The deceased Schluter was an architect, a painter, a sculptor, a
woodcarver, a decorator, all rolled into one. He was the George
M. Cohan of his time; and I think he also played the clarinet,
being a German.
We traversed miles of these Schluter masterpieces. Eventually we
heard sounds of martial music without, and we went to a window
overlooking a paved courtyard; and from that point we presently
beheld a fine sight. For the moment the courtyard was empty,
except that in the center stood a great mass of bronze--by Schluter,
I think--a heroic equestrian statue of Saint George in the act of
destroying the first adulterated German sausage. But in a minute
the garrison turned out; and then in through an arched gateway
filed the relief guard headed by a splendid band, with bell-hung
standards jingling at the head of the column and young officers
stalking along as stiff as ramrods, and soldiers marching with the
goosestep.
In the German army the private who raises his knee the highest and
sticks his shank out ahead of him the straightest, and slams his
foot down the hardest and jars his brain the painfulest, is promoted
to be a corporal and given a much heavier pair of shoes, so that
he may make more noise and in time utterly destroy his reason.
The goosestep would be a great thing for destroying grasshoppers
or cutworms in a plague year in a Kansas wheatfield.
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