VILLA ELSA
A Story of German Family Life
BY
STUART HENRY
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 Fifth Avenue
Copyright 1920, BY
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
TO
Pat and Anna
IN LOVING TOKEN OF OUR
WINTER'S CONVERSATIONS ON THE GERMANS
FOREWORD
THIS narrative offers a gentle but permanent answer to the problempresented to humanity by the German people. It seeks to go beyondthe stage of indemnities, diplomatic or trade control, peace byarmed preponderance. These agencies do not take into account Teutonnature, character, manner of living, beliefs.
Unless the Germans are changed, the world will live at swords'points with them both in theory and in practice. Whether they arecharacteristically Huns or not, it should be tragically realizedthat something ought to be done to alter their type. Their minds,hearts, souls, should be touched in a direct, personal, intimateway. There should be a natural relationship of good feeling, anintelligent and lived mutual experience, worked up, brought[viii]about. A League of Nations, of Peace, inevitably based on some sortof force, should be followed by a truly human programme leading tothe amicable conversion of that race, if it is at heart unrepentant,crafty, murderous.
In the absence of any particular heed being paid to this underlying,fundamental subject, the present pages suggest for it a vitalsolution that seems both easy and practical and would promise torelieve anxiety as to an indefinitely uncertain, ugly future aheadof harassed mankind.
How shall the German be treated in the present century and beyond?
To try to answer this aright, it is obviously necessary to know whatthe German is—what he is really like. To know him at his best, inhis truest colors, is to live with him in his most normal condition,and that is at his fireside, surrounded by his family. This aspecthas been the least fully presented during the war. What the Teutonmilitary and political chieftains, clergymen, professors, captainsof industry, editors and other men of position have said, how theyhave conducted themselves toward the rest of humanity, isnotoriously[ix] and distressingly familiar. But what the ordinary,educated German of peaceful pursuits, staying by his hearthstone farbehind and safe from the battle line, thought and wished to say, hasbeen beyond our ken. There has been no way to get at him or hearfrom him as to what lay frankly in his mind.
His leaders loudly proclaimed themselves to be as terrifying as Hunsand unblushingly gloried in this profession. Has he agreed or has hesilently disagreed? Has he too wished this or has he been unwilling?Is he essentially a Hun, are his family essentially Huns, or arethey in reality good and kindly people like our people? Are theytemporarily misled?
The humble German families of education who are hospitable, who singand weep over sentimental songs in their homes, whose duties aremodest and revenues