His flippant criticism of American democracy and my stiff defense of it helped me much to see things which otherwise I should have missed, but these discussions threatened the entente cordiale between Bilharz and myself. Finally we compromised and changed our course of reading, dropping things relating to political theories and taking up poetry. Longfellow’s and Bryant’s poetry were my favorites. “The Village Blacksmith” and “Thanatopsis” I knew by heart and enjoyed reciting to Bilharz, who was greatly pleased whenever in these recitations I avoided making a single serious break in my pronunciation. After reading some of Shakespeare’s dramas which Booth and other famous actors like Lawrence Barrett and John McCullough were playing at that time, I visited the theatre often, and from my modest gallery seat I would analyze carefully the articulation of every syllable which Booth and the other actors were reciting. Booth did not have a big voice; it was much smaller than the voice of Lawrence Barrett or of powerful John McCullough, but I understood him better. Bilharz explained it by saying that Booth had a perfect articulation. “Articulation is an art which the Greeks invented; big voice is brute force common among the Russians,” he used to say, protesting whenever he had an opportunity against mere physical strength, which was natural considering his scanty physical resources. He hated both the Russians and the Prussians, because, in his opinion, they both were big brutes. In those days the southern Germans had no love for the Prussians. He never missed a single chance to sing the praises of Greek drama and of the Greek theatre and of everything which flourished during the classical age. He called my attention to the enormous size of Greek theatres and to the necessity of perfect articulation on the part of Greek actors if they were to be heard. “They were great artists,” said he; “our actors are duffers only. We are all duffers! Give me the Greeks, give me Homer, Pindar, Demosthenes, Plato, Praxiteles, Phidias, Sophocles, and hundreds of others who spoke the language of the gods and did things which only the divine spirit in man can do, and you can have your Morse, McCormick, Howe, Ericsson, and the rest of the materialistic crew who ran the show at Philadelphia.” He certainly told many a fine story when he spoke of the great poets, orators, philosophers, and sculptors of Greece, and his stories impressed me much because they were great revelations to me; they were the first to arouse my interest in the great civilization of Greece. They would have impressed me even more if Bilharz had not displayed a glaring tendency to exaggerate, in order to create a strong contrast between what he called the idealism of classical Greece and what he called the realistic materialism of modern America. According to him the first had its seat among the gods on the ethereal top of Mount Olympus and the