XXXIXA FAIR CITY
Almost every writer and thinker has the city of his dreams, his Utopia. In recent years the novelists W. H. Hudson, H. G. Wells and Alfred Ollivant have each published a book setting forth a conception of the ideal community. It is not my purpose to add another Utopia but rather to call attention to an actual city, which, while it is imperfect like everything else in this motley world, has nevertheless many advantages that might well be imitated by American cities. I refer to Munich, Germany.
Munich is my favourite European town. I had rather live in the United States of America than in any other country; partly because I was born here, partly because I like the country anyway, but if I could not live in the United States I had rather live in Munich than in any other city in the world.
Munich is nearly as large as Boston and yet as quiet as a country village. Where the people are I don’t know, but those who are familiarwith Boylston and Tremont Streets in Boston will see nothing like that in Munich. The streets are calm, the sidewalks uncrowded, the highway uncongested by traffic; there is no Great White Way; there are no flaring lights; there is no hurly-burly. You can hear your own footsteps. An American who arrived at Munich at nine o’clock in the evening, observing the silence of the streets, asked his taxi driver to take him somewhere. The driver said, “Isn’t that rather indefinite?” “You know what I mean—take me where there is a lot of noise and a lot of people.” The driver answered, “What you want is the railway station.” And indeed that is the only place in Munich that fulfills those requirements.
There is everything in Munich to make a cultivated foreigner happy, cheerful and content with a long stay. I have never seen any town that has so much to give to the visitor. In the first place, everything that one wants to see is within easy walking distance. If one rooms in a boarding house on a side street off the Ludwig Strasse, one can walk in a few moments to the university, to the public library, to the concert halls, to the State Opera House, to the State Theatre, to the Play House, to the art galleries; and the English Garden, an enormous tract ofland, is in the centre of the town and close to all of these other delectable places. In the English Garden in summer one may take long walks or one may sit down and hear music as one sips coffee or beer. In the winter one may skate on the frozen lake. Those who are fond of winter sports have the mountains close at hand. It is estimated that on some Sunday mornings in winter 100,000 people take an early train to the mountains for skiing and other amusements. In the summer the environs of Munich are beautiful. There is a series of lakes where one may take excursions in a little steamer or in a rowboat; where one may visit famous old castles and see the treasures with which they are filled.
If one is fond of tennis, there are three or four tennis courts in the heart of the city where one may become a visiting member at a nominal fee and find plenty of agreeable companions. The golf links are ten minutes by trolley, and there again the entrance fee is nominal. The only objection that I have to the golf links is that the magnificent mountains are so near that one is constantly tempted to lift up one’s eyes to the hills, and, however valuable it may be for one’s spiritual development, it is fatal to one’s efficiency in golf.
Every night in Munich there is something interestingto hear at the opera, at the theatre or at the concert hall. Every morning there is published a little paper devoted exclusively to theatrical and musical affairs. This paper gives every event that will take place in the city in the afternoon and evening, with the exact time of beginning, the exact time of closing and a complete list of the actors, singers and performers.
One of the chief attractions of the theatre and the operas in Munich is the fact that they begin early. The opera begins at six o’clock and is always over before ten, except in the case of a very long opera. The plays begin at seven-thirty and in nearly every instance are over at nine-thirty. In other words, the opera and theatres are run not for the benefit of members of a leisure class who do not have to get up the next morning but for the ordinary citizen and his family who are obliged to rise early and go to work. In New York, in Paris and in London theatre-going and opera-going are in the nature of a dissipation. The theatres in Paris do not close until midnight, and in New York and London one does not usually get to one’s domicile before that. The result is that one is exhausted, and, according to Kipling, “There is nothing certain but the morning head.” To go to the theatre or opera four nights in successionin London, Paris or New York—unless one is able to rise very late the next day—is an exhausting ordeal, but in Munich, during a period of seven months, I averaged five nights a week at the opera and theatre and never felt fatigue.
There is another advantage about beginning early. Instead of going to the opera or theatre stuffed with a soggy dinner and made somnolent by food, one takes tea before going and when the entertainment is over one goes into a cheerful café and has a hot supper in delightful company and is in bed before eleven.
What does going to the theatre mean in New York, London and Paris? It too often means something like this. One attends a dinner party where half the guests arrive late; one then has a long course dinner, hurried toward the end; the entire company is hustled into automobiles and arrives at the theatre or opera a half hour after the performance has begun and in a condition that precludes the possibility of mental concentration.
After one has spent two or three months in Munich, one falls in love with the place, with the temper of the town and with the people. I am frequently homesick for Munich. In one year, after I had spent four months there, I went in April to Italy—the land where the lemontrees bloom. There I lived in sunshine and enjoyed the glory and beauty of the romantic country. But after a while I became homesick for Munich and, although on the morning of my return it was raining and the weather in general was doing its worst, my heart was singing, for I was home again.