Thomas Mann resembles his hero in being comparatively unproductive; but it should be added at once that no one of his works fails to exhibit the utmost of artistic finish. Unrelaxing attention and indefatigable effort to attain artistic form are the heritage of his North German descent, of which he perhaps became fully conscious in South Germany, in the city of more easy-going habits of life. In _Buddenbrooks_ itself the difference between North and South plays an important part; Tonie, the youngest daughter of the house of Buddenbrook, is twice married, first to an unscrupulous speculator in Lübeck, the second time to a Munich dealer in hops, Aloysius Permaneder, who rescues her from the disgraceful position of a divorced woman. This deliriously portrayed beer-reeking philistine, whose informality and whose wild oaths horrify the prim Lübeckers no less than his good-hearted _naiveté_ amuses them, marries Tonie Buddenbrook, retires from business on the strength of her dowry, and as an owner of real estate and a gentleman of leisure passes the rest of his life in drinking beer morning and night, cutting coupons, and annually raising the rent of his tenants. Such a successful caricature splendidly embodies the stagnating spirit of the blissfully idyllic town which the metropolis of Bavaria has remained in spite of all its growth. And yet, in no other German city is there so high a degree of artistic culture, and the odor of Munich beer seems to furnish a more favorable atmosphere for the creative artist than the _prestissimo_ of life in Berlin, which steels the nerves of the energetic, rushing man of business. There are two sides to everything: the motto of the indolent man of Munich, "Let me alone" (_Mei Rua will i ham_) gives to art that which it needs above all else, time, contemplativeness, freedom. Nowhere can one so unrestrainedly cultivate one's own style of life as there. And withal, artistic freedom of life accommodates itself remarkably well with the political narrowness of the country under Clerical rule. The Bavarian phlegmatic temperament craves constant stimulation; the political strife, in which there is no embittered fanaticism, but which in all good nature sways backward and forward, is an indispensable condition of the national life. Combativeness and the lust of vituperation are in the blood of the Bavarian people; it is all one, whether we look for them in a riotous kirmess or in blunt ridicule, in the poetic improvisations of which the quick-witted peasants, being especially gifted in mimicry, are unsurpassed.