“It was worse than I remembered,” Professor Behrens told my father. “After an experience of the free, breezy, self-respecting life in America it was simply unendurable. Suffocating, simply suffocating! With the most ridiculous caste spirit. Rusted to a stand-still with cock-sure conservatism! An instant, hermetic closing up of every pore at any mention of new possibilities for human nature, or for human organizations. And such absurd, stiff, artificial rules of conduct and precedence in society! Let me tell you an episode which will seem almost incredible to you, but which really decided us to come back here. At a garden party my wife ... _my_ wife!... seeing there the wife of the General commanding the troops in the town garrison and knowing her quite well, stepped across the lawn to speak to her, one lady to another. Will you believe it, because she had not waited till the General’s wife had summoned her to her circle, my poor wife received a cold, unrecognizing stare, her outstretched hand was left hanging in the air, and the General’s wife turned her back on her. And when I was furious and protested, I was made uncomfortable, seriously uncomfortable!” And Mrs. Behrens told my mother she had been horrified by the cold-hearted envy, hatred and meanness which lay underneath the polished manners of many of the people in their circle. “They do not wish you well. They wish you ill. They simply have no conception of the meaning of that American word ‘friendly.’” Julie was ready for the University, as I was, and we entered the Freshman class together. She was a very pretty girl, one of the brown-haired Teutons, who are so much finer and more neatly finished than the blonde ones, and she had her fair share of popularity. We were taken into the same fraternity, studied together, and were much in each other’s homes. I soon saw that the Behrens home was not altogether a light-hearted one. After the first flush of pleasure at being back had passed, a cloud of depression settled over them. Their sojourn in a more finished and stable, low-toned and nuanced civilization had put them all out of key for the loud-mouthed, cheerful American tune. They found it shrill and noisy, and often stopped their ears against it. Heavens, they had not remembered that American trades-people were so utterly mannerless! Nor that all Americans were so blackly ignorant of the arts! They had no interest in organized athletics, and very soon developed an active hostility for football because of the indisputable fact that the university world was so occupied with it, that nothing serious was done in classes until after Thanksgiving when the last game was played. The Behrens were musical and nobody in the city cared for music except the German-Americans in their shabby quarter at the other end of town, and they were fat grocers, saloon-keepers or foremen in factories, people with whom the Behrens could not dream of associating.