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  • Walter E. Dandy Letter 02/25/1924

    Berlin

    February 25, 1924

    Dear Becky:

    Although I was well content and better with Sadie, we will try Becky as the best substitute offered and better than a poor imagination can suggest. Just try to substitute for Venus after you have learned its brilliance in association Neptune or Saturn, etc., and you will see it as not so easy. Names become very descriptive - even in a very short space of time, but again we will try.

    At last, after traveling over most of Europe, your letter has just reached me. I had begun to think my friends had forgotten me. Wouldn't you have grand time in Europe? Paris, Vienna, London, Berlin. It would be a great inspiration to you. I know, to gaze in the wonderful displays in the windows during the day and such opera at night! And in Munich and Berlin, there is a great field for dietetic research on sauerkraut, pig's feet, pork and beer. Think what you could devise for your diabetic patients.

    Such a wonderful place - Vienna - I could have stayed there 3 months instead of three weeks. They are such a cultured people. So kind and hospitable, you learn to love them more than any people you have ever met. The medical community and hospital far surpasses anything I have ever seen or imagined. And every night was the great opera (grand) with the world's finest orchestra. It was a difficult problem dodging entertainments by charming people to the even greater enjoyment of the opera. I could easily live without Paris or London, but not without Vienna. Berlin comes second: a greater busier city with great operas and art galleries and schools also. But there isn't quite the same feeling of an inbred culture, which obtains in Vienna.

    It has been a most agreeable surprise to find most Austrians and Germans without hatred. Among the official class of Germany, there is of course a latent hostility, mainly toward France, but principally to regain power. But the ordinary people are very different. They have suffered a great deal and are still though less so. With wise leadership, they would be content to be at peace. But Europe is a great seething mass of politicians who use the people for cannonballs.

    Today I visited the National Art Galleries - the finest collection of paintings - mostly German - many Rembrandts, too - I have seen far superior, I should say, to the great Louvre in Paris. Tomorrow I go to Stockholm, then to Copenhagen, Hamburg, and London. I hope you have been well. It's good to know you are having so much pleasure in your new home. I will soon be home. Best wishes and good luck.

    Walter

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