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Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury), 1876-1944

"Europe Revised"

They have none.
Passing along to the next subject under the same heading, which
is the night life of Paris, we find here so much night life, of
such a delightfully transparent and counterfeit character; so much
made-to-measure deviltry; so many members of the Madcaps' Union
engaged on piece-work; so much delicious, hoydenish derring-do,
all carefully stage-managed and expertly timed for the benefit of
North and South American spenders, to the end that the deliriousness
shall abate automatically in exact proportion as the spenders quit
spending--in short, so much of what is typically Parisian that,
really Paris, on its merits, is entitled to a couple of chapters
of its own.
All of which naturally brings us to the two remaining great cities
of Mid-Europe--Berlin and Vienna--and leads us to the inevitable
conclusion that the Europeans, in common with all other peoples
on the earth, only succeed--when they try to be desperately wicked
--in being desperately dull; whereas when they seek their pleasures
in a natural manner they present racial slants and angles that are
very interesting to observe and very pleasant to have a hand in.
Take the Germans now: No less astute a world traveler than Samuel
G. Blythe is sponsor for the assertion that the Berliners follow
the night-life route because the Kaiser found his capital did not
attract the tourist types to the extent he had hoped, and so decreed
that his faithful and devoted subjects, leaving their cozy hearths
and inglenooks, should go forth at the hour when graveyards yawn
--and who could blame them?--to spend the dragging time until dawn
in being merry and bright.


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