MARK TWAIN

December 21. On scores of street corners in the snow
are groves of Christmas trees for sale and the toy and
other shops are crowded, and driving a tremendous trade.

Reading German books shows in what a narrow groove
of vocabulary authors travel—they use the same words
all the time. Read a book of one and you can fluently
read his others. Take up a book by another author and
you have got to go for the dictionary. His vocabulary
is all different.

Christmas in Germany

In the week a prodigious audience of parents and chil-
dren in the big theater. A curtain hung across the middle
of the stage from right to left. In front a lady with a lot
of eager children around her on stools. She asks what
familiar story from folklore she shall read. They clap
their eager hands and name a story. She reads; they
applaud, or laugh, or are grieved—all well drilled and
natural—and as she finishes the curtain slowly rises and
displays in tableau an exquisite picture from the story.
The children in the audience get so carried away that
they applaud, shout, cry and make comments aloud.

Germans comb their hair in public and have some other
little peculiarities, but there is one thing which you can
charge the entire nation with: ask any German a ques-
tion and you will get a civil answer.

After the naked model was dressed (in Rome) she
showed a touch of nature—for as she climbed down from
the platform she exposed too much of her ankle and
rectified it.

January 25, 1879. The mother of the king, 55 or 60,
was out walking in the street today, a maid of honor