the base counterfeit of a breakfast; the bread is cold, tough, unsym- pathetic, — always the same tiresome thing; the butter is also a sham, — tasteless, no salt in it, and made of goodness knows what. It never satisfies, and it never will." Thus Mark Twain, with much more of the same sort ; and the American is forced to agree with him at breakfast, since much GERMANY. 55 German milk and cream are of the thinnest and bluest, and give no richness to the often equally poor coffee. The ordinary German cow is worked in harness many hours a day, and loses all resemblance to the placid, cud-chewing, sleek animals whose only business in life is the production of milk yellower and richer than anything known to average Germans as cream. Dairies, however, are by no means unknown, the broad meadows of the Oden- wald and other points giving room for dairy farms which send out excellent butter and cheese; but much of the milk supply for towns comes from the unlucky cows whose life passes in harness. Any deficiencies of breakfast are made up at the one-o'clock dinner, at which the Frau Rath frowned as another innovation, since the old fashions called for a species of hot luncheon at eleven, practically the second breakfast of the French, and dinner at two^ with coffee at four, and hot supper at seven. Modern capacity being less than the ancient, and common-sense having demonstrated that five meals a day give time for nothing else, 56 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. the one-o'clock dinner has absorbed the dishes of the hot breakfast.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

fortune made me, for a time, an inmate, and the room which had once been occupied for many weeks by Goethe became mine. The long windows opened on a deep balcony, lined and roofed with thick growths of vines ; a sofa and little table were here, and the still, green spot knew no sound save the twitter of a swallow darting suddenly across, or the soft note of a brooding bird. The busy town, with all its life, its throng of students, its workmen in many crafts, seemed far away, yet the opening of a door brought it all before one. The house shared in the quiet of the old room. In the great drawing-room, arranged in German fashion, — the sofa the post of honor, and a circle of chairs about it, — rows of family portraits looked down on their descendants, and in the dining-room were more, bewigged and powdered, serious and decorous, but all well fed and comfortable. Why not, when the Hausfrau had made it the business of her life to keep them so, and they had cooperated with her, to any extent, hardly possible to their descendants, although the average German stomach has possibilities beyond that of any other people ? The Continental breakfast simplifies work for all housekeepers, since it is invariable in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Farther north it takes on certain American or English characteristics, and becomes the substantial meal that the North demands. But for the countries mentioned, coffee and bread, or rolls, begin the day, the coffee kept hot over a spirit-lamp, and taken when wanted by the various members of the family. The Frau Rath had hers served punctually at eight, but did not appear to her family till noon. Butter was allowed as a. concession to English prejudices, but regarded as an innovation, and on this hint of what an American calls breakfast, the morning's work was done. "It is the shadow, the sham, the base counterfeit of a breakfast; the bread is cold, tough, unsympathetic, — always the same tiresome thing; the butter is also a sham, — tasteless, no salt in it, and made of goodness knows what. It never satisfies, and it never will." Thus Mark Twain, with much more of the same sort ; and the American is forced to agree with him at breakfast, since much German milk and cream are of the thinnest and bluest, and give no richness to the often equally poor coffee. The ordinary German cow is worked in harness many hours a day, and loses all resemblance to the placid, cud-chewing, sleek animals whose only business in life is the production of milk yellower and richer than anything known to average Germans as cream. Dairies, however, are by no means unknown, the broad meadows of the Odenwald and other points giving room for dairy farms which send out excellent butter and cheese; but much of the milk supply for towns comes from the unlucky cows whose life passes in harness. Any deficiencies of breakfast are made up at the one-o'clock dinner, at which the Frau Rath frowned as another innovation, since the old fashions called for a species of hot luncheon at eleven, practically the second breakfast of the French, and dinner at two, with coffee at four, and hot supper at seven. Modern capacity being less than the ancient, and common-sense having demonstrated that five meals a day give time for nothing else, the one-o'clock dinner has absorbed the dishes of the hot breakfast.

In foreign kitchens