It is, I must admit, a drab and dreary crowd to look at, these Germans at the theatre, at the opera, in the concert halls. They do not dress, or if they are women undress, for their music as do we; their music dresses for them. They come, most of them, in the clothes that they have worn all day, each quidlibet induitus. They have many of them a meal of meat, bread, and beer during the long pause between two of the acts, always provided for this purpose. Some of them bring little bags with their own provisions, and only buy a glass of beer. They are solemnly attentive, an educated and experienced audience there for a purpose, and not to be trifled with, the most competently critical audience in the world. I wonder as I look at them whether the fact that they have no backs to their heads, emphasized nowadays by the fact that many men wear their hair clipped close to the head, and no chins (the lack of chins in Germany is almost a national peculiarity) has any physiological or psychological relation to their prowess in, and love of, and critical appreciation of, the more nebulous arts: music, poetry, philosophy, and the serious drama. They are as adamant in their observance of the rules in such matters. More than once I arrived at the opera a few minutes late, once four minutes late, the doors are closed and guarded, and I listen to the overture from the outside. At a concert led by the famous von Buelow half a dozen women come in after the music has begun, rustling, sibilant, and excited. The music stops, the great conductor turns to glare at them, and, referring to the geese which are said to have saved Rome by their hissing, thunders: "Hier ist kein Capitol zu retten!" There are some forty thousand professional musicians in Germany. The town council of Berlin is now discussing gravely the sum to be allotted to the support of the Symphony Orchestra, and Charlottenburg is building an opera house of its own, and Spandau a theatre; and there has just been formed in Berlin a "Society of the German Artistes' Theatre," with a capital of $200,000, which is a project along the general lines of the Comedie Francaise. The discussions and arguments relating to these municipal expenditures, as I read them in the newspapers, are all based upon the assumption that the people have a right to good and cheap music, just as they have a right to good and cheap beer and bread.